News Digest — 9/27/24
IDF ‘Arrow’ Aerial Defense System Intercepts Houthi Missile
The IDF’s ‘Arrow’ system intercepted a missile sent from Yemen that triggered sirens across the center of Israel, the IDF confirmed on Friday (27th).
The missile was intercepted outside Israeli airspace, according to the IDF, causing loud booms and debris to fall.
The IDF has had to deploy the ‘Arrow aerial defense system’ to prevent Houthi attacks several times during the war, including the Houthi missile sent targeting Eilat in February and the missile sent targeting Tel Aviv on September 14, which entered Israeli airspace much to the chagrin of the IDF.
Magen David Adom said that no injuries had been reported but that several people suffered anxiety attacks or were injured while seeking shelter.
The attack came after the IDF confirmed it had killed Hezbollah’s drone unit chief Muhammad Hossein Sarur, in strikes on Beirut the previous day, Thursday (26th).
Sarur was reportedly operating as Hezbollah’s liaison to the Houthis, advising them on aerial strategies.
Nasruddin Amer, chairman of the Houthi-backed Yemeni state news agency Saba, confirmed on X/Twitter that the strike was in retaliation for the killing of Sarur in Lebanon, using his alias “Haj Abu Saleh.”
Israel’s recent campaign in Lebanon has seen astounding success, with several high echelons of Hezbollah intelligence and operational networks being targeted and destroyed.
“We’ll Continue Hitting Hezbollah,” Netanyahu Said Upon Landing In New York
The IDF will continue with its military campaign against the Iranian proxy group Hezbollah in Lebanon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said upon landing in New York Thursday (26th).
“We are continuing to hit Hezbollah with all our power, and we will not stop until we achieve all our objectives, first and foremost the return of the northern residents to their homes,” Netanyahu told reporters on the tarmac.
“Our policy is clear,” Netanyahu said, so “nobody should misunderstand it.”
He stood under an umbrella because of the rain, together with his wife. While he was en route to New York, US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, together with ten other countries called on all parties involved in the violence in northern Israel and southern Lebanon to accept a 21-day ceasefire.
The Prime Minister’s Office sent a message from the plane stressing that it had not accepted that offer and then issued a photograph of Netanyahu authorizing the assassination of Hezbollah’s drone unit chief Muhammad Hossein Sarur.
Netanyahu told reporters that “during the flight, I gave authorization for the assassination of the head of Hezbollah’s drone unit and other things, and he was assassinated.”
He explained that he had arrived to deliver an address before the high-level opening portion of the UN 79th General Assembly.
“I am here for an important visit to the United Nations together with families of the hostages that we have not forgotten for a minute, in order to make Israel’s case to the world.”
“Such an address,” he said, “is particularly important at this time.”
IDF Says Hezbollah Drone Force Chief Killed In Dahiyeh Strike
The IDF said on Thursday (26th) that it carried out a targeted strike on the Dahiyeh quarter in Beirut, Hezbollah’s stronghold in the city.
According to the military, Hezbollah’s aerial commander Muhammad Sarur who was behind UAV, glider and missile strikes on Israel was killed in the strike.
Local media reported three missiles hit a 10-story apartment block located next to the site of the targeted attack that killed Ibrahim Aqil, Hezbollah’s senior commander last week.
The strike came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports that Israel had agreed to negotiate a 21-day truce in the fighting against Hezbollah to allow for a diplomatic agreement to end the war.
Netanyahu, who was on his way to New York to address the UN General Assembly, also said his instructions to the military was to continue attacking the terror group according to the plans in place.
The IDF continued its strikes on Hezbollah targets throughout the afternoon and the terror group targeted the Galilee and Golan Heights with rocket fire.
The IDF also said its force completed a military drill in preparation for a land incursion into Lebanon. “The exercise took place a few kilometers from the Lebanese border and trained the troops in maneuvering and combat in thicketed, mountainous terrain. During the exercise, the troops enhanced their operational and logistical readiness for various combat scenarios in enemy territory on the northern front,” the IDF said in a statement.
DM Yoav Gallant: ‘We Are Continuing Our Sequence Of Operations’
Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant approved on Thursday (26th) the continued offensive actions by the IDF on the northern front together with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, Operations Directorate Chief Oded Basyuk, and Intelligence Directorate Chief Shlomi Binder.
The four also watched the precise strike on Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut.
“I met with the IDF Chief of the General Staff, Head of the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate, and Head of the IDF’s Operations Directorate to approve planned operations in the northern arena,” Gallant stated.
“We are continuing our sequence of operations – eliminating Hezbollah terrorists, dismantling Hezbollah’s offensive infrastructure, and destroying rockets and missiles.”
“We have additional missions to complete in order to ensure the safe return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes. We will continue throwing Hezbollah off balance and deepening their loss,” he added.
Iran, Hezbollah Enabled Houthis’ Rise, Says UN Report
Yemen’s Houthi rebels have grown “from a localized armed group with limited capabilities to a powerful military organization” with the help of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraq specialists, according to a confidential report by UN sanctions monitors.
