Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are on the verge of a major two-front war as tensions with Lebanon’s Hezbollah reach the boiling point.
Two-Front War
Yesterday, France 24 reported Israel Army Says Readying ‘Decisive Offensive’ Against Lebanon’s Hezbollah
An Israeli commanding officer said that troops in the north of Israel were preparing for an offensive against Lebanon’s Hezbollah after months of escalating violence which killed at least 523 people in Lebanon.
If the IDF was already on the verge of a major operation in Lebanon, today’s news will seal the deal.
Hezbollah Attack
The Times of Israel reports At Least 6 Killed, Over 30 Wounded in Hezbollah Attack
Revisions say at least 10.
The IDF assesses that the rocket that struck the soccer field where kids were playing was relatively heavy.
The military is investigating why it failed to intercept the projectile.
Top IDF brass are currently holding assessments on the attack, the deadliest by Hezbollah amid the ongoing skirmishes on the northern border, and will determine a response against the terror group.
Iron Dome Failure But Which Way?
Here’s the claim “The [iron dome] interceptor was fired to stop Hezbollah’s rockets at northern occupied Golan it failed and landed in the soccer field.”
I have no idea if that is propaganda or not.
Regardless, one way or another, there is an Iron Dome failure.
Invade Now, Facts Later
Flatten Lebanon
How Many Dead?
Haaretz reports 10 Killed, Including Children, in Strike on Northern Israel’s Majdal Shams; IDF: Hezbollah Fired Rocket From Lebanon
The above site is a live blog and difficult to follow. It includes events in Gaza and Lebanon, interspersed.
That makes it confusing as to what’s happening when and where.
Where’s the US Reporting?
I had not see any US reporting on these stories. While tying this story, however, I found a source.
ABC News reports Rocket attack on town in Israeli-controlled Golan Heights kills at least 10, rescue official says.
A rocket attack Saturday on a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights killed at least 10 people and wounded several others, including children, hours after an Israeli airstrike on south Lebanon killed three members of the militant Hezbollah group.
The strike, the deadliest attack on an Israeli target since the fighting between the two foes erupted in October, raised fears of of a broader conflagration in the region.
Hezbollah said it struck a military base in the Golan Heights in retaliation for Israeli attacks on a village in Lebanon.
Over the past weeks, the exchange of fire along the Lebanon-Israel intensified with Israeli airstrikes and rocket and drone attacks by Hezbollah striking deeper and further away from the border.
Since early October, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed more than 450 people, mostly Hezbollah members, but also around 90 civilians and non-combatants. On the Israeli side, 21 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed.
An Official Denial
Hezbollah chief spokesman Mohammed Afif told The Associated Press that the group “categorically denies carrying out an attack on Majdal Shams.”
The Israeli military said in a statement Saturday that according to intelligence in its possession, “the rocket launch toward Majdal Shams was carried out by the Hezbollah terrorist organization.”
Israel Kills 4 Hezbollah fighters
NDTV-World reports 4 Hezbollah Fighters Killed In Israeli Strike As Tensions Flare-Up
“Four Hezbollah fighters were killed in an Israeli strike on the village of Kfar Kila,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity
Retaliation Causes Retaliation
I am unable to asses any of these claims. Both sides have reason to blame the other.
What I do know is violence begets violence. Also, for whatever reason, US coverage of Lebanon-Israeli events is scant.
Reader Comment (Added Here)
A previous report indicated a traveler in the northern part of Israel followed his GPS, and arrived at the wrong destination. There is a lot of GPS jamming going on in war zones. When a missile loses position feedback, it can very easily land in a civilian area. Accelerometers (an older technology) can handle the jamming, but they do not have pinpoint precision. Expect more civilian casualties.
The Obstacle to Peace
On June 12, I commented The Obstacle to Peace in Gaza: Both Sides Need a Huge Attitude Change
Biden is pressing for a peace deal based on lies. But it’s hard to accept lies when they are admitted lies in advance.
Who Are the Obstacles to Peace?
- Netanyahu
- Biden
- Hamas Leadership
- Hezbollah leadership
Conditions for Peace
Peace prospects will not go anywhere until the radicals are out of power or the radicals have a huge attitude change.
That means radicals on both sides. But no one is willing to take any semblance of a first step.
As it stands, both sides demand the destruction of the other as a condition for peace. How’s that supposed to work?
Druze, who practice a form of Islam, occupy a special niche in the complicated politics of the region. Are the ones targeted. Yet this fact is marginalized.
