‘Israel’, US Shift Crosshairs on Lebanon as Hezbollah Overtakes ‘Israel’s’ Air ‘Superiority’

By Julia Kassem – Jul 7, 2024

The script has been flipped: The Israeli military is now unable to send its drones and jets into Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s are crossing into occupied Palestine unintercepted, reaching their targets, and fulfilling their missions.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2006 war, the Zionist entity attempted to save face by claiming that nobody had won, despite the failure of “Israel’s” objectives, the ability for Hezbollah to push off an Israeli invasion and inflict massive soldier casualties and military losses, and “Israel’s” failure to achieve its intended goals of disabling and disarming Hezbollah.

It wasn’t until 2008 that an Israeli investigation admitted its army failed – due in part to “overreliance on air force” and lack of adequate military preparation and skill. These dimensions would contribute to its military failures against Gaza in its bombing-heavy campaigns in 2014/ 2021, and now in Al-Aqsa Flood, where the Zionist entity is facing defeat from all ends.

Following the invasion of Rafah, Hezbollah intensified its operation against the Zionist entity and really honed their mastery in precision on its sites. Next, there was a steep acceleration towards delivering devastating blows that decimated the military headquarters in Kiryat Shmona and the occupied Golan Heights.

Now, Israeli officials proceed in their saber-rattling in calling for war on Lebanon, where Gallant laughably claims that the tanks that couldn’t even pass through Gaza, with what’s left of them rolling back in humiliating retreat – will now pass through to the Litani.

Since October 8, Hezbollah effectively deterred and drained the Zionist entity, and de-securitized the Israeli military infrastructure on the border of Occupied Palestine, with “Israel” issuing endless demands and threats to carry out an invasion of South Lebanon. In reality, not only is “Israel” unable to conduct any ground campaign on Lebanon – which anyone who knows a thing of the results of the 2006 Lebanon war knows – but is now growing clearly unable to challenge “Israel” in the air.

In previous campaigns, “Israel” had air superiority over its Arab neighbors with constructively weaker air power. At the time of the 2008-issued commission of the 2006 war, the Israeli Air Force was described as “superb” but insufficient in any overall military or political achievements. Hezbollah defeated “Israel” in any attempt at a ground invasion, launched far too late into the closing days of the war with crushing defeat. The occupying Israeli army would then face the same failures to commence a ground invasion of Gaza in 2009 and 2014 – facing the same defeat at the hands of relatively low-tech Resistance groups. Even nearly 18 years ago, Hezbollah showed that with low technology, it defeated the most well-equipped, technological army. While it continues to employ a war of attrition, using low-cost means and limited capacity in its precise strikes on the Israeli military, the considerable election, the ball is now in Hezbollah’s court, as it is now clearly setting the terms for escalation, response, and intensity.

The Zionist entity and US shifted from becoming compelled to pressure Hamas into surrender to focusing pressure on Hezbollah, requesting that the Lebanese Resistance group inflict some leverage on Hamas, despite Hezbollah having made itself more than clear in previous months under both US and French pressure to cease its operations against “Israel” at the border. Again, former IOF soldier and Biden envoy, Hochstein, returned to Lebanon to try to convince Beirut to limit Hezbollah operations on the occupied Shebaa farms– in an implicit and perhaps accidental acknowledgment of the illegal occupation of that territory – as the Israeli crosshairs shift onto Lebanon.

In the last few months alone, Hezbollah shot down 5 (expensive) Hermes drones, with the first downing occurring on February 26, as well as 2 Skylark drones. Hezbollah anti-aircraft missiles turned back Israeli jets on June 6th, and just four days later, the Lebanese Resistance group attempted to shoot down another Israeli jet fighter, showing that they were close to scoring a hit.

The script had been flipped – The Israeli military is now unable to send its drones and jets into Lebanon, and Hezbollah’s are crossing into occupied Palestine unintercepted, reaching their targets, and fulfilling their missions.

