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Radwan Force’s Plans for Oct. 7-Style Massacre Mostly Thwarted
Illustrative. 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 – The Israeli Air Force significantly disrupted Hezbollah’s offensive plans targeting Israel’s northern communities by eliminating the leadership of the group’s elite Radwan Force on Sept. 20.
The strike, which killed the head of Hezbollah’s Operations Unit, Ibrahim Aqil, who also commanded the Radwan Force, and 15 other senior terrorists, including five Radwan sector commanders, targeted a Hezbollah basement in Dahiya, a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut. However, despite the success of the operation, the threat posed by the Radwan Force has not been entirely removed.
The Radwan Force’s plan to infiltrate the Galilee and go on mass killing and kidnapping missions served as the blueprint for the elite Hamas Nukhba Force’s mass murder attack on the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7. Hezbollah’s plan involved infiltrating northern Israel to massacre civilians, kidnap soldiers and hold territory.
“The senior Radwan terrorists were planning to achieve an attack and to carry out a terror attack on Israeli communities in the north, to massacre, murder, kidnap Israeli civilians. And we prevented that by that attack [on Hezbollah in Beirut on Sept. 20]” said a military official on Monday.
He continued, “We need to make sure that all the infrastructure that those Radwan Force members had built next to the border in Israel that are threatening the Israeli communities are destroyed.”
The IAF’s strike on Aqil and his commanders followed months of systematic efforts by the IDF to weaken the Radwan Force. Since the start of the war in October 2023, the IDF has consistently targeted Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in Southern Lebanon, focusing particularly on Radwan’s military-terror capabilities.
The Radwan Force, which functions as Hezbollah’s special operations unit, was tasked with executing offensive operations, including the planned infiltration of the Galilee.
According to Israeli assessments, this unit had spent years refining its strategy to seize Israeli towns, hold civilians hostage and massacre Israeli civilians. In December 2018, the IDF uncovered tunnels running from Lebanon into Israel that were to be used by Radwan to inject thousands of its operatives into the Galilee. Since then, the unit appears to have switched to planning overground attacks.
The IDF’s large-scale deployment on the northern border also helps keep such threats under better control.
Chain of command
On Sept. 22, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of the IDF General Staff, highlighted the significance of the IAF airstrike two days earlier.
“Last Friday, we struck the chain of command of Hezbollah’s elite force—the Radwan Force—and also its senior commander, Ibrahim Aqil, was eliminated. This was a very important capability in the Hezbollah terrorist organization, I know how much it shakes up the organization. For years these commanders had been making plans to conquer the Galilee, and they are responsible for the murder of many Israeli civilians as well as soldiers over the years,” Halevi said.
“They were planning how to execute the next attack, and it is possible that they were working on that very plan in the meeting on Friday afternoon—working on how to infiltrate the State of Israel, murder civilians, kidnap IDF soldiers. We preempted them. It happened through the very good capabilities of the IDF, both in intelligence and in offensive capabilities,” the general continued.
“The IDF’s strike on Hezbollah’s chain of command is a clear message to the Hezbollah terrorist organization, it harms them greatly, and it is also a message to the entire Middle East and beyond it: We will know how to reach anyone who threatens the citizens of the State of Israel,” Halevi said.
Despite the successful elimination of Aqil and his immediate command structure, concerns remain that Hezbollah could still attempt smaller-scale infiltrations using the surviving junior commanders. As such, the threat of sudden, swift cross-border attacks from the Radwan Force persists, albeit at smaller scale.
Aqil was a long-standing senior Hezbollah commander with a history of leading terror operations against Israel and Western targets. He was responsible for several high-profile attacks, including the September 2019 anti-tank missile strike in Moshav Avivim on the Lebanese border and the March 2023 IED attack near the Megiddo Junction in the Jezreel Valley.
Aqil was also directly implicated in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people. The United States listed him as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist due to his involvement in attacks that killed American soldiers and civilians, and offered up to $7 million for information leading to his capture.
Aqil had replaced Wissam al-Tawil, aka Jawad al-Tawil, as the commander of the Radwan Force after al-Tawil’s elimination in January this year.
Aqil was in charge of several key Hezbollah units, including its combat engineering forces, anti-tank units and air defense systems. He played a central role in the development of Hezbollah’s military strategy, which aimed to exploit the region’s terrain and population centers for future conflicts with Israel.
Aqil is believed to have been in charge of the plan to conquer the Galilee, which Hezbollah wanted to implement but was derailed by Hamas’s invasion on Oct. 7.
The original invasion plan was revealed by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in 2012, and further detailed in a 2014 broadcast by Hezbollah’s Al Mayadeen satellite news television channel. The broadcast outlined the strategy for seizing Israeli territory and presented areas where Hezbollah planned to attack. Aqil played a leading role in the development of this plan, which remains a key part of Hezbollah’s strategic objectives.
The Radwan Force’s training and experience, gained during the Syrian civil war, has made it one of the most dangerous elements of Hezbollah’s military structure. The group’s use of civilian infrastructure to hide its forces and launch attacks poses a continued challenge to Israeli security.
The post Radwan Force’s Plans for Oct. 7-Style Massacre Mostly Thwarted first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.