Hezbollah's Numbered Days

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

A Hezbollah commander was captured by Israeli troops in his underwear during a tunnel raid in Lebanon earlier this month, officials said.  Hassan Aqil Jawad, the leader of Hezbollah’s forces in Ayta ash Shab, was confronted by Israel Defense Force soldiers inside a tunnel shaft in the terrorist group’s command centre in the village in October, the Times of Israel reported. Groups of Hezbollah terrorists were giving up to IDF, seen on TV.  

       You could say that Hezbollah terrorists started with Iran's Shah.   Iran's last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi;  (26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980), commonly referred to in the Western world as Mohammad Reza Shah, or simply the Shah, was the last monarch of Iran (Persia). Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, is forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran.   He was a friend of Israel and was a modern ruler.  

This continues to be the subject of historical debate and is believed to have stemmed partly from a conservative backlash opposing the westernization and secularization efforts of the Western-backed Shah, as well as from a more popular reaction to social injustice and othershortcomings of the ancient régime.Ruhollah Musavi Khomein(17 May 1900 or 24 September 1902 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian Islamic revolutionary, politician and religious leader who served as the first Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the main leader of the Iranian Revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and ended the Iranian monarchy.  Ideologically a Shia Islamist, Khomeini's religious and political ideas are known as Khomeinism.  

                           Missile hitting with fajr 5 missile;  Netanyahu from Iran cartoons

Israel had been shot at with rockets, mortars and missiles ever since Khomeini was in office.     

            The Shahab 3 of Iran missile  is a family of liquid-fueled ballistic missiles developed by Iran, under the IRGC, and based upon the North Korean Nodong-1/A and Nodong-B missiles. The Shahab-3 family has a range of 800-1,000 kilometres (620 mi). It was tested from 1998 to 2003 and added to the military arsenal on 7 July 2003, with an official unveiling by Ayatollah Khamenei on July 20.                

Ali Hosseini Khamenei (born 19 April 1939)^[ is an Iranian cleric and politician who has served as the second supreme leader of Iran since 1989. He previously served as the third president of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei's 35-year-long rule makes him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the last century after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Khamenei is a marja', a title given to the highest level of religious cleric in Twelver Shi'sm.

President of Iran's Ahmadinejad from 2005-2013 riding a missile that is to hit Israel

The Assembly of Experts elected Khamenei as the next supreme leader on 4 June 1989, at age 50. According to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Khamenei was the man Khomeini had chosen as his successor. Khamenei has been head of the servants of Astan Quds Razavi since 14 April 1979.

A new online survey by a Netherlands-based institute has found that over 60 percent of Iranians want regime change or "transition from the Islamic Republic".  One would think more would be ready to say adios to this stronghold on their religion after living with Khomeini.  Perhaps they are afraid to expose their feelings for fear for their lives.  

Hezbollah was largely formed with the aid of the Khomeini's followers in the early 1980s in order to spread the Islamic revolution and follows a distinct version of Islamic Shi'a ideology (Wilayat al-faqih or Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists) developed by Khomeini, who was the leader of the "Islamic Revolution" in Iran.    

                         Lebanon flag flying with Hezbollah flag

Hezbollah was founded in 1982 by Lebanese clerics in response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Inspired by the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's model of Islamic governance, Hezbollah established strong ties with Iran.  Iran financed their war against Israel.  Lebanon had become a failed state.  

I was living in Israel in 1982 in Safed.   The was the First Lebanese War.  The operation was launched on June 6, 1982, following the attempted assassination of the Israeli Ambassador to the UK by a terrorist cell. In London on June 3, 1982, Palestinian assailants shot Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded Lebanon on June 6.1982.  

Argov was born in Jerusalem in 1929 to the Salomon family that had lived in Jerusalem for ten generations. As a teenager, he joined the Palmach, the elite force of the Haganah. During the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, he was wounded in the Battle of Safed. When Israel was established and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War broke out, Argov joined the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The stated objective of the operation was to put the communities of northern Israel out of reach of the terrorists in southern Lebanon by pushing the latter 40 km to the north.    We have been fighting against their terrorists for the past 42 years!                                              

By 2015, Hezbollah was getting their weapons from Russia and stored them in Syria near the border of Israel.  Israel and USA are now seeing how poorly Russian-made rockets, mortars and missiles are working. 

Some of the weapons in Lebanon, which include modern antitank missiles, have come from Russian stockpiles in neighboring Syria.  

U.S. and Israeli army officers talk in front a US Patriot missile defense system.Jack Guez/Getty Images

Israel has long been the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, including military assistance. That aid has come under heightened scrutiny amid Israel’s conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.

                                              

A police officer examines a damaged car after thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers exploded across Lebanon, killing 12 people and injuring nearly 3,000: The explosions occurred in supermarkets, on the street, in cars, and at home. The explosions were so terrifying that some people panicked and fled to nearby buildings, fearing their phones would explode. The explosions were followed by a series of walkie-talkie blasts that killed at least 14 people and injured at least 450. The Israeli military did not comment on whether it was responsible for the attack. The US, France, and others urged de-escalation in the region.  

Health workers carry a man who was wounded when a pager exploded in Lebanon's southern port city of Sidon.STR/AP

In one widely circulated but unverified video, a man appears to check his pager just before it goes off, suggesting the explosion may have been triggered by an incoming message.

Now Israel has hit their manufacturing sites for these weapons in Iran.  They have also managed to give Hezbollah pagers and cell phones that blew up in their hands. 

Israel’s leaders are jubilant about the progress of the offensive against Hezbollah that started with the detonation of weaponised pagers and radios and moved on to intense and deadly airstrikes.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant did not hold back his praise after Monday’s air strikes.

“Today was a masterpiece… This was the worst week Hezbollah has had since its establishment, and the results speak for themselves.”

Gallant said airstrikes destroyed thousands of rockets that could have killed Israeli citizens. In the process Lebanon says Israel killed more than 550 of its citizens, including 50 children. That is almost half Lebanon’s dead in a month of war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.              

Hassan Nasrallah was in charge of Hezbollah for three decades.  

Hezbollah has confirmed the death of its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, after Israel 

said it had killed the 64-year-old in an airstrike on Beirut.     

Israel believes that a ferocious offensive will coerce Hezbollah into doing what it wants, 

inflicting so much pain that its leader Hassan Nasrallah and his allies and backers in

 Iran decide that the price of resistance is too high.

Hezbollah isn't as popular in Lebanon anymore.  They're on the way out, no matter how you look at it.  

The Israeli attack on Iran: in late October destroyed an active top secret nuclear 

weapons research facility in Parchin, according to three U.S. officials, one current 

Israeli official and one former Israeli official.

Resource:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/shah-flees-iran

https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/wars-and-operations/first-lebanon-war/#:~:text=The%20operation%20was%20launched%20on,40%20km%20to%20the%20north.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlomo_Argov

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei#Political_life_and_presidency

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202204015794

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah#:~:text=Hezbollah%20was%20largely%20formed%20with,%22Islamic%20Revolution%22%20in%20Iran.

https://umbc.edu/stories/pagers-and-walkie-talkies-over-cellphones-a-security-expert-explains-why-hezbollah-went-low-tech-for-communications/

https://www.axios.com/2024/11/15/iran-israel-destroyed-active-nuclear-weapons-research-facilityhttps://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/hezbollah-commander-surrenders-to-israeli-troops-in-tunnel-raid/news-story/8dcc6aa901107aa6bb2f45bf801d50ec

https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-hezbollah-airstrikes-28-september-2024-c4751957433ff944c4eb06027885a973