Terrorists dead or terrified

Israel goes scorched earth on Palestinian terror groups

The last weeks, and especially the last 7 days, incredible news has come out of the Middle East. Depending on who you ask, you will be told how Israel is escalating the war and putting itself at risk. Others will tell you how Israel is no longer caring about the pressure from the international community and is set on eliminating the threat posed to her existence and civilians once and for all.

People who otherwise make sound analysis are bending over backwards to paint this as a loss for Israel, a no-win situation. The facts, when looked at from a little more distance, tell us otherwise.

For a full treatment of the history of this conflict, see my series on Israel and the Palestinian Conflict (Part 1 is accessible here, with links to the whole series). To understand the current situation, we need to go back to October 7, 2023. On that day, Hamas launched a coordinated attack on Israel, aimed at military targets, but also at a whole host of civilian targets near the border. The killing was indiscriminate. Some say that there was a massive intelligence failure, where Israel did not see any of the signs of a largescale attack that would have required months of planning, and many moving parts and people involved. To others, however, it seems that the failure was not the lack of intelligence, but a mistaken analysis and assessment, not taking it seriously. Egypt claims to have alerted Israel beforehand, for example, and it seems implausible that Israel really did not see this coming. That opened the door to criticisms of Netanyahu and the Israeli government of having decided to let this happen, for political reasons. They wanted a casus bello, and this would be a perfect opportunity.

Which is not that much unlike Pearl Harbor or the Lusitania, if you look a bit closer. One can debate this all they want, until we have people at the top of the Israeli decision-making cabinets and people step forward or write memoirs, we won’t have all the facts. Even assuming they did does not lay blame directly on them. Israel was very divided before October 7th. Not one faction had the upper hand in prescribing the best solution to the mess their country was in. From very hawkish to very dovish, from expelling and/or killing all Palestinians to questioning the very right to existence of Israel itself, to others who actively sought the end of Israel, you surely could find people within Israel who held to such ideas.

After October 7th, something clicked in the collective minds of the Israeli people. Not that every single Israeli now held identical views as any other, but much more aligned. Haviv Rettig Gur wrote a very enlightening article for The Times of Israel on October 16, 2023. “Hamas does not yet understand the depth of Israeli resolve!” Trying to come to understand the reason why Palestinians would seem to massively support terror, sending hundreds of suicide bombers, including women and children, into Israel, to kill women and children, Jews and non-Jews, even other Arabs and Muslims, Israeli’s were at a loss.

October 7 brought clarity. “For a moment, Israel’s guard went down. Hamas was free to live out its intentions. It did so with blazing clarity and purpose,” Gur wrote. “The goal on October 7, as in the fall of 2000, was simply the complete removal of the Jews from this land.” Gur concludes, with a liberating precision: “With clarity comes closure. Israelis are unified as never before, and not just by the horrors perpetrated by Hamas. Their question is answered at long last. The brutality they once saw as a question turned out to be the answer, the purpose and end of much of Palestinian politics. [...] This is a brutality that explodes against peace processes as much as against threats of annexation. No peace and no withdrawal will satisfy this impulse or grant Israeli Jews safety from the kind of wild, joyful hatred displayed on October 7.”

Israel, by and large, realized that Hamas is not a trustworthy partner to negotiate with. How can one negotiate with a group that wants to slaughter you? You do not need to agree with that view, to see that this became the overarching view in Israel after that attack.

It took the Biden administration several more months to come to the same conclusion, but even they reached it. Early September (a month ago), Axios summarized this as follows: “Hostage killings and new demands cast doubt in White House that Hamas wants a deal.” When Hamas killed 6 of the hostages, including an American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in the middle of negotiations between Hamas, Israel and the United States, US officials admitted that “One of the main questions raised during a meeting President Biden and Vice President Harris had with their national security team on Monday was whether there is a hostage-release and ceasefire in Gaza deal Hamas would ever agree to.” As this was happening, Hamas demanded that Israel increase the number of Palestinian prisoners they had to release in return for the hostages. They realized Hamas doesn’t want a deal, doesn’t want negotiations, only 100% surrender.

In response to the October attack, Israel then went on to waltz into Gaza. Ignoring what the international community said, they step by step took it over, aiming at eliminating as many Hamas fighters and commanders. In doing so, they were seriously hindered by the presence of the hostages, as well as by Hamas’ strategy to hide behind civilians and their duplicitous double lives (journalist, doctor, teacher or lawyer by day, Hamas fighter by night: kill them, and guess which identity will be plastered over social media all over the world?).

Even when the IDF finds some of the hostages, and goes in to liberate them, the local population makes it very hard, and about a hundred of civilians died during that raid. Oh, before I forget to point that out: the hostages were kept in the house of a doctor, in plain sight, among the other civilian population of Gaza! A doctor, who had a second job as Hamas official. This incredible mixing of military and civilian life and identity makes it incredibly hard for Israel to operate. But they decided it was time to end Hamas, regardless, and to call their bluff hiding behind their own civilians.

As soon as Israel countered in Gaza, Hezbollah started ramping up their attacks in Israel from South Lebanon. Barrages of rockets made life for Israeli citizens in Northern Israel impossible, and over 100.000 of them were forced to flee. They became refugees within their own country. This group started to exert more and more pressure on Netanyahu.

Not just Hezbollah, but the Houthi’s from Yemen jumped into the fray, and blocked the important marine trade route through the Suez Canal, by selectively attacking ships that sailed under the flags of Israel or any of their supporters. They used increasingly sophisticated missiles, provided by Iran (which is supporting Hamas and Hezbollah with money, weapons, instructors, and information). Incredibly, the US decided to stand down. No real pressure on Hamas or Hezbollah, instead pressure on Israel to negotiate, while continuing to send arms to Israel. In case of the Houthi attacks on the trading ships, the US Navy didn’t do much but carry out misguided and weak counter-attacks. Even the Council of Foreign Relations noticed in an article titled “"The Houthis Have Defeated the U.S. Navy," or, What is a Navy For?” In that article, they opened up with this damning sentence: “A recent article in the Telegraph newspaper in London by former Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharpe was entitled “The Houthis Have Defeated the U.S. Navy.” If that is not correct, it is only because the U.S. Navy has been ordered not to fight.” The CFR gives the answer: the refusal to properly end the attacks by the Houthis is ‘actually an aspect of US policy towards Iran.’

The US refuses to take a harder stance against Iran, after surrendering to them by paying 6 billion dollars as part of a hostage deal. On top of that, the Biden administration (and Kamala Harris) gave Tehran access to another 10 billion dollars of previously frozen assets. Shortly after Iran received that $6 billion, Hamas launched their October 7 attack, which as a side consequence derailed the negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia to normalize their diplomatic relations (after for example the United Arab Emirates had already done so).

As Israel felt the pressure from all those Iranian supported – and controlled – terror groups, and saw how the US failed to take a hard stance against Iran, they decided to send a message. On April 1st, 2024, the IDF attacked the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, in Syria. The main target was a group of officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The IRGC is a separate and ideological branch of the Iranian army, similar to the SS as opposed to the Wehrmacht in Nazi Germany. As such, the Iranian constitution stipulates it is the duty of the IRGC to ensure the integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The IRGC is involved in Iran’s foreign policy, and was/is responsible for countless attacks on US troops in Iraq and Syria in the last 15 years. The IRGC uses proxies for those attacks, that receive money, training, weapons and guidance from IRGC officers. One of the IRGC branches is the Quds Force. Named after Jerusalem (al-Quds is the Arabic for Jerusalem), it is specialized in ‘unconventional warfare and military intelligence, and supports directly their proxy forces, such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthi, Kata’ib Hezbollah (KH) and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba (Nujaba Movement), as well as a number of other groups.

Many countries decried that IDF attack as a breach of the sovereignty of embassies in other countries. What is forgotten is the massive support that Iran gives to Hamas and Hezbollah, now in open war with Israel. The attack was targeting directly IRGC officers, engaged in supporting Hamas and Hezbollah.

During the operation in Gaza, and the continues barrages by Hezbollah, and in direct response to that IDF strike on their IRGC group in their embassy in Damascus, Iran decided to ramp up their own actions, and launched a massive attack. About 170 drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and another 120+ ballistic missiles were launched from Iran towards Israel.

An unlikely alliance of Israel, the US, France, the UK, as well as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, scrambled to intercept the incoming attacks. Sunni Arab nations felt uneasy with the Shia Iranian saber rattling and show of force in this revenge attack, and helped Israel. Only a handful of the rockets and drones made it through, but caused very minimal damage.

Israel did not engage in a large counter-revenge strike, as many feared would happen and push the region closer to all-out war. Instead, Israel sent 2 rockets into Iran, and attacked an anti-air defense system near Isfahan, taking out a Russian-made S-300 mobile radar system, used to track incoming targets. Their message? We don’t need to send hundreds of missiles to overwhelm your defenses in the hope some might cause some random and limited damage. We can pinpoint target and take out your air defense radar, making you defenseless against any real attack, whenever we want, against whatever target. Notice that Iran’s nuclear sites are in Natanz and in Isfahan. A very clear message that Israel can take it out, whenever they want.

On May 19, 2024, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was traveling within Iran in a helicopter, but died when the helicopter crashed. The incident took place in the mountains, during a spell of very poor visibility because of mist. No indication of wrongdoing was found, alleviating fears that somehow Israel was involved. In a series of attacks Israel was targeting top Hamas officials. On Jan  they took out deputy Hamas chief Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut, Lebanon, and on July 13 they took out Mohammed Deif, one of the masterminds behind the October 7 attack, in a fighter strike on Khan Younis, Gaza.

One of them is Ismail Haniyeh, the top political leader of Hamas. As such, also their top negotiator, which caused the international world to condemn that attack as a sign Israel wasn’t serious about negotiations. At that point, they weren’t, indeed. They had realized, as the White House a few months later would, that Hamas didn’t want to negotiate in the first place. What is important is where and how this happened. Haniyeh was killed on July 31st, in the outskirts of Tehran. He was visiting to be present during the inauguration of Iran’s new President, Masoud Pezeshkian.

Haniyeh was staying in a guest house of the Revolutionary Guards, and a very precise and rather small explosion killed him in his apartment room. Israel has never claimed official responsibility for this attack, and no one knows for sure how this attack was carried out. A plane launched missile? A drone attack launched by Mossad operators inside of Iran? A missile launched by such a cell of operators in real close proximity? Iran itself seems to have come to the conclusion that Haniyeh was killed by bombs that had been planted inside the complex, and executed a rather large number of IRCG personnel in a Tehran prison. Paranoia? Did they get the real culprits?

Slavyangrad reported “After Iran has informed the UN of its intent to carry out a retaliatory action against Israel in self-defense, citing Article 51 of the UN Charter, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres confirmed in a phone call to the Iranian Foreign Minister that Iran has the "inherent right to self-defense" in response to violations of its national security and territorial integrity.” Yet Iran never launched the feared revenge attack. This latest attack by Israel had another very clear message: ‘we can strike anyone we want, even during the festivities for the inauguration of your new president, even a very high placed guest (and puppet) like Haniyeh, who executes your schemes killing Israelis, such as on October 7th. And you don’t even know how, and suspect your own people!’

TASS reported not long afterwards: “Iran’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammad Javad Zarif, who served as Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic from 2013 to 2021 and advocates negotiations with the United States, has resigned after only 10 days in office.” That message was received very loud and clear! Iran cannot shake the dread and suspicion that their own regime is fully penetrated, and that even the highest access and information is freely shared with Israel.

Harold Finch warned on Telegram, as he analyzed the impact of the recent events for Iran itself:

Do not underestimate the importance of the internal power struggle present in the Iranian Regime. Khameini’s faction already looks weak. They thought Oct 7th would be a massive victory. It backfired spectacularly. They thought Gaza was too hard for IDF to crack. They were 100% wrong & hamas is destroyed. They thought Hezbollah attacks could take the pressure off hamas & preserve it. That failed. They thought they could use their agents in the US Government to restrain & stop israel, that also failed. Now, the Biden/Harris regime friendly to & protecting the Khameini regime is about to fall. Khameini’s faction is vulnerable to a coup.”

As other sources report: “In a now deleted article, The Jerusalem Post claims that the United States revealed to Iran the names of Mossad agents who were involved in the elimination of Ismail Haniyeh in an attempt to "calm tensions" in the area.”
The Jerusalem Post now has an article that retracts that story, citing US National Security Council spokespeople who claim that such an accusation is ‘categorically false’. After stories of how people in the Obama administration leaked the identity of operatives and contacts in China, leading to their disappearance (The American Interest brings the story in a more nuanced way, stating that “whether through neglect or mismanagement, the Obama administration presided over a series of breaches of American security that were astounding in their depth and damage”), and the stubborn story that Biden leaked the identity of who killed Bin Laden, leading to the attack on a helicopter carrying part of that Seal Team 6, don’t help. The pattern of pacifying enemies, including Iran, is already firmly established.

The Wall Street Journal reported that on the same day Haniyeh was killed, the IDF hacked the internal communications of Hezbollah and targeted Fuad Shukr. Shukr was a senior military adviser to Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, who was responsible for projects in developing the movement's missile weapons. He got a phone call telling him to go to his apartment on the 7th floor, where a missile struck and killed him.

The attacks on Hamas were relentless, to the point of nearly wiping it out. As reported by among others Open Source Intel on X, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant presented a document, said to be written by former commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade, Rafa’a Salameh, addressed to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and his brother Muhammad.

"Please consider the following: We are preserving the remaining weapons and equipment, as we’ve lost 90-95% of our rocket capabilities, around 60% of our personal arms, and at least 65-70% of our anti-tank launchers and rockets. Most importantly, we’ve lost over 50% of our fighters, either killed or wounded, leaving us with only 25% who are now mentally or physically broken, and no longer tolerated by the people.”

The post continues: “Gallant explained that the document reveals the severe distress Hamas is facing, particularly its senior commanders. He noted that Salameh, who was killed in an IDF strike in July, had desperately sought help from the Sinwar brothers, but they were unable to provide relief. "Why? Because we continue the effort we began in October, progressing step by step, targeting all senior Hamas officials. He wrote to the Sinwar brothers, and we will reach them as well," Gallant said.

Yahya Sinwar is the leader of Hamas in Gaza, having recently taken over after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. Muhammad serves as a high-ranking commander in Hamas's military wing.”

Gaza is utterly destroyed. Many blame Israel, but forget that Gaza shares a border with Egypt, which did not let the population from Gaza evacuate within her own borders. Many also forget how Gaza had no border fence or military checkpoints until after the massive suicide bombing attacks in the second Intifada. Still, Israel had programs that allowed Gazans to commute to work within Israel. But the continued attacks by Hamas, which funneled all their efforts into building up offensive capabilities, and defenses only to protect those offensive capabilities, with zero consideration given to the protection of their own people. On the contrary, they were used actively as human shields.

With Hamas decimated, and the Gazans demoralized, and their own population restless because of the long campaign and the continuous onslaught of negative press in the international community, as well as the mounting pressure from the many displaced Israelis from the Northern region, Israel turned their attention to Lebanon and Hezbollah. Calling up reservists and moving troops and material to the north, and ramping up counter-strikes against known Hezbollah positions, this looked to become a problem for Israel.

With their own population very tired of all the violence against them, against Palestinians, and the negative condemnations by just about the whole world, how could they sustain an operation in Lebanon? History showed that to be a death trap they could not win. Previous attempts to invade and take out Hezbollah proved very costly and futile. In the landscape today, it would be suicide. Many commentators judged that Israel had fallen into the trap laid out by Hezbollah and Iran, as Israel seemed to get ready to invade.

Hezbollah and Iran release speech after speech, and many comments, attacking Israel, stating how strong and powerful they are, and can’t be touched by Israel.

In response, Israel starts, or continues, to target top Hezbollah leaders, but now at increased pace. Attacks in Beirut that are linked to phones (Shukr, and possible Haniyeh) make Hezbollah ditch smartphones, and they go ‘old school’, with pagers. They are smarter than Israel and can’t be tracked anymore!

But then the unthinkable happened.

Israel had foreseen that and compromised those very same pagers! On September 17, thousands of pagers exploded all over Lebanon, and also in Syria. Official numbers talk about 4000 injured, among who 400 to 800 seriously, and up to 11 killed. In shock, Hezbollah vows to retaliate. The very next day, however, a new wave of thousands of explosions rock Lebanon. Walkie-talkies, scooters, household appliances, iPhones, etc. explode, killing at least 20 and injuring hundreds more. The whole mid to lower command structure of Hezbollah is taken out. Instead of launching a ground war to make use of this chaos within Hezbollah, as many feared, Israel waited.

The next day, a strike in Beirut killed Ibrahim Aqil, the head of Hezbollah’s military operations, as well as several top commanders of the Radwan forces, an elite group within Hezbollah that was preparing for attacks in the northern Galilee region in Israel.

On Friday, Israel delivered the coup de grace. Netanyahu arrived in New York for the UN meetings, and gets ready to deliver a speech, talking about how Israel wanted peace. Moments after the end of his speech, 83 heavy rockets hit the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, killing all present, including the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

After showing how electronic communication was compromised, how their own supply chain was compromised, how their whole network was comprised, the senior leadership of Hezbollah had to convene and discuss how to respond, but how, and when? That speech by Netanyahu gave Hezbollah a false sense of ‘business as usual’. The moment that operatives confirmed that Nasrallah was present in his HQ, the order to attack was given, pre-authorized by Netanyahu.

Israel isn’t done yet:

Within 2 weeks, Hezbollah was utterly decimated. Their leadership completely destroyed, from top to bottom. Currently, Israel is attacking storage sites where Hezbollah is storing their Iranian weapons and rockets. Videos very clearly show the secondary explosions proving that munition depots had been hit.

Again, Hezbollah, just as Hamas, is hiding behind civilians, with their HQ in the midst and under residential buildings, and their weapons caches similarly in civilian houses and neighborhoods. Israel doesn’t care anymore. They warn civilians that they are going to strike the south of Lebanon, and ask them to evacuate. They warn civilians that they are going to attack the weapon depots, and ask them to move away from them. But hit those targets, they will, and do.

From Telegram: “Iranian Officials state that a Group of Officers and Commanders with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG), including Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, the Deputy Commander of Operations for the IRGC as well as the Acting Commander of Quds Force Operations in Syria and Lebanon; were all Killed in yesterday’s Israeli Strike on Hezbollah’s Central Command Bunker in Beirut.” Tehran must be in full-blown panic now: even their own IRGC is being destroyed at the highest level!

And as cherry on the cake: within hours of replacing the killed leader, Nasrallah, with a replacement, Hassing Khalil Yassin, the IDF takes him out, too. The chaos is complete. No one is safe, and the vaunted thousands of rockets that Hezbollah had threatened Israel with are being blown up in their depots. The leaders, at every level, who could have planned the use or salvaging of those weapons are dead. Possible replacements are warned: ‘we know who you are, we know what you are deciding, and we’re coming for you!’ They have no means of communication they can trust anymore, and the safe human interactions are completely compromised, as well: there is no way Israel could carry out this incredible string of highly specific and targeted attacks in such a short time without massive intel from the ground, from people themselves.

Hezbollah is finished.

Even worse for them, and as something that might escape us as observers in and from the West, is their complete humiliation. After all the grandstanding and tough talk, and the decades of build-up and support from Iran, the billions in weapons that had been brought in and stored, Hezbollah got destroyed in 2 weeks. They could not retaliate. All talk.

They lost face, and that is fatal in the Arab world. Even if they can rebuild their organization, their prestige and image is irreparably torn to shreds, and will take forever to repair, if ever.

This is the absolute genius at play:
After the long and bloody struggle with Hamas, taking out Haniyeh in Tehran itself, Israel forced Iran to turn to Hezbollah as the only organization left to directly target and attack Israel with. Israel responds by taking out Hezbollah’s communication means, forcing them to meet in person (with high level Iranian generals), and then eliminates the top of the leadership in a single blow. In the complete chaos, Israel is now picking off the weapon depots and installations, one by one. No one is left who can communicate effectively and with authority to mitigate this or to counter this. Decades of time and billions of dollars to prepare Hezbollah up in smoke...

Hezbollah can’t respond in the state they are in. If they try, they will be fish in a barrel for the IDF troops who are hoping that their enemy would be that stupid. If they don’t respond, the IDF will keep dismantling them, and Hezbollah would completely lose any shred of respect they might have left. Total humiliation. Same with Iran: they can now only counter by attacking directly themselves.
They do have access to nuclear weapons now (thanks, Obama and Biden!), but will they dare? They know that any massive response will be answered with a swift and total annihilation by Israel. Israel might even strike preemptively, knowing ahead that such attack is coming, given that they have infiltrated Iran completely! What is left for them, but utter defeat?

They can cope, but they can’t hide from reality.

Is peace really being made possible? It is a hope that is now spreading like wildfire, all across the Middle East!

Still, even worse (I keep saying that, and I hope you can get the sense of the absolutely compounding levels of doom and destruction that has been meted out on Hezbollah!), the people in the Middle East are REJOICING!

At least the Sunni Muslims are dancing in the streets, celebrating the death of ‘that dog Nasrallah’. They are praising Netanyahu as the strong man who fought to destroy his enemy, and took out the force that had been destabilizing the Middle East for Decades. Remember, after the Palestinians fled in 1948, after the combined Arab armies failed to destroy the newly formed state of Israel, they were welcomed in Jordan, where they were given citizenship. In thanks for that welcome and support, they brought the violence to Jordan, and killed their king. Jordan kicked them out, first to Syria, who didn’t want anything to do with them, and then to Lebanon. There, the Palestinians started Hezbollah, and with their imported violence and mindset, set their new host country ablaze in a civil war. Where Christians, Jews and different factions of Muslims had lived in peace for centuries, they brought war and blood between brothers and friends as soon as they arrived.

Yes, Hezbollah has civil programs, providing education, healthcare, food, and other services to the people in Lebanon. Many there think Hezbollah is good, looking at those actions, and forget the violence and oppression that comes with that aid, and the danger they keep inviting by their attacks not just on Israel, but on fellow Arabs and Muslims.

So now people in Lebanon, Syria and other nations in the Middle East rejoice. Something broke, and Israel is the savior. We can’t imagine that, but it is what is happening right now.

As Amjad posted on X:

“Hezbollah in Lebanon won’t be like Hamas in Gaza, whose propaganda stirs misguided support. You won’t find protests backing this Lebanese militia. Tonight, the Middle East recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself and dismantle #Hezbollah —responsible for killing millions in Syria, hundreds in #Israel, and fueling the global drug trade. Israel’s resolute and precise action in eliminating Hezbollah terrorists is a testament to its strength and commitment to lasting peace. This moment marks a pivotal stand against terror, including the Muslim Brotherhood and the proxies of the Islamic regime in Iran, and it’s nothing short of inspiring.”

Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman spoke in January of this year with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and said that Palestine is not a personal priority for him, he cares only because his citizens think it is important. “Seventy percent of my population is younger than me. For most of them, they never really knew much about the Palestinian issue. And so they’re being introduced to it for the first time through this conflict. It’s a huge problem. Do I care personally about the Palestinian issue? I don’t, but my people do, so I need to make sure this is meaningful.” This account was called into question, as a Saudi official said this was incorrect, and a vast majority of Saudis still oppose normalization with Israel. Yet Bin Salman continues to allow Israel access to Saudi airspace, maintains Saudi investments in Israel, and preserves several avenues of contact and support. How much will the events of the last few weeks change that balance?

Silence, too, carries a price. Any civilian and innocent person who dies as ‘collateral damage’ is a tragedy, yet this is a question worth asking. How many knew and supported the terror groups?

As other commentators point out that “it took the Lebanese people only a week or two to stand up to the “all powerful” Hezbollah, yet how we’re still waiting 12 months later for anything remotely similar to happen in Gaza…”

Things are moving there, however slow, and however difficult. Gaza is a much more controlled and closed environment than Lebanon is, and Hamas has total control, where Hezbollah does not.

Remember this courageous Palestinian man? Likely not, so it is a privilege to honor this man and to make his courage known.

He posted a video on social media with a strong message, not even in support of Israel: "I am calling the whole world - save us from Hamas - before you save us from the Jews. Hamas is trading in our blood"

His body was found very shortly thereafter in the south of the Gaza Strip, as Hamas had slaughtered him.

It is my deepest wish, hope and prayer that we can reach peace in the Middle East. We see how strength is respected by the people in that region, and we see how Israel, despite all accusations, is very precise and limited in the violence it hands out, indeed without mercy at this point. This is what is needed, it seems. Not Western indecision and fake compassion, but weeding out those who want hatred and violence, and who keep acting on that.

Bring a reset, break the hold of the old groups and leaders over the whole region, and give the people hope again that peace is possible.

---

I wished I could end on that positive note, but reality is what it is.

After reports that surface to air missiles had been smuggled into the US, and about how more than a hundred people on the Terror Watch List have been signaled crossing the border, after reports of how the Venezuelan regime is very close with groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. A July 7, 2011 hearing before the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence was about ‘Hezbollah in Latin America – Implications for US Homeland Security’.

It states: “Our research--from open sources, subject-matter experts, and sensitive sources within various governments--has identified at least two parallel terrorist networks growing at an alarming rate in Latin America. One is operated by Hezbollah, aided by its collaborators, and another is managed by a cadre of notorious Qods operatives. These networks cooperate to carry out fundraising, money-laundering schemes, narcotics smuggling, proselytization, recruitment, and training. We can identify more than 80 operatives in at least 12 countries throughout the region (with the greatest areas of concern being Brazil, Venezuela, and the Southern Cone).”  Hezbollah and the Iranian Republican Guard (Quds).

This is not old news, as the National Security Journal published an article on August 22, 2024 about how Venezuela should be designated a State Sponsor of Terrorism. It stated: “Under the authoritarian rule of President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela has become a hub for illicit drug trafficking and a sanctuary for terrorist organizations. The Maduro regime has cultivated mutually beneficial relationships with armed groups such as Lebanese Hezbollah and Colombia's Marxist rebel group ELN, allowing them to exploit Venezuela's lawless environment for their own nefarious ends.”

With the absolutely porous border, thanks to Biden and Kamala Harris, we have no idea who is here. We know many Venezuelans, who have been given special treatment and easy access. Tens of thousands from the Middle East.

Any cell within the US might have standing orders and might act on their own. This is a real risk.

A lot of rot has been allowed to fester, and it is time to take strong, forceful action to excise terror not just from the Middle East, not just from the United States, but from the whole world. Giving in to terror will only create more terror.