Hizbullah Official: In Next War With Israel, We Will Turn Israelis’ Lives Into Hell, They Will Be Pulling Bodies From Under The Ruins – Middle East…
Posted By admin on August 29, 2022
In an August 26, 2022 article in the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, the daily's editor, Ibrahim Al-Amin, presents statements by a "senior jihad commander" in Hizbullah. Al-Amin describes this commander as a member of the organization's founding generation who has worked with all of Hizbullah's leaders since its inception and is a key figure in carrying out assessments and preparing for the next war with Israel. In the article the commander makes many threats regarding Israel's fate in the next war with Hizbullah, stating that this war will be devastating for Israel, since Hizbullah will destroy its infrastructures and turn the Israelis' lives into an intolerable hell. In this war, he says, the Israelis "will be pulling bodies out from under the ruins." Moreover, they will not be able to defend their territorial waters, their land border, their vital facilities or even their home front, and for the first time in its history Israel will find itself on the defensive.
The commander adds that Israel knows Hizbullah now supersedes it in many areas, both miliary and intelligence-related. It realizes Hizbullah knows "what it is doing right now, what it did in the past and what it will do in the future," and is therefore making great efforts to avoid a war, he says. He advises Israel to assume that Hizbullah possesses every weapon Iran possesses, including drones, and claims that Hizbullah even possesses abilities that Iran does not. If a wide-scale war breaks out, he warns, the Palestinian factions and the Palestinian people, including Israel's Arab citizens, will take part in it, and Hizbullah will know what to do even if Israel is assisted by other countries, especially the U.S. The commander threatens that Israel will be dealt a "severe blow" for any mistake it makes, including in the area of delineating its maritime border with Lebanon.
The article is accompanied by a map showing that all of Israel's territory is now within range of Hizbullah's missiles. The map features potential targets for a Hizbullah attack, on land and in the sea, and a list of the organization's missiles and the range of each. The article is also accompanied by images of various Iran-manufactured drones.
The map that accompanies the article
The following are translated excerpts from the commander's statements presented in Al-Amin's article.[1]
"Over [the last] 16 years, the resistance [i.e., Hizbullah] has attained a new phase, significantly different from [its situation during the war between Israel and Hizbullah in] 2006. Many of its members and fighters took part in confronting the takfiris in Syria and Iraq, thereby gaining considerable experience In that campaign they became acquainted with new technologies and kinds of weapons. [The resistance] has also acquired a lot of high-quality weapons that have been integrated into its plans. Another notable achievement is a new level of security and intelligence activity, similar to that of a large state. We have actually reached the point where the resistance knows much more about the enemy than the enemy knows about the resistance. This is a milestone that will have an impact in any future war with Israel. Perhaps the day will come when we tell them in advance what we will find on Golda's Balcony in Dimona.[2]
"The resistance has been in a constant race with the enemy, from the August 14, 2006 ceasefire to this day. The new mission given us after the war focused on building qualitative capability that can destroy the Israeli army not just prevent it from achieving its goals. From the end of the July [2006] war to this day, we have known with certainty that, according to all the assessments of the enemy, we supersede it in areas in which it never thought we would reach such advanced stages. From the publication of the Winograd report[3] through all [Israel's] large [military] exercises to the [May 2022] Chariots of Fire exercise, the enemy's conclusion was that we were overtaking it, despite its unceasing efforts to close the gaps.