Didn’t realize what a Zionist Mish is Seems to report on any Israeli loss of life while ignoring kids being targeted by snipers on a daily basis
The kiddies are Hamas recruits. Hamas pays the kids with candy.
his post about famine after the recent unpleasantness last october and the dumb israelis, was a page right out of what Goering famously wrote about at nuremberg. interviewer :in a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives,” Goering told him that “voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
israel is amerika’s useful idiot. as are all the pro zionists. i’m glad i marched with hasidic jews, and hipster jews against the fascist, genocidal, famine loving zionists both amerikan and israeli. the rest of the world despises this. we vote in EU and Amerika, too.
who cares about israel? i have amerikan and italian citizenship. don’t give a rat’s behind about the old roman city state of jerusalem in palestine…….
Same here No dog in that fight Let them deal with it Send Nuttyahoo to the international criminal court asap
Mish, you should check out the futurist author’s Daniel Suarez book on drones called Kill Decision. Basically, the scary part is the drones were programmed with the algorithm of an aggressive ant colony. The author was basically asking how can you stop a hundred thousand cheaply built drones the size of dragonflies programed to destroy anything in their path. How far are we away from that? That book was written in 2017, and you can see how drones are more important than ever now in wars.
I always said that I cannot stop an irrational person from killing me. I have to focus on the rational ones and diffuse that hatred if possible. Calling another irrational is the last thing to be done. Instead of the finger pointing and name calling I see, is anybody asking if the other side has a reason to hate you and trying to diffuse that hatred? Because until that happens, the killing is going to keep going on. All I see is hatred on both sides.
You left out the most important one, Mish.
Who Are the Obstacles to Peace?
Iran
I’d say Israel certainly more than Iran Who attacked the USS Liberty and danced in joy on 911 in Jersey
It’s illegally occupied territory and any attack so is fair game. Give the lands back and Israel will face much less violence, if it scales it own outrageous violence back.
Very true and sensible comment
The Golan is illegally occupied land. Not sure why we see downvotes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_Golan_Heights#:~:text=In%20March%202019%2C%20the%20United,Syrian%2C%20held%20under%20Israeli%20occupation.
It’s part of Israel territory now.
Ad is blocking the 20% of the screen on the left. There is no way I can read this article.
Brave browser.
Hezbollah blew up the Israeli HQ in Tier before blowing the marine barracks and the US embassy in Beirut. The IDF and the Shia in Lebanon exchanged blows since 1969.
Iranian rocket Falak 1 with a 50 kilos head.
Hear! Hear!
And then annex Lebanon to Israel. If Russia can do it (Ukraine, et al), and China can do it (Tibet), why can’t Israel do it also? Lebanon is a shell of its former self. It’s economy is in tatters and has been for decades. Its people are destitute. I’d wager that a high percentage would welcome becoming part of Israel.
But would Israel want to add a large number of Muslims to it’s population? That seems unlikely.
He’s talking about “annex with extreme prejudice”
Americans and Western Europeans cheer the Israeli ethnic cleansing of Arabs out of one side of their mouths while whining about the arrival of the Arab refugees into Western Europe and the USA out of the other side of their mouths.
Is that before or after Israel kicks the Lebanese out?
After.
Hasbarat psychopaths have taken over Mishes site NICE
The areas that Russia annexed were mostly Russian speaking. Crimea contains one of Russia’s major naval bases (Sevastopol) and it won’t be given up without a nuclear war (WWIII).
Trying to reason with a Zionist is a fools game They only know strength And strength is what they will get
And you would lose your idiotic wager
“Give in to your hate, young Skywalker….Yes, yes, I can feel it rising in you.”
“Those countries did an immoral thing, why can’t we be immoral like them?”
The IDF didn’t launch Iron Dome to intercept short range Burkan rockets. Wind Surf and Vulcan guns can stop them, but they are not available everywhere. That’s why the IDF evacuated the northern border population from the war zone. Many Druze serve in the IDF. They are excellent fighters. Their bros across the border in Syria support Hezbollah. Bibi: we will hit hard, avoiding a war. A Druze in my tent was killed in the war.
Majdal Shams Druze didn’t evacuate as the rest of the population in northern Israel. There are many ghost towns in northern Israel. Hezbollah have major issues with Christian and Druze in Lebanon. They are threatening Hezbollah. Majdal Shams was peaceful for decades. When Palestinian refugees tried to cross the border near Majdal Shams from Syria in 2011, during the civil war, the IDF shot the invaders, killing a a few of them. That stopped the invasions. Yesterday Hezbollah launched a drone attack on a gas rig in the mediterranean sea. Bibi will fly back home from Miami asap. Hezbollah was stunned by the losses. They denied any responsibility.
