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Hezbollah Offensive Would Be Oct. 7 on Steroids, Observers Say
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
JNS.org – Thousands of rockets, thousands of casualties and devastating strikes to major infrastructure, cutting off water and electricity to Israel’s citizens—this is the likely scenario of an attack by Hezbollah across the Jewish state’s northern border, experts tell JNS.
Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy based in Lebanon, has the capability and the desire to strike the Jewish state, they say.
The terrorist group has already fired more than a thousand rockets at Israel in the last several months. It has forced Israel to temporarily relocate 60,000 northern residents to other parts of the country in case of an escalation.
The Alma Research and Education Center, an institute located two miles from the Lebanese border that’s focused on the security challenges along Israel’s northern front, obtained a Hezbollah video in which the terrorist group laid out an almost identical plan to the one carried out on Oct. 7 by Hamas: a rocket barrage followed by a ground invasion into Israeli towns and villages.
“All we have to do is listen to their own words, what they’re saying in Arabic, and cross it with their capabilities,” Alma Center founder Lt. Col. (res.) Sarit Zehavi told JNS.
Hezbollah’s capabilities go far beyond what Hamas brought to bear, as terrible as the Oct. 7 attack was. Hezbollah has about 140,000 short-range rockets, 65,000 rockets that can reach Haifa, and others that can reach Jerusalem and even Israel’s southern region. It also has some 10,000 drones.
Hezbollah is the most professional and experienced of Iran’s proxy militias in the Middle East, Zehavi said.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah once pointed to a map and said his missiles could reach various places in Israel, pointing to hospitals, power stations and other infrastructure.
Lt. Col. (res.) Uri Ben Yaakov, a senior researcher at Reichman University’s International Institute for Counterterrorism in Herzliya, told JNS that the escalation could take “a matter of minutes.”
Once it starts, thousands of rockets will rain down not just from Lebanon, but also from Syria, Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen.
Ben Yaakov said that once Hezbollah targets electricity infrastructure it will be only days before water runs out.
Israel, which has largely solved its water problems, derives 80% of its water from desalination plants. Those plants are energy-intensive.
“You will find Israel’s citizens in [bomb] shelters not five minutes a day, not 10 minutes a day, not one hour a day, but almost all day,” Ben Yaakov said.
The casualties could number in the hundreds of thousands on both sides. “I believe the retaliation will be very, very high scale,” he said.
Zehavi said that Israel’s strategy until now had been containment, avoiding a large-scale confrontation and managing the situation.
“We changed. We are no longer willing to sit next to these monsters, because we saw that if you postpone the war, they get stronger.”
The post Hezbollah Offensive Would Be Oct. 7 on Steroids, Observers Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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