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    • How Israel’s bold strikes are crushing Hezbollah and redefining security.
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    How Israel’s bold strikes are crushing Hezbollah and redefining security.

    Harry Posted on

    IDF Colonel (res.) and Northern Command Situation Room chief Anan Abbas said that without tremendous courage, the IDF would not have succeeded in successive operations since August to bring Hezbollah to its knees. Jerusalem Post in a personal interview and in a very recent follow-up.

    One of the two interactions focused on the IDF’s stunning victory over Hezbollah in a major operation on August 25, while the second focused retrospectively on the assassination of Hezbollah. Hezbollah leader Hassan NasrallahMajor IDF airstrike on 23 September, elimination of Hezbollah’s leaders at various levels, and invasion of southern Lebanon on 30 September.

    Looking back at all the incredibly successful recent operations, Abbas told the Post: “Courage is needed to be able to stand on one’s own feet, to achieve things and to lead the way. It takes great courage to make big moves. Without this courage and determination, we could not have done anything.

    “We attack aggressively, driving the enemy to the point of collapsing with fear and the feeling of being chased. “We are trying to create a new reality to achieve our mission goals,” he said.

    Moreover, the situation room chief who has been at the center of many significant Israeli attacks About Hezbollah “Through the wild hours of the night but surprisingly showed little in the way of being tired or fatigued, he said, “Thanks to the attacks and actions of our forces, we are bringing great success and breaking the communication chain of the Hezbollah organization, negating some of its capabilities and providing comparative advantages in combat.

    IDF COL. (pic.) and Northern Command Situation Room chief Anan Abbas. He is known as one of the more senior Druze-Israeli officers and is also known for the martyrdom of his paratrooper son Gamal Abbas in the war against Hamas in Gaza. (Source: IDF Spokesperson Unit)

    “We are always working. “There is always someone on duty in the situation room,” he said.

    Even before he became one of the heroes of the northern front, Abbas was known as one of the more senior Druze-Israeli officers, and also his paratrooper son Gamal Abbas was martyred in the war against Hamas in Gaza.

    Evaluating the war against Hezbollah last year, Abbas said: “They decided to join the war and partnered with a radical axis led by Iran. They are close to an organization that kills children, rapes women, and commits acts as disgusting and worse as genocide.Hamas, 7 October 2023).”

    He later said: “We fight them every day. We have a range of possible responses and abilities. We exposed Hezbollah (on August 25) when it wanted to launch a major attack on Israel, also targeting innocent civilians. “We sometimes give up on shooting Hezbollah operatives so that our attacks do not hit innocents, but Hezbollah does the exact opposite.”

    During the war, the situation room had instructed the IDF to “destroy large numbers of Hezbollah forces and infrastructure that could be used to harm civilians.”

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    “We moved the (Elite) Radwan Forces away from being close to the border; We reduced their abilities. “Our actions completely prevented them from approaching the border,” he said.

    He also said, “We continue to shoot high-ranking officials of the organization.”

    Comparing how the IDF responded to different Hezbollah attacks and provocations throughout 2024, including periods when some criticized the military for being too restrained, Abbas responded: “We do not wait for any particular event and are always ready to attack more strongly.” air force and other organizations.

    He also said last year, “Sometimes we attacked 100 kilometers deep (in Lebanon), 40 kilometers deep, or 50 kilometers deep. We analyze what is appropriate at that moment.

    We attack where necessary

    “We attack wherever we think we need to attack. We attack to eliminate Hezbollah’s threats to our military or civilians. “Our attacks are part of how we will increase security to bring (evacuated) northern residents back to their homes,” he said.

    Abbas, who led the Israeli Armed Forces’ major operations on August 25 and September, said: “We were ready and ready until the moment of the big order from the high command, from the company commander to the Northern Command.

    “Whatever the political echelon decides, we will bring back the northern inhabitants through a diplomatic agreement or occupation.”

    Comparing the 2006 Second Lebanon War, in which Hezbollah’s rockets ripped into Haifa and other more sensitive locations, he predicted how much of a war Hezbollah would wage on Israel in 2024, essentially predicting before the major September attacks, “The Air Force’s capabilities to respond It is deeper than in 2006.”

    Especially regarding the August 25 operation, secrecy was at an unprecedented level, “most of the soldiers only learned about it the day before; and before that it was a very small group who learned the secret.”

    Just before the operation, “We were in the conference hall of the Northern Command. All senior representatives of the various branches of the Northern Command were present. The group reviewed all plans and sequence of military operations.

    “You’ve got adrenaline and you’re super ready… You’re also getting the home field ready,” he said.