In 2019, Hezbollah SG Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah affirmed “Israel’s” declining air superiority in downing Israeli drones caught over Musharrafieh, in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, subsequently vowing that Israeli drones over Lebanon will be shot down – a threat to the then near – daily violations of airspace waged by Tel Aviv over Lebanon was made and the sincere promise has held firm and grown since.

In February 2022, “Israel” failed to intercept a Hezbollah reconnaissance drone – a locally-produced drone aptly named Hassaan – flying into Occupied Palestinian airspace for over 40 minutes, with the Iron Dome failing to bring it down. As “Israel” and the US scrambled to secure the offshore drilling near South Lebanon later that same year, Hezbollah further worked to undermine their control over land as well as the air, flying a drone over the Karish gas field in the Mediterranean. In light of a 2021 downing of an Israeli drone to the success of the following year’s operations, as Hezbollah rapidly updated its anti-aircraft missiles, then-outgoing Zionist Air Force commander Amikam Norkin admitted that the Zionist entity had lost its domination over Lebanon’s skies.

Hezbollah Strikes Sensitive Israeli Base in ‘Largest’ Drone Attack Yet

“Israel’s” to freely invade Lebanon’s airspace and conduct its missions represents and highlights a landmark loss of air superiority long touted by the Zionist entity, further entwined with its more existential loss of security, only making its claims of a ground invasion more laughable – aside from the obvious fact that it is facing defeat in Gaza. “Israel” now is not only blinded within the territory of Occupied Palestine and its border with Lebanon, but also within Lebanon and the region. No amount of US and French pleading to the Lebanese government, or bluffing the Palestinians and Palestinian Resistance via Qatar can also restore the US’s lost negotiating power in attempting to mitigate the huge losses incurred by both Washington and Tel Aviv.

In the early months of the war, Hezbollah took to a very controlled war of attrition strategy that gradually blinded Israeli air control and intelligence from the North of Occupied Palestine by destroying security infrastructure along the border. Attacks on the Meron air base – responsible for directing the very warplanes responsible for terrorizing our region – ensued following the assassination of Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri on January 3, and have continued since.

More recently, on June 27, Hezbollah lit ablaze the Berea barracks well into the point where “Israel” witnessed not only the loss of its ability to wage offensives over the skies, but also the destruction of any ability to thwart incoming barrages from the Lebanese Resistance. Hezbollah has waged attacks against Iron Dome batteries, launch sites and systems, adding to the damage of the system long exposed by the Resistance axis at various points in time as ineffective, leaving “Israel” completely compromised even in terms of “defensive” air power.

The entity is losing both air and sea because of the successful naval operations by the Yemeni Ansarallah movement, unwavering in their commitment to pressure the Zionist entity by striking and apprehending “Israel”-linked ships, and just hinting at an initiation of its “fifth” phase of operations coming at the helm of “Israel’s” failure in its supposed third phase. Israeli, as well as American military officials, know that ultimately, they’re losing the race for better munitions to Iran, fearing the acquisition of more advanced Iranian air defense weaponry by the Resistance.

The US has long feared Iran’s advanced hardware systems and highly effective surface-to-air missiles, with other regional allies in the Resistance Axis revealing a fraction of the extent that they can effectively challenge Israeli, and by extension, American military superiority, and the continuation of the Zionist project on an existential level.

Hezbollah continues to deter an Israeli attack while offering no hope for an Israeli invasion (which should have been obvious enough in August of 2006) as Tel Aviv updates its threat of an attack on Lebanon from mid-June to mid-July. In all cases, it’s evident how the Zionist entity no longer holds control over neither the pace nor course of escalation, and less so over its outcomes. Not even “Israel’s” assassinations of senior Hezbollah commanders – such as Wednesday’s killing of Mohammed Nasser “Abu Nehme” – can bring it on course to controlling the pace of the escalation ladder.

If predictability is desperate “Israel’s” aim at this point, it should again be reminded of Sayyed Nasrallah’s May 24 promise of “surprises” for the Zionist entity. It’s still a question of whether the Israeli-provoked all-out war between Hezbollah and the Zionist entity will ensue, but it is no secret that the occupation is headed toward its demise.

(Al Mayadeen)