"Every so often, the enemy acts as if it recognizes our advanced level of armament, but afterwards it discovers that our level is [actually] higher. We know that there are things that the enemy discovered via its intelligence efforts. But there are other things that were exposed on our initiative, and this happens in all kinds of ways
"Lately, the enemy discovered that the weapons of precision available to the resistance [i.e., to Hizbullah] did not reach us when the enemy learned about them, but much earlier. The enemy has every reason to be alarmed by what it knows [about out weapons], so it should definitely be concerned about what it does not know. Back when the enemy threatened that it would not remain silent but rather act the minute Hizbullah had 20 precise missiles, we already had hundreds of them. When it did discover them, it did remain silent. It backed down and took cover. When the enemy discovered and verified that we had hundreds of accurate missiles, it should have realized that we [already] had over thousands of them. When the enemy exposed its plans for preventing the weapons from reaching [Hizbullah], Sayyed [Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary-general], told it sincerely that it was a done deal and that the weapons had already arrived. The same thing happened when [the enemy] spoke about a plan to prevent the resistance from developing its capabilities. Then too, Sayyed [Nasrallah] came out and said that we were [already] manufacturing our [own] armaments and were [even] ready to sell high-quality armaments, including missiles and drones, which is proof of our manufacturing capabilities.
"The enemy is right to think that the resistance has everything that Iran has, for example in the area of drones. But the truth is that the resistance in Lebanon has capabilities appropriate for its needs and these are capabilities that even the Islamic Republic [of Iran] does not possess. The battle with the enemy has not ceased, despite the circumstances, and it never will cease. The enemy understands this, and it is making an effort to avoid war, because [it knows that] if we come to war we will wage it mightily, and it will be destructive for it in the full sense of the term. It cannot stand up to Hizbullah in all the battlefields [at once]. If it threatens us with destruction, as it usually does, we promise that the destruction of [its] entity will be greater than it can imagine. The enemy must know that this time war with Hizbullah means the destruction of the Israeli enemy's infrastructure, which will turn the settlers'[4] lives into a true hell, [and] they will not be able to live under the fire and devastation. We know for sure that during this war the enemy will be pulling bodies out from under the ruins. This is something that it and its people have not yet experienced.
"The Israeli army cannot defend its sea, and it cannot defend its essential facilities, or its land border. It cannot defend its home front from shelling. It also cannot defend itself. The conclusion is that the enemy [army] has lost its defensive capability, despite its name '[Israel] Defense Force.' That is, it has lost its raison d'etre. When it loses its defensive capability, it also loses its motivation to attack that is, it becomes a worthless army and it can be challenged. Therefore, we say that, in the war that will surely come, the Israeli army will definitely learn that it cannot defend the ships that need to enter the ports of Palestine [i.e., Israel], not to mention its own battleships. The moment the war begins, it will discover that we will not be waging a defensive war. For the first time in Israel's history, it will have to defend itself in the 1948 territories. We know that the enemy is [already] planning to evacuate the border areas five kilometers deep, and this in itself is considered retreating in advance, as far as we are concerned. So [imagine what will happen] when the enemy knows for sure that all its outposts and positions are in range of fire from the resistance.
"The Israeli army itself is the side that least wants war, because Israel's military echelons know that it has [heretofore] drawn its strength from the schisms in its surroundings and from its ability to separate the fronts and [face each of them] on its own. But today, the picture is reversed. Israel's leadership, and its army in particular, know that Israel is an artificial entity that emerged at a moment of [Arab] weakness and betrayal and was forced upon the Palestinian people, who were left alone [in the fray]. This entity has tried to survive, to remain, and to expand, under the illusion [that it has] an invincible army and with the help of diverse foreign protections. Today, the picture is the polar opposite. Today, Israel faces a resistance that has forced its will upon it. Today, [several] resistance forces and peoples have united with the Palestinian people in order to fight Israel. Today, Israel fears the resistance, and is experiencing domestic schism it never had before, while facing a determined resistance with a powerful will to fight. Israel is operating according to a plan of self-defense, and it is exposed to the resistance that is planning to attack it.
"The honorable martyr 'Abbas Musawi [former Hizbullah secretary-general killed by Israel in 1992] said that Israel had fallen. Many friends and also enemies did not realize what he meant until Israel withdrew [from Lebanon in 2000] Today, we say wholeheartedly that Israel has disintegrated and is headed towards collapse. Only time and war stand between us and this [outcome], and nothing will stop Israel's collapse. Everyone who has tied himself to Israel will collapse with it, because all the balances have shifted.