    Its mission was also to “look at all personnel and forces involved, type of ammunition, possible next attack and whether evacuation was required on both sides of the border.”

    The broader context, Abbas noted, was that since July 30, “when Hezbollah learned (that the IDF had killed chief of staff Fuad Shukr), it wanted to respond… We were ready for them to try, but we had to do it. We provided accurate intelligence and carried out our actions before they fired.

    “We destroyed some of their arsenal and various targets with the preemptive attack that started in the early hours of the morning,” he said at around 04.30 on August 25.

    “There were more than 100 planes and we attacked thousands of targets and rockets… Hezbollah did not understand and was shocked by the magnitude of what we did.”

    He said the first wave lasted only a few minutes and there were four waves in total.

    He later added that they immediately realized that “the first wave was successful, they had achieved their goal.” But this needs to be necessary and continuous.”

    The vast majority of the history-changing attack lasted just 20 minutes.

    In real time, he said: “Firepower headquarters gave a full situation update on how many targets were hit” and there were also updates from the air force.

    “In the situation room, you see and understand everything. We see what they hit when Hezbollah attacks. We knew where they were shooting from,” which was part of what helped the IDF quickly tear apart Hezbollah rocket crews.

    Later, Abbas said: “Then we conducted more extensive investigations into the operation.

    We saw that we achieved significant success. “Many of them we knew immediately, but some other things take hours to achieve the full effect required,” he said.

    Even on September 17, when the pager explosions began and further destabilized Hezbollah, he implied that this did not fully explain the IDF’s August 25 operation.

    The whole world knows that Israel attacked Hezbollah on August 25, then repeatedly from the air in September, and from the ground in southern Lebanon in October.

    But by August 25, Abbas and all senior IDF officers knew that if the operation went badly, thousands of Israeli lives could be at risk. “It’s a heavy thing to weigh,” he said with a dark look.

    “We needed to limit Hezbollah’s ability to attack villages in the north. “If it wasn’t for the preventive attack, they could have hit the North with thousands of rockets,” he said.

    After August 25 in Lebanon “Hezbollah realized that we could do this anywhere”, in fact the IDF did it within a few weeks.

    Doing more damage to Hezbollah

    Of course, the major operation on August 25 was not the last highlight of the Israeli Armed Forces’ attacks against Hezbollah; Rather, it was a kind of proof of concept that had given the government and high command significant power to order the complete decapitation of Hezbollah in the past. two months.

    “We continue this war against the axis of evil of Iran and Hezbollah. “They want to destroy Israel and establish a great Islamic state,” Abbas said.

    He also continued: “When Nasrallah claimed (after the August 25 operation) that he had hit IDF bases like the one in Glilot (intelligence headquarters), he (Nasrallah) knew it was a lie. He knew his situation was catastrophic. This was all about his decision to join the axis of evil, with all its negative effects on the Lebanese economy and population.

    “This criminal organization is not keeping Lebanese people alive. Beirut was like Paris. Now they are the worst… There is no government and no one rules or manages the country. “There is no one to blame but Hezbollah,” he said.

    “The Lebanese should understand this, but they are not brave enough to take down Hezbollah,” he lamented.

    Of course, the mission was not over yet, and going into the war the IDF was most worried about Hezbollah rockets; The terrorist group’s greatest success in killing Israelis was achieved with unmanned aerial vehicles.

    Referring to the UAV threat, Abbas said, “We deal with them every day. They did not cause us major harm. They have harmful capabilities, but their scope is limited.

    “We always need to work to develop a response, learn lessons and reduce the number of drones killing people,” he said, adding: “We need to find an advantage.”

    He endorsed the use of counter-drones, the old-style Vulcan anti-aircraft system (saying such batteries should be used more), GPS jamming, and other solutions, but he also did not imply a full response would be forthcoming any time soon.

    “The air force has the technology… They’re working on it and they’re starting to get more successful, but it can’t be solved in days, rather it can be solved in months,” he predicted.

    Abbas also said, “We need to use technology correctly. This is not like the First Lebanon War, where everyone was shooting everywhere (as the Vulcan system was used). We need the right solution, both in technology and in human resources, including engineers, in everything that can help defense. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it works.

    “A lot of drones were used in Ukraine, and we learned from that. “We will apply some of these lessons here,” he emphasized. Addressing Israel’s northern inhabitants directly, he said, “We must salute you for speaking the truth.

    He said this year should be a better and unifying year for the nation as we enter October 7, 2024.

    “We will always win because we are a strong nation. We win in the darkest hour.”



    Harry
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