Shalom all,

During this past week, the skies over northern Israel have been filled with hundreds of missiles, rockets and armed drones, which were launched against us primarily from Lebanon by the terrorist organization Hezbollah. In a few instances, long-range missiles, including ballistic missiles, were fired against locations in Israel by the Houthis, the Iranian-backed terrorist proxy in Yemen, towards targets in the center and south of the country. Israel’s air defense system succeeded to down the vast majority of the projectiles, but a few made it through, causing mostly property damage.

In addition to the cities and communities in the north, who experienced seemingly unending air-raid sirens throughout the days and nights, the City of Haifa, where we live, was also targeted by Hezbollah projectiles. The alarms blared, the explosion of the incoming missiles and drones by the Iron Dome sent shock waves through buildings more than a kilometer away. And the smoke from the explosion remained in the air for close to half an hour.

The events of two days ago put everyone on their heels. The Prime Minister of the State of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, delivered a speech at the United Nations in New York on Friday. He responded to the lies against Israel that were delivered by leaders of other nations from the same podium where he spoke and then he addressed the situation in Gaza in the southwest and the incessant missile attacks from Lebanon, which is the home of the terrorist Hezbollah organization. Then he stated: “Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for nearly a year. Well, I’ve come here today to say enough is enough.” That was one of the clearest expressions of “Say what you mean and mean what you say!”

Before the day was over, a massive attack would take place by the Israeli Air Force against the leadership of Hezbollah, located in bunkers under residential buildings in the Dahiya suburb of Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon. In his press release of Saturday, 28th September, the IDF Spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, put the finishing touches on Netanyahu’s above statement. His report does not leave room for doubt that “Enough is enough”. The text of that press release follows.

“Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the terrorist army Hezbollah, was killed by the Israel Defense Forces in a precise strike in Beirut last night, while he was in Hezbollah’s Central Headquarters commanding more imminent attacks against the people of Israel.
 
For decades, Hezbollah, under the command of Hassan Nasrallah, orchestrated countless attacks against innocent people. Hassan Nasrallah had the blood of thousands of men, women and children on his hands. Israelis. Jews across the world. Lebanese. Americans. British. French. Syrians and other countless victims across the Middle East and beyond. 
 
Hezbollah, under the command of Hassan Nasrallah, joined Hamas in attacking Israel on October 8th…just one day after Hamas‘s massacre on October 7th. 
 
For almost a year, Hezbollah, under the command of Hassan Nasrallah, has been firing thousands of rockets, suicide drones full of explosives, anti-tank missiles and ballistic missiles at Israeli towns and cities. 60,000 Israelis fled their homes in northern Israel. 
  
Hezbollah has openly declared that it has a plan to carry out its own October the 7th massacre on Israel’s northern border, but on an even larger scale. They call this plan “Conquer the Galilee.” Hezbollah has been planning to do in northern Israel what Hamas did in southern Israel on October 7th: invade Israel, infiltrate civilian communities, and massacre innocent civilians. The Israel Defense Forces has a duty to foil their plans. 
 
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of an evil terrorist organization; the senior terrorists eliminated with him, and the central headquarters they were in, were legitimate military targets under international law. Nasrallah intentionally built Hezbollah’s central headquarters under residential buildings in Dahiya, Beirut—because Hezbollah intentionally uses Lebanese civilians as human shields. While Hezbollah seeks to maximize civilian harm, Israel seeks to minimize it. 
 
Our war is not with the Lebanese people; our war is with Hezbollah. Hezbollah, under the command of Hassan Nasrallah, chose to join the war that Hamas started. 
There are consequences for that decision. 
 
Hezbollah is not just a threat to Israel; Hezbollah is not just a threat to the State of Lebanon; Hezbollah is a threat to the world, backed by the regime in Iran. 
 
As of last night, Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, will no longer be able to terrorize the world. 
 
For Nasrallah’s many victims over the decades, whether in Israel, Argentina, Bulgaria, Syria, or Lebanon itself, justice has been served. 
 
We warned the world countless times: Hezbollah is dragging the State of Lebanon and the entire region into a wider escalation. Israel does not seek a wider escalation. 
 
We seek 2 things: to bring our hostages home from almost a year in Hamas captivity, and to make sure that our borders are safe and secure for our citizens.“

As today’s excellent Editorial in The Jerusalem Post makes clear, Hassan Nasrallah was no ordinary terrorist. For the past 32 years, his ideology “painted the West as the eternal enemy of the Islamic world” and that “Under his leadership, Hezbollah engaged in a relentless campaign of terror against both Israel and Western targets worldwide. From attacks on US Marines in Beirut in the 1980s to support for Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians, his actions underscored a broader anti-Western agenda. Nasrallah’s strategy was clear: to undermine Western influence in the Middle East and to promote an Islamist vision in which democracy had no place.” 