"This will be the result of every war against us, and all the more so if we are not alone. If widespread war breaks out, the Palestinian factions will participate in the battle, and with them the Palestinian people, including those in the 1948 territories. It will be a catastrophe for the enemy that will find itself facing two options: to pay the heavy, bloody price and end the war in defeat which it cannot countenance or to stop the war from the outset under the fire of the resistance.
"As part of the military assessments, some talk of the possibility that Israel will receive special aid from the U.S. and from other countries, and say that, just as the resistance forces are preparing to [fight] on one front, Israel too will not remain alone in the fray. [But] the resistance is ready for all possibilities, including dealing with those who assist Israel. Anyone who was involved in the war with the enemy knows that, in the last 10 days of the July 2006 war, the enemy received from the U.S. not only more ammunition but also experts. Things came to the point that Israel was aided by American pilots who helped its own air force and pilots, who were exhausted by the failed war [a fact that Israel] managed to conceal from the [Israeli] public, but not from us. Today, the situation is different. We think that the U.S. will not dare to fight directly alongside the enemy, because they remember well what happened to them in 1983 [the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and later of the U.S. Marines barracks in the city] and 1984 [the bombing of the U.S. Embassy Annex in Beirut].
"The resistance's reasoning follows set rules, and its leaders are guided by principles that may be unclear to the enemy or to others who do not know us. Everyone must know certain facts that reveal the truth about us, not just in terms of our capabilities but also in terms of our ideology, and the fact that we bow to the rule of Allah since the time of the Prophet Muhammad. This is a fundamental concept in our way of thought and behavior, which makes us proficient at implementing the slogan 'we shall never surrender.'
"We are monitoring the [enemy] entity and everything in it, and we know it. The Israelis think they know everything about us and are ahead of us from the intelligence perspective. How often we have left the enemy captive to its own information and ideas! With every achievement [we make], the enemy discovers that it knows nothing about us and what we have. To give a simple example, between [Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon in] 2000 and 2006 there were six years during which the events of the July [2006] war had an opportunity to ripen, and [the enemy] knows what happened [in that war]. This is all the more true for the 16 years that have passed since the July [2006] war. [The enemy] surely knows that the outcome [of the next war] will be completely different. The enemy realizes that we have intelligence capabilities that allow us to know what it is doing now, what it did in the past, and what it will do in the future. For we know very well how the Israelis think.
"The enemy knows that we will take advantage of every opportunity, and that any mistake it makes will cause us to deliver a heavy blow that will prevent it from even thinking about attacking in Lebanon. The issue of the maritime border is perhaps one such opportunity. If the enemy considers a response, we will strike it directly, and this will be a problem for it. They remember that, when [former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs] David Satterfield came to warn that one of our positions in the Beka'a might be attacked, we received instructions from Sayyed Hassan [Nasrallah] to arm missiles, and that if we heard only heard about an Israeli attack against us, to immediately strike targets set in advance without seeking permission from the leadership. Had the enemy carried out such an attack, it would have had dozens of fatalities. Israel discovered this afterwards. In the recent drone operation, we likewise took deliberate measures that caused the enemy to discover our drones. We are able to enter and exist [Israeli airspace] quietly, without being discovered, as we have often done in the past, [but this time we deliberately chose not to do so].
"Today we spoke about the past, about the enemy's experience with us and about the current situation. But what the enemy expects is not what will actually happen"
[1] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), August 26, 2022.
[2] "Golda's Balcony" is allegedly an area inside Israel's Dimona nuclear weapons facility from which visitors can observe some of the activity taking place in the facility.
[3] Israel's Winograd Commission investigated the 2006 Lebanon War. Its final report was released in January 2008.
[4] "Settlers" here refers to all Israeli citizens.
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