Hassan Nasrallah (right), a poster hung in recent days in Tehran’s Palestine Square (left)
Almost two weeks have passed since the eliminations of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Fouad Shakar in Beirut. We do not know when Iran and Hezbollah will decide to respond to their eliminations and how they will respond. Their war of consciousness and psychology is at its peak and in fact aims to disguise the humiliation, dishonor and surprise they have suffered. Every few days, the giant sign in Tehran’s Palestine Square changes with a new threat to Israel. Hezbollah also intensified the activity of its propaganda machine, culminating, at this stage, in Nasrallah’s last speech on August 6.
The ideology of Palestine” is well integrated into the propaganda. The current sign in Tehran’s Palestine Square displays Sinwar’s picture with the inscription: “Israel received a military blow on October 7, received a political blow on August 7 (with Sinwar’s election as Hamas leader instead of Haniyeh… and Israel) will receive another blow soon…”
Most assessments are that it is highly likely that Iran and Hezbollah will not allow themselves not to respond. The potential for reactions is significant and a range of responses should be considered, including the possibility of a threat from a Radwan unit infiltration, which we have assessed for some time as capable of carrying out a focused operation. There is even a likelihood of a commando operation by Hezbollah’s naval unit against an Israeli maritime target.
If Iran and Hezbollah choose that their responses preserve equations, then the response will probably be expressed in firing precision weapons (such as ballistic missiles / cruise missiles / UAVs) against quality economic and/or military targets in Israel.
The Lebanese arena:
War data:
In Israel, the government evacuated 43 communities located up to five kilometers from the Lebanese border. A total of about 61,000 citizens. To them were added several thousand more who decided to evacuate independently.
It should be noted that some of the Israeli communities have not been fully evacuated and there is a civilian presence there (agriculture and industry).
The Israeli government has extended the evacuation period until 31 August 2024.
Hezbollah has caused the deaths of 25 Israeli civilians and 20 soldiers, a total of 45 people. This past week (August 5 to August 12), one Israeli civilian was killed, and 20 others were wounded as a result of Hezbollah attacks.
During the past week 67 attacks were carried out on the northern border, of which Hezbollah claimed responsibility for 59 attacks against Israel, utilizing high-trajectory fire (including Grad, Falaq and Burkan rockets), anti-tank missiles and suicide UAVs.
There has been no claim of responsibility for 8 incidents, of these, 5 UAV infiltration or intercepted UAV incidents and 2 rocket launches toward the Kiryat Shmona area and a single launch to the Malkia area.
Since the beginning of the war, 2,649 attacks have been carried out in the northern arena, the vast majority of which were carried out by Hezbollah.
Prominent launching and shooting incidents against Israel
(August 5) Hezbollah launched several suicide UAVs to the Ayelet HaShahar area, wounding two soldiers. According to Hezbollah, in response to the elimination carried out by the Israel of Ali Nazia Abd Ali, a senior figure in the Southern Front, and other attacks in villages in southern Lebanon.
(August 6) Hezbollah launched several suicide UAVs deep into the western Galilee, toward the Nahariya area, an area that has not been evacuated, killing one civilian and wounding 18 others. According to Hezbollah, the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of a Radwan unit commander the previous day in the village of Aba.
According to the photos and videos that were published, it is highly likely that Hezbollah used Shahed 101 electric UAVs. As we know, until a few weeks ago, Hezbollah used mainly the Ababil-T suicide UAVs. On July 11, in a UAV attack on the Kabri area, we witnessed Hezbollah’s use of the electric Shahed 101 for the first time.
(August 8) Hezbollah fired a barrage of about 25 Grad rockets deep into the Western Galilee. Many of the rockets exploded in open areas causing fires in agricultural areas.
(August 9) Hezbollah carried out several Grad and Falk rocket barrages toward the city of Kiryat Shmona. According to Hezbollah the attacks was as response to the IDF attacks in southern Lebanon. Property and infrastructure were severely damaged.
(August 10) Hezbollah launched suicide UAVs into the Lower Galilee, an area not evacuated. According to Hezbollah, the target was a military base, and the attack was carried out in response to the elimination of Samer Mahmoud al-Hajj, Hamas’ military commander in the Ain al-Hilwa refugee camp.
(August 12) Hezbollah launched a barrage of approximately 30 Grad rockets at the Ga’aton area, deep in the western Galilee, an area that is not evacuated. Hezbollah claimed the attack targeted a military base and was in retaliation for IDF strikes in Lebanon.
Hezbollah and other organizations casualties
Over the past week, Hezbollah released a statement reporting 15 of its military operatives killed.