“How’s that supposed to work?”
Israel, backed by the US MIC, will continue its US-sanctioned genocide.
Hezbollah and others will continue, and try to expand the fight. Mutual hatred will grow and spread.
It will end when the US has a competent president who has the ability to drastically change the paradigm–if past solutions have not worked, try something different. Not Trump. Not Kamala. Not any of the contenders to the Biden bidet.
My paradigm, there is NO negotiation. This is how it will be. The parties to the dispute/war have shown themselves incapable of resolving their conflict. With UN approval, Gaza and Lebanon (to start) are a weapons-free zone. If any country supplies weapons, either to a country that later crosses into the WFZ, or direct to the WFZ, that country will be bombed by the US. There are no warnings. No second chances.
The current governments of the WFZ are disbanded and replaced by an advisory council from the UN. The emphasis is on rebuilding the WFZ into a habitable and safe place with a sustainable economy. Any territory taken by Israel belongs to the WFZ…. you get the picture. You have Roosevelt’s big stick. Use it for peace.
“It will end when the US has a competent president who has the ability to drastically change the paradigm–if past solutions have not worked, try something different.”
US presidents will,in absolute terms, act competently in the Middle East, once and only once US government,hence presidents, are properly limited wrt what they can do there. Which; given the degree of indoctrination of the population of the most totalitarian country on earth, in addition to the sheer degree to which all decision making ability in the US has been awarded to only genuinely imbecile lightweights; in reality resolves to: Once the US is simply sufficiently out of resources to afford doing anything meaningful in the Middle East. Until that day, US presidents will continue the unbroken tradition of incompetence unabated.
Your ‘absolute terms’ includes ‘sitting quietly by’ while genocide proceeds at an accelerating pace. That’s ‘competent’? With a policy that engenders hatred into all current and future Muslim generations, you must exterminate EVERY Muslim in the world. When they realize all is lost, your homeland is attacked.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world observes the lack of leadership in the US. Reagan was a leader (for a while). Although the mass media will never accept it, his bluff–the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars)–was a major factor in bringing down the Soviet Union. And the off-the-cuff ‘Bombing will start in five minutes’ quip was likely entirely deliberate. Reagan was an actor–he knew how to get attention.
No credible statesman will walk into peace negotiations without a set of principles varying between non-negotiable and negotiable.
I would not. How about you Mitch? Do you have such principles or are you asking Israel to go to the negotiating table and see what happens?
Research and deployment of anti-drone energy weapons are in overdrive everywhere. To shoot them down you need enough energy and very good targeting. Both are close to being fulfilled. Soon a shot to take down a drone or missile will cost much less than to build and deploy one. Then things will become interesting.
Israelis new Iron Beam system is supposed to be coming online in 2025. They might want to speed up the deployment.
They have already used it to good effect. More powerful ones are coming soon.
Iron this and iron that IDF is more like silly putty than iron
Shouldn’t you be out protesting for Hamas instead of polluting comment threads with your uninformed postings?
Indeed. The arms race between drones immune to such weapons is also likely in overdrive everywhere too.
I see Russia has taken to using fake drones to get Ukraine to reveal where defenses are. Presumably fake drones would reveal where energy weapons are followed by strikes to take out such defenses (you send enough you’ll overwhelm the defenses if you know where to send them).
It’s the infinite arms race that will never end.
It will affect anything that flies. Planes and helicopters are equally at risk but the real kicker is hummingbird-sized drones that will kill infantry as easy as swatting a fly.
Imagine 10k insect size drones with poison barbs diving into a battlefield! This is why future wars will be fought with Terminator type machines.
Or maybe humans should just be eradicated from the planet, surely making every other living thing happy (except maybe dogs).
Battlefield or genocide field Big difference
The only winners are the arms producers. Meanwhile terrorism and genocide continue.
This would be an opportune time for Israel to attack Hezbollah. Given that it is election season, Biden will have no choice but support Israel 100%, regardless of any whining from the MI Arabs.
If Iran entered the fray in support of Hezbollah, this would then also give us the excuse to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Remember what Yemen looked like a few days back after the Israel retaliation? Multiply that by 100 and that is what Iran will look like.
Given how buddy-buddy Russia and China are these days with Iran it’s highly likely both would come to the aid of Iran which would then trigger WWIII via nuclear exchange.
I do not think the US would be able to do anything to Iran.
I’d call that bluff. Although Ukraine would welcome a distraction by Russia. And China is too pragmatic to get involved in such a war.