Part of the caption of Lee Smith’s brilliant article in Tablet Magazine, is “Israel shows America how to win wars”. Noting that Israel’s elimination of Nasrallah in the heart of suburbs of Beirut marked “a dramatic shift in Israeli strategy“, Smith cogently points out the fallacy of the West’s misguided understanding of modern warfare and, particularly, of the West’s “global consensus that has resolved not to confront terrorists but rather to appease them”. Can Netanyahu’s “Enough is enough” statement be expressed more clearly? Smith’s article should be read by government leaders and policy makers and it should be seen as a “wake-up call” for the West, whose passivity in dealing with terrorism was grounded in a multitude of nice-sounding excuses,  but were far from revealing an understanding that “securing a nation’s peace …means killing your enemies, above all those who advocate and embody the causes that inspire others to exhaust their murderous energies against you. Thus, killing Nasrallah was essential.”  Living in the Middle East, and, particularly, in Israel, requires an awareness of our circumstances, our surroundings and an understanding of who are our neighbors and what their intentions are for themselves, for the region, and specifically, regarding Israel. Smith capsulizes the last three and a half decades of terrorist patronage in this area of the world, pointing out that Nasrallah was the protégé of Iran’s present leadership and was appointed in 1992 to lead Hezbollah. “The Iranians built around Nasrallah not only a network of proxies stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf but also a comprehensive worldview—permanent resistance.” No, Hassan Nasrallah was no ordinary terrorist. According to a statement of Prime Minister Netanyahu: “Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was the terrorist” and his killing was an essential step towards Israel’s goals of returning tens of thousands of displaced residents from the north to their homes.

And now Nasrallah is dead. His corpse was removed today from the ruins of the residential building, under which he established his terrorist headquarters.

The Dry Bones Blog – 29 September, 2024

But, with his death, the question that naturally arises is: Who will replace him as the next terrorist czar of Hezbollah? The fingers are pointing to his cousin, Hashem Safieddine, the head of the organization’s executive council, who also oversees its political affairs. Just for a heads-up: Safieddine was designated as a terrorist by the U.S. State Department in 2017. We should not expect his policies and rhetoric to be much different, if at all, from that of Nasrallah. We’ll probably find out how close they really are before too much time passes.

The nations of the world are not silent about the assassination of Nasrallah. Some are encouraging, others discouraging. Almost everyone has an opinion about it. One news station in Israel rejoiced on the air with the news of Nasrallah’s death. An Arab news anchor in another country openly wept. Lebanon declared three days of mourning for Nasrallah. Sunni Muslims in Syria celebrated in the streets and gave out candy to drivers and passers by. But, Hamas eulogized Nasrallah, stating, in part: “History has shown that whenever leaders of the resistance… die as martyrs, they will be succeeded by a new generation of leaders who are braver, stronger, and more determined to persist in the confrontation with the Zionist enemy until it is defeated and eliminated from our land and our region.”

We are not ignoring Iran and its constant threats against Israel. Not only is Tehran angered over the elimination of their prodegy, Nasrallah, the Mullahs are also vowing revenge for the killing of one of the top Revolutionary Guards who was also killed in the IDF strike in Beirut that took out the Hezbollah terror chief.

And while we still ponder the fallout and consequences of Nasrallah’s removal, missile barrages continue to be fired in the north of Israel. As of this writing, Israel struck the Hodeidah port and power plants in Yemen, following Houthi missile attacks against the south and center of Israel. This should send a strong message to Iran that if we can reach Yemen, which is further away than Iran, we can reach Tehran. The big question is: Is anyone really listening?

Oh, one more thing. The Gaza War is still ongoing. According to a report in Ynetnews, the killing of Nasrallah has caused Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, to change his location in Gaza, as well as his security protocols. This war could end in a number of different ways, the two most obvious being: Hamas could surrender, which is highly unlikely. Or, Sinwar will be found and eliminated, which is more likely. Israel’s goal to bring about the return of the hostages is still very much a priority. We will have to see how the elimination of Nasrallah will affect the war in the south that began almost a year ago.

In another three days, Israel will celebrate the Feast of Trumpets (Leviticus 23:23-25), commonly known as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It will also mark the beginning of a period of ten days of prayer, repentance and acts of charity, leading up to Yom HaKippurim, the Day of Atonements (plural), the holiest day of the year. May it also bring with it an end to the present wars.

In light of that, remember: Bless, be blessed and be a blessing.

Shana Tova (may you have a good New Year).

Marvin