As of October 8, 2023, a total of 407 Hezbollah operatives have been killed. Most of the operatives killed live south of the Litani River (273 operatives killed, constituting 67% of all the operatives killed). Many Hezbollah operatives and their families live in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel. They operate in southern Lebanon as part of Hezbollah’s geographic units (Nasser/Aziz) and Hezbollah’s designated units (Radwan unit), while assimilating into the civilian population (human shield tactics).
According to reports in Lebanon, since the beginning of the war, 56 operatives of other organizations in Lebanon have been killed, including Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Amal movement, and Jama’ah al-Salamiya (Al-Fajr). This week, Samer Mahmoud al-Hajj, Hamas’ military commander in the Ain al-Hilwa refugee camp, and an Amal operative were killed.
Eliminations of senior Hezbollah figures
Since October 8, 2023, 42 senior Hezbollah operatives were eliminated. The most senior of them, Fouad Shakar, a member of the Jihad Council, head of Hezbollah’s strategic systems. 39% of them, a total of 16, belonged to the geographic units (southern front) with an emphasis on the Nasser unit, including the unit’s commander – Haj Abu Taleb and Aziz unit commander Ahmad Naama Nasser. Approximately 31.7% of the Radwan unit, which amounts to 13 individuals, including the unit’s acting leader, Wassam al-Tawil were eliminated as well. The primary focus on the Radwan unit and geographical units was on removing sector leaders (similar to brigade commanders) and commanders in specialized arrays (such as rockets/anti-tanks, etc.).
In addition, 3 high-ranking operatives from Hezbollah’s air unit, 3 individuals from Hezbollah’s air defense system, a senior agent in Hezbollah’s weapons transfer operation from Syria to Lebanon, an operative in the engineering unit and a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council were eliminated. Out of the total number of people killed, 4 individuals, which is equivalent to 9.8%, were experts in the areas of research / development / manufacture of weapons, and combat support technologies.
Elimination attempts are critical and necessary. Regardless of the eliminations, Hezbollah has operational and command continuity. This endeavor cannot be the primary focus, but rather a concurrent and supplementary effort to the main focus, which is to cause significant harm to Hezbollah’s tactical firing systems and its military infrastructure on the southern front, as well as extensive damage to Hezbollah’s strategic fire systems and infrastructure in depth.
Prominent airstrikes in Lebanon
In the evening of August 5, Ali Jamal al-Din Jawad, a commander in the Radwan force, was eliminated. The elimination took place in the village of Aba in southern Lebanon. Jawad was born in 1987 and comes from the village of Zabkin. The IDF’s announcement indicates that Jawad played a significant operational role in the Radwan unit, and his elimination significantly impairs Radwan’s ability to carry out planned operations against Israel territory and its civilians. The main role of the Radwan unit is to carry out special operations such as infiltrating Israel territory, taking over territory such as communities and military bases, killing and abducting civilians and soldiers.
(August 6) In an airstrike on a building in the village of Mayfadoun in Nabatiyeh, 5 Hezbollah operatives were eliminated. One of them being Amin Badreddin, Mustafa Badreddin’s nephew, who replaced Imad Mughniyeh as Hezbollah’s military commander. Badruddin was eliminated in Syria in May 2016.
(August 7) Hassan Fares Jashi, commander of Hezbollah’s anti-tank missile array, born in 1986, was eliminated in the village of Joyya, his village of origin. It should be noted that during July there were 58 incidents of anti-tank fire at Israel and in June 57 incidents.
(August 9) Samer Mahmoud al-Hajj, Hamas’ military commander in the Ain al-Hilwa refugee camp, was eliminated by Israel. He was killed at the southern entrance of Sidon while driving his car. Al-Hajj was responsible, among other things, for launching rockets into Israel territory.
Hezbollah – General:
(August 6) Nasrallah’s speech marking a week since Fouad Shakar’s death
At the beginning of his speech, Nasrallah spoke about Shakar’s biography, who was one of Hezbollah’s founding leaders. He added that he was a strategist, educated generations of students with a religious culture and they were in daily contact during the war. The elimination of Shakhar is a great loss, but it does not stop Hezbollah, as seen in Hezbollah’s ongoing activity and in attacking new communities deep inside Israel. Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah’s recent attacks were the response to Shakar’s elimination, but part of their ongoing attacks against Israel.
There is no future for agreements with Israel. Nasrallah is trying to incite the Arab states against Israel and trying to dissuade them from reaching agreements with it. He notes that both in the Israel Knesset and in the Israeli public there is a consensus that opposes a Palestinian state, and this is a slap in the face to all the Arab countries that adopt the Arab Peace Initiative. He adds that the goal of this war is to prevent Israel from eliminating the Palestinian resistance and cause. If the resistance in Gaza and Lebanon loses, not only will Al-Aqsa and all the holy sites be in danger, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and the rest of the countries in the region will also be in danger from Israel: “The Arab countries must wake up to the danger threatening the region.”
On the U.S. role in the war in Gaza, Nasrallah said, “The United States of America has been silent for 31 years, and now its talk about establishing a Palestinian state is a lie and hypocrisy, because every vote on a Palestinian state in the Security Council raises the American veto, and the Americans are misleading the world that it is dissatisfied with Netanyahu’s performance during the war, and is acting to pressure him. And that’s all a lie because they’re supplying him with tons of weapons.”
Nasrallah called on the resistance in Gaza and the West Bank to be patient and continue to stand firm against Israel. Nasrallah called on the “support fronts” in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to continue supporting Gaza despite the casualties. “Iran was obliged to respond after the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, and now it is obliged to fight after the murder of Martyr Haniyeh in Tehran, and Iran and Syria are not required to enter the fighting.”
In the internal Lebanese arena, Nasrallah criticizes those who do not support Hezbollah and asks them not to stick a knife in the back of the Lebanese resistance and take part in the psychological warfare against them.
Regarding the response to the assassinations of Fouad Shakar and Ismail Haniyeh, Nasrallah said that Hezbollah, Iran and Yemen were obligated to respond. The delay in response is part of the punishment of Israel, who are now waiting more than a week on alert, “on a leg and a half,” for a response by Hezbollah and Iran. This is a psychological campaign. Despite Israel’s high alert, Hezbollah’s UAVs managed to reach the city of Acre.
Nasrallah revealed that international delegations had asked Hezbollah to moderate its response to the elimination. “The Americans are asking for more time to act to stop the war in Gaza, but who can trust the Americans who have been continuing their hypocrisy and lies for ten months?” He stressed that “our response hopefully comes alone or with the resistance front,” but that “we speak today responsibly and about a future that we will do together with our patience and endurance and our trust in Allah and in the blood of our martyrs.”
Nasrallah concluded: “Our response is coming, and it will be strong, influential and effective, and between us and them days, nights and territory.”
Hezbollah’s cognitive and psychological war is consistent and shows an ideological basis and advance planning. Nasrallah’s speeches are a central component of this war. Nasrallah’s speeches in general and his wartime speeches in particular can be characterized by three main characteristics: the distribution of the speech to different audiences, central motifs, and the “ideology of Palestine.” The cognitive war is mainly aimed at strengthening the Shiite base’s support for Hezbollah. For further details, see the article Nasrallah’s speeches: Consciousness and Psychology.
We do not know when Hezbollah will respond to the elimination of Fouad Shakar or how it will respond. Hezbollah’s missile and rocket arsenal is deployed in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and the Beirut area. Rockets of various ranges, short-range missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank missiles. The strategic arrays are deployed in the Bekaa Valley and Beirut (ballistic/cruise/ anti-ship). They have not yet been used. It is possible that Hezbollah will choose to use them (or some of them) in the coming days in a targeted manner against quality targets in Israel. There is a possibility that it will do so under the cover of a massive simultaneous operation of the tactical arrays deployed in southern Lebanon, such as the various types of rockets, to areas of 0-5 kilometers in Israel area.
In a special report we published in the past, we presented dozens of launching and storage sites for the Fatah 110 missile array deployed in Beirut. Also see a video that shows as an example some of them.
Lebanon – General:
(August 7) Due to the fear of an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, European countries and the United States began implementing plans to evacuate workers from their missions in Lebanon and Israel, focusing at this stage on evacuating the workers’ families to their countries of origin and reducing the number of foreign workers in the missions, especially those whose services could be waived or performed remotely. Embassies have reduced their staff. However, no embassy has yet implemented an emergency evacuation plan. Some of the various missions, mainly from embassies of Latin America and European countries, have begun looking for a mechanism for coordination with the Syrian authorities, in case there is a need for an evacuation operation through Damascus airport.
(August 9) Many international airlines have suspended flights to Lebanon or avoided crossing certain airspaces. To this day, Arab and foreign airlines are still changing their flight schedules until Iranian-Israeli tensions end in response to the elimination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Among these airlines are: India, Air France, American Delta, Easy Jet and more.
(August 10) The Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that in light of Hezbollah’s expected response to the killing of Fouad Shakar in Beirut, Beirut’s Dahia quarter had been put on war alert.[1] According to the article, the Israeli attack in the Dahia, Beirut, surprised the residents, who believed that their suburb was outside the battle zone.
According to the article, the atmosphere of war led to the departure of a significant number of families from the suburb to Christian neighborhoods in Beirut that are considered “safe.” Traffic on the streets declined, affecting markets as well, causing trade to stagnate. Even families are postponing registration and payment for the next school year because they are not sure if it will open, and now the priority is to find an apartment abroad that will be a shelter.
Other sources reported that fleeing the Dahia due to fears of war caused real estate prices to rise in areas outside Dahia. Home prices rose in light of the war, but after Fouad Shakar’s elimination they even tripled.
In addition, there are also voices on the social networks of Hezbollah’s opponents mocking those fleeing the Dahia, since these are Hezbollah supporters who said they were willing to sacrifice their homes in the name of the resistance. In this context, the town of Falugha, east of Beirut, issued a warning to all its residents not to rent properties to foreign residents unless their identity has been thoroughly checked.
(August 10) Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen TV reported that the Lebanon Army had suspended its patrols with UNIFIL in southern Lebanon following an incident with a French UNIFIL patrol around the village of Hammam in southern Lebanon. During a joint patrol conducted by the Lebanon Army and the French force, the French force deviated from the agreed travel route and entered “private territory”, causing a confrontation between the Lebanon Army and the French force.
The Syrian arena:
(August 8) According to local reports, an airstrike was carried out against a Syrian Army bunker compound south of the Shayirat airbase, located southeast of Homs. The airport and the surrounding area serve as an intermediate station for storing weapons transferred from Iran as part of the land corridor. The weapons come from the Albukamal area via Palmyra and from there to the Homs area. From the Homs area the weapons are transported either west to the Syrian coast or southwest to the area of the town of Katzir / Hush al-Sayyid Ali / Qasr / Kara. From these areas, the weapons are brought to Hezbollah’s hands in Lebanon. The weapons can also be used by the Shiite militias in Syria. Syrian army bases serve as a convenient temporary storage place for weapons coming from Iran intended to reach Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Shiite militias in Syria.
(August 11) Reports indicate an attack on a vehicle in the Al-Mayadin area, in the Deir ez-Zor province. Six pro-Iranian militia members were reported killed and about 11 others were injured. No additional details are available.
Syria -General:
(August 7) Demonstrations against Israel in Damascus after Hezbollah’s rocket struck the Israeli town of Majdal Shams, killing 12 children. The demonstrators blamed Israel for the disaster…
(August 7) Russian forces distributed 18 tons of aid to three villages north of Deir Azur: Matlum, Marat and Hatla. According to the report, the purpose of distributing the aid is to get closer to the residents of the region and try to increase Russian influence at the expense of Iran. It also appeared that Russia deliberately distributed its aid in the village of Hatla, considered a central concentration point for Iranian militias in Deir ez-Zor. In addition, about 2 months ago, Russian forces distributed a number of food baskets to the families of associates in the city of al-Mayadeen, east of Deir ez-Zor.
(August 9) According to various reports, the chief of staff of the Syria army secretly visited Tehran without informing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian chief of staff and senior Iranian officials discussed the transfer of weapons from the Syrian army to Hezbollah and running operations against Israel from Syria. This reports cannot be verified.
In the past week, the Arab tribes in the Deir ez-Zor area, supported by the Iran, have begun advancing east of the Euphrates in combat with the SDF forces near the Al-Omar oil field.
Shiite Axis – General
During the past week (Aug. 5-12) there were two attacks against the American forces in Syria and Iraq:
(August 6) Reuters reported that according to American sources, two Grad rockets were fired at the Ain al-Assad base in Iraq, injuring 7 American soldiers. No organization claimed responsibility for the attack.[1]
(August 10) According to local reports in Syria, three UAVs were launched at the American base in the Al-Hasakah province in eastern Syria. One UAV was intercepted and two exploded in the base area, causing a fire.
US Central Command’s last official public report regarding the Shiite militia’s attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria occurred on February 20th. Multiple accounts indicate that the attacks on US bases ceased as a result of explicit directives from Iran to the Shiite militias, following an undisclosed agreement between Iran and the US.
According to several local indications, US bases were attacked 13 times since February. No responsibility was publicly claimed for these attacks by any organization and US Central Command did not confirm them in a public statement as it did before February 20th.
During the past week (Aug. 5-12) the Islamic resistance in Iraq did not claim responsibility for attacks against Israel. Since July 24, 2024, the Islamic resistance in Iraq has not claimed responsibility for attacks against Israel.
Yemen – Houthi-land:
During the past week, coalition forces managed to intercept 5 UAVs, 2 ballistic missiles ,1 explosive boat launched by the Houthis targeting ships and 5 anti-ship cruise missiles, 2 UAVs and 2 command stations in Houthi territory, which posed an immediate threat to freedom of movement in international waters.
Since October 2023, there have been 193 Houthi strikes against Israel, the United States and other targets.
[1] https://al-akhbar.com/Community/385457/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%AE%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D8%A8-%D9%82%D8%A8%D9%84-%D9%88%D9%82%D9%88%D8%B9%D9%87
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-personnel-hurt-attack-against-base-iraq-officials-say-2024-08-05/