“I’d call that bluff” Exactly, just what the world needs another Dr. Strangelove. I sincerely hope that no leader in their right mind would go down that path. Bluffing with the fate of billions of lives is so Macronish.
No surprise coming from slowmo the clown
Jojo or Schlomo is really a sick piece of trash He is beaming with joy over the prospect of destroying nuclear facilities which could contaminate our environment It’s only a matter of time now crazies
You certainly are a fan of destruction and death, aren’t you?
Talk is cheap and accomplishes nothing. Action is what counts.
“Who Are the Obstacles to Peace?”
Iranian leaders.
Imaginary hobgoblins in faraway places, are always scary and mean. Never mind them not having done neither you nor me nor virtually any other American, even a lick of harm, and never will.
While, at the same time: Dear Leader, who has never gone a single day without robbing and harassing every single American, are always the bestetest!
I suppose being child brained, indoctrinated and pining to fall for absolutely any nonsense some Man on TeeVeee is spouting, does feel great for lightweights incapable of understanding anything else.
you get it old sport. the nit wits that want to send their money to defend nut job abrahamic religionist kooks of all 3 are idiots at best. useful idiots though to the C suites of wall street and MICC. that’s congressional complex for the history given at public schools……….
For once they are ahead of Chicago, halfway through the weekend.
I pray for peace in the middle east. I also think it would have been a helluva lot cheaper for the USA to give Wyoming to the Zionists in 1948.
They already had a place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast
Why not just Baltimore, the shithole.
we already benefit here in brooklyn, by all the smart jews and arabs that have left. in brooklyn a palestinian and israeli can play together, and heaven forbid even fornicate in college………….only the morons stay back in israel or palestine.
They would’ve stolen land from Montana. do you want missile strikes on Montana or maybe Salt Lake City?
Hamas has rejected the latest ceasefire proposal. No outside army will go into Gaza to secure the peace and oversee the rebuild as long as Hamas remains viable.
All victims from the attack in the North were Arab citizens of Israel. They are demanding a strong retaliation. About 30% of missiles get past Iron dome, although much of this is permitted if the software determines that no infrastructure is at risk.
Forget the Middle East … LA to Vegas freeway (I-15) closed today due to Li-battery fire. Unreal lack of regulation — hazmat on freeways same as load of tomatoes … glad Mayor Pete is available to be VP.
EVs — saving the environment — one closed freeway at a time!
https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/truck-fire-hazmat-situation-closes-i-15-between-las-vegas-los-angeles/
PS – let’s hear about the driver’s qualifications …but we probably won’t.
Gets even better for you desert fans: The location was I-15 two miles after the Zzyzx Road exit.
Both sides are jerks. If they want to kill each other, let them.
Great but we don’t need to arm one side over the other do we
Peace = destruction of the other.
The most recent examples I can think of are Sri Lanka defeating the Tamil Tigers, and Myanmar expelling their population of Rohingya. I think Iran and its proxy-fighters have another example in mind = not South Africa, but the next nation north = Rhodesia.
We may not appreciate that the next world order will overthrow many of the human rights obligations of the current world order.
A previous report indicated a traveler in the northern part of Israel followed his GPS, and arrived at the wrong destination. There is a lot of GPS jamming going on in war zones. When a missile loses position feedback, it can very easily land in a civilian area. Accelerometers (an older technology) can handle the jamming, but they do not have pinpoint precision. Expect more civilian casualties.
Thanks
Adding to my post!
Something important everybody missed.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-reaches-new-milestone-in-space-based-quantum-communications/
June 25, 2020
China Reaches New Milestone in Space-Based Quantum CommunicationsTo overcome this problem, the new demonstration by Pan and his colleagues ensured that Micius would not “know” anything. The trick was to avoid using the satellite as a communications relay. Instead the team relied on it solely for simultaneously transmitting a pair of secret keys to allow two ground stations in China, located more than 1,120 kilometers apart, to establish a direct link. “We don’t need to trust the satellite,” Pan says. “So the satellite can be made by anyone—even by your enemy.” Each secret key is one of two strings of entangled photon pairs. The laws of quantum physics dictate that any attempt to spy on such a transmission will unavoidably leave an errorlike footprint that can be easily detected by recipients at either station.
https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/01/02/
January 2, 2024
Report: China and Russia Test Quantum Communication Link
( OK I am an idiot and NEVER post anywhere. Due to recent international connections this specific aspect struck me as VERY important. The idea that ANYONE’S satellite may be used for unbreakable encryption, including drone attacks, is enormous.)