Illustrative image. (The Israeli Defense Forces)
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on June 20 warned Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem to stay out of Israel’s ongoing conflict with Iran.
Exactly a week earlier, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran with the aim of crippling its nuclear program and degrading its offensive capabilities. Since then, the Islamic Republic has launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation.
“The Hezbollah leader hasn’t learned from his predecessors and is threatening to act against Israel,” said Katz, referring to former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last September.
“I suggest that the Lebanese proxy be careful, and understand that Israel has lost patience with the terrorists who threaten it,” Katz added, warning: “If there is terror — there will be no Hezbollah.”
In a statement released a day earlier, Qassem said that Hezbollah was “not neutral” in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
“Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance are not neutral between Iran’s legitimate rights and independence, and the falsehood of America, its aggression, along with the cancerous tumor Israel and the arrogant powers,” Qassem said.
“We stand with Iran in facing this global injustice because we stand for our independence, the liberation of our land, and the freedom of our decisions and choices,” he continued.
The leader added that the group “will act as we see appropriate in confronting this brutal Israeli-American aggression.”
The remarks came after United States special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack warned Hezbollah against getting involved in the war, saying it would be a “very bad decision.”
Since the U.S. brokered a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon last November, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has continued to launch strikes against Hezbollah members and infrastructure in the group’s heartland of southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.
On June 19, the IDF announced that it killed Yassin Izz a-Din, commander of Hezbollah’s rocket artillery unit in the Litani River sector, in a strike on the southern town of Barish the night before. Izz a-Din advanced numerous rocket attacks on northern Israel during the war, and was involved in “attempts to restore Hezbollah’s artillery forces,” according to the military.
On the same night, near the southern town of Nabatieh, the IDF said that it killed Mohammad Ahmad Khreiss, the alleged commander of Hezbollah’s anti-tank unit in the Shebaa area.
“During the war, the terrorist advanced numerous attacks against the State of Israel,” including an anti-tank missile attack on Mount Dov on April 26, 2024, which killed Sharif Sawaed, an IDF civilian contractor, the military said.
The IDF on June 19 killed a third Hezbollah member in a strike, saying he had been involved in efforts to restore the terror group’s infrastructure in the Houla area, also located in southern Lebanon.
On June 20, the commander of Hezbollah’s firepower unit in the Litani river area was targeted near the southern town of Shabriha, according to the IDF, which identified him as Mohammed Khader al-Husseini.
The military said that during the war, Husseini led numerous rocket attacks on Nahariya, Haifa and other northern towns. The commander was recently involved in efforts to restore Hezbollah’s rocket artillery capabilities, the IDF added, alleging that this was a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire in Lebanon.
Katz’s warning and the latest strikes on southern Lebanon shows that Israel is determined to keep maximum pressure on Hezbollah. While the group has refrained from responding to Israel’s acts since November, it is still too early to consider it out of the picture.
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if these commentators weren’t guided by a racist perspective, they would acknowledge that iran is a sovereign nation boldly standing up to the empire. in sharp contrast, israel seems like little more than a militarized extension of the west, utterly dependent on it. strangely, these same commentators seem to think that constantly calling for mommy is a respectable form of governance.
we can expect the us to launch its operation some time after the close of the stock markets in the us. the more they wait, they more israel takes in the face.
absolutely! we don’t need the algos trading the war news and end up with the sp500 down 8% heading into the weekend now do we? war is only on the weekends in the usa.
they love weekends it seems
pathetic hezbollah along with the rest of the so called “axis of resistance” just sits there and do what they are told. while meanwhile the israelis even in established ceasefire continues to assassinate and kill their leaders and bomb lebanon. hezbollah will obviously don’t matter what be exterminated like hamas, so they might as well fight with the iranians the last major power of the “axis of resistance.”
the jewish supremacist organized crime enclave in palestine has been tangling with hezbollah for forty years. a small guerilla organization with no major power state sponsor. iran is not a major power. silly jewish supremacist!
if muslim states had half a brain they would gang up on israel now and finally rid themselves of the regional cancer. but they are all judas except pakistan (obviously not counting non-state actors: houthis, hezbollah, hamas, and iraqi resistance. which should also coordinate with israel-iran conflict)
get a grip, derpster. there’s no ganging up on the jewish supremacist organized crime enclave in palestine. that state is literally the pointy end of the entire us military apparatus. so can a bunch of “muslim states” gang up on the us empire? please.
you hold the so called empire in too high regard. by your calculations, america should not think twice before entering the war alongside israel. whats the hold up, american idiot?
i don’t hold the us empire in any regard. it entails among other things, though, a massive economy and accompanying military industrial complex. rolled into that system is the jewish supremacist organized crime enclave in palestine. these are simply facts. sorry you’re a shitcocking bohunk derpster. better luck next time.
hi, again american idiot. so tell me, this vast economic power that america has, why wasn’t it able to eliminate the houthis? again, there you are idiot. being an idiot. dollars do not translate to military victories and american hardware has proven to be subpar in conventional modern warfare. try again?
not american, bohunk. if you are unaware of us economic power, there’s no helping you. that would indicate that you’re literally retarded. the american hardware hasn’t proven to be subpar in conventional modern warfare, anymore than the product of other military industrial complexes. russia is fighting a second-rate us satrap in the ukraine.
i can tell you are fat ass ugly american, key board warrior. it comes oozing out of your retarded posts
dead wrong, so what does that say about you, fuck-o?
hezbollah might not be at war with the idf but the idf is at war with hezbollah.
the idf is at war with the world, as a function of the us imperialist global counterinsurgency that started immediately at the end of ww2.
what started after ww2 was the cold war. the war against communism. and it started with the korean war. what an idiot. it is basic history even a child knows. the us hegemony that used the neoliberal economy model mantle. the hegemony is over and so is the neoliberal charade.
there was no war against communism, just a war to further us imperialism and colonialism. it began immediately in 1945, five years before the korean war. it must be terrible for you to be such an imbecile. you have my condolences.
the jewish supremacist organized crime enclave in palestine has unparalleled control of digital communications and thus unparalleled surveillance capacities. this is to some extent the equivalent of the british control of sea lanes from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. resistance groups like hezbollah will require initiative and adaptability to reform communication lines, but they’re not going to lie down and die for the jewish supremacists nor their us golem.
add in military products and you have the entire israeli gdp . all palestinian tested
it seems that the putin administration will also stand aside like they did in syria, iran will be allowed to fall. the miscalculations of the russian government these last ten years has been legendary. i guess the russian elