The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has met little resistance since asserting its “little” invasion of southern Lebanon early Tuesday morning local time, a pass aimed to subvert Hezbollah’s buildup alongside the shared border.
Israel has been rising its strikes for weeks against the terrorist organization in southern Lebanon, as well to with focused strikes in Beirut.
On Tuesday, the IDF confirmed in a assertion shared with Fox News Digital that since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assaults in Israel – after which Hezbollah began striking military posts alongside Israel’s northern border – the IDF has performed dozens of “focused operations” to “dismantle Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities” that pose a threat to civilians in the north.
ISRAELI MINISTERS FRUSTRATED OVER US, IDF LEAK ON LEBANON OPERATION: REPORT
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that IDF special forces obtain entered Hezbollah compounds in “dozens of places” alongside the Israel-Lebanon border, silent intelligence and dismantled positional strongholds.
“Our infantrymen entered Hezbollah’s underground infrastructures, exposed Hezbollah’s hidden weapon caches, and seized and destroyed the weapons, alongside side evolved Iranian-made weapons,” Hagari said. “Total, IDF infantrymen exposed and dismantled over 700 Hezbollah effort property correct by these operations. And there is a lot extra work to conclude.”
For the rationale that battle began close to a year previously, Israeli special forces reportedly began conducting cramped raids in southern Lebanon, in some cases the exhaust of the very tunnels Israel seized from the terrorist community years prior, and renewed attention has been brought to how the Hezbollah community operates.
The terrorist community for years has relied on its heavy entanglement in civilian existence, severely in southern Lebanon, where it has rented civilian infrastructure to abet as weapons depots and even missile launcher websites. Civilian constructions obtain moreover been ancient to duvet entrances to the community’s refined tunnel community that’s estimated to stretch over 100 miles in size cumulatively at some point of the living.
Nonetheless despite the feared all-out battle that had the aptitude to erupt upon Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbor, Hezbollah’s resistance has been minimal.
Security consultants feared Hezbollah’s longtime backing from Iran would enable it to levy as many as 8,000 rockets per day in a worse case scenario, and its bigger than 50,000 operatives, alongside side the elite Radwan forces, would possibly moreover pose a serious threat against an Israeli ground campaign.
Hagari confirmed to journalists Tuesday that IDF forces were actively working to dismantle Radwan infrastructure come the border in southern Lebanon.
“We would like to address it because we’re going to not let one other 7th of October happen next to our border,” he said.
Within the aftermath of the Oct. 7 assaults, the IDF assessed that some 2,400 Radwan terrorists, alongside with one other 500 Palestinian Jihadists skilled by the elite force, were positioned in villages at some point of southern Lebanon poised to attack.
Nonetheless the IDF on Tuesday moreover highlighted that Hezbollah failed to mount a counter force in step with Israel’s incursion.
Jonathan Conricus, broken-down IDF spokesperson and most modern senior fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), suggested Fox News Digital that Hezbollah’s come-entire lack of a counter force will likely be explained by lots of reasons.
“The IDF performed a entire lot of special operations correct by the final months to plan and analyze Hezbollah’s hostile infrastructure in civilian homes in southern Lebanon, as well to focused aerial campaigns against Hezbollah personnel,” he said. “Hezbollah terrorists sustained severe casualties and commenced to hover from southern Lebanon.
“It stays unclear how many Hezbollah militants live in the south,” he added.
Given the unknown number of terrorists who fled the south, presumably to other strongholds in Beirut and in central Lebanon, journalists puzzled the most contemporary IDF spokesman if this will likely moreover mean that Israel will wish to amplify its operations north.
“We’re no longer going to Beirut,” Hagari suggested journalists, emphasizing Israel’s acknowledged purpose to return its electorate to their northern homes. “We’re focusing in the living of these villages, the living next to [the] border. And we can conclude, in this living, what’s severe to dismantle and break Hezbollah’s infrastructure.”
Hagari wouldn’t present specifics on the operational timeline but said Israel’s campaign in Lebanon will likely be performed in “days [to] weeks.”