The independent panel of experts, who report annually to the UN Security Council, said Houthi fighters have been receiving tactical and technical training outside Yemen, traveling on fake passports to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq.
Over the past year the Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on ships in the crucial Red Sea shipping channels to show support for Palestinians in the Gaza war with Israel, disrupting global maritime trade by forcing shipping firms to divert cargo.
“The multiple testimonies gathered by the panel from military experts, Yemeni officials and even individuals close to the Houthis, indicate that they do not have the capacity to develop and produce, without foreign support, complex weapon systems,” the UN experts wrote in their latest report, seen by Reuters.
“The scale, nature and the extent of transfers of diverse military material and technology provided to the Houthis from external sources, including financial support and training of its combatants, is unprecedented,” they said.
The Houthis did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UN report.
The sanctions monitors said weapons systems operated by the Houthis were similar to those produced and operated by Iran or armed groups of the Tehran-backed “Axis of Resistance” opposed to Israel and U.S. influence in the Middle East.
“This transformation has been possible due to the transfer of material and the assistance and training provided by IRGC-QF, Hezbollah, and Iraqi specialists and technicians to the Houthis,” the UN experts reported to the 15-member Security Council Yemen sanctions committee. “IRGC-QF” refers to the Quds Force, the overseas branch of the Revolutionary Guards.
Built up over years or decades of Iranian support, the “Axis of Resistance” includes the Houthis, Palestinian militants Hamas, Hezbollah and various armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
The Houthis have effectively been under a UN arms embargo since 2015. Iran has repeatedly denied supplying weapons to the group. Iran’s mission to the UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UN sanctions monitor’s report.
At the United Nations on Wednesday (25th), Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters before a Security Council meeting that his country supported Hezbollah and would not remain indifferent if the Lebanon conflict with Israel spiraled.
The UN sanctions monitors also expressed concern about an increasing collaboration between the Houthis and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
“Both have agreed to cease internal conflict, transfer weapons, and coordinate attacks against the forces of the Government of Yemen,” they said. “Additionally, increased smuggling activities, involving small and light weapons (SALW) are observed between the Houthis and Al-Shabaab, with indications of shared military supplies or a common supplier.”
On the issue of fake passports, the UN sanctions monitors said that the Houthis issue the counterfeit documents to people who “act on their behalf, for their own support or to those under their control.”
“These people are tasked with the procurement and/or transfer of illicit goods and weapons – they also travel abroad to participate in military training,” they wrote in the 38-page report that includes hundreds of pages of annexes.
Hezbollah Is Everyone’s Problem – Bret Stephens (New York Times)
• The 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war concluded with a UN resolution that was supposed to disarm the terrorist militia and keep its forces far from Israel’s border. The resolution did neither. Instead, a combination of international wishful thinking and the willingness of Hezbollah’s patrons in Tehran have brought us to where we are now.
• If the U.S. or Europeans want to create a buffer area between Israel and Hezbollah, they should deploy their own troops under a NATO flag, or perhaps invite Arab states to send forces, since the UN peacekeepers did nothing to prevent Hezbollah from placing its forces close to the Israeli border.
• Otherwise, the re-establishment of the Israeli-controlled security zone in southern Lebanon that existed from 1985 to 2000 might, for all the long-term problems it presents, be the least-bad alternative.
• The proper role for the U.S. in the crisis is not to seek a diplomatic solution. It’s to help Israel win. Until al-Qaeda’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, no terrorist group had murdered more Americans than Hezbollah. Israel’s strike last week in Beirut, which killed Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, avenged the 1983 attacks there on the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks, in which 258 Americans perished. Those crimes should neither be forgotten nor forgiven.
• Nor can it be in the interests of the West for a terrorist group with burgeoning ties to the Kremlin to maintain effective control of a Mediterranean state while it terrorizes its neighborhood. There is an American interest in checking the expansion of the Axis of Repression that includes Iran, China, Russia and North Korea.
• We are now in the opening stages of yet another contest between the free and unfree worlds. In that fight, Israel is on our side and Hezbollah is on the other. We can’t pretend to be neutral between them.
The Technological Superiority Of Israel Since 1967 – Abdulrahman al-Rashed
More than 4,000 people were killed or injured in two sophisticated technical operations carried out by Israel against Hezbollah, using pagers and walkie-talkies. Egypt’s Abdel Nasser complained about Israeli superiority half a century ago, and today the gap has doubled, making the idea of change through armed force nearly impossible, if not naive. What makes Israel superior is its focus on intellect in the field of technology, which has granted it continuous victories to this day in both peace and war and has distinguished it economically despite the small size of its markets.
For Hezbollah, like Iran, its strength lies in its willingness to sacrifice its fighters, as well as recruiting cheap fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, and adapting cloned weapons from Russia and China. These wars will continue because one side is diligently working to develop its capabilities, while the other side is entrenched in metaphysical beliefs and places no value on the loss of human lives. (Al Arabiya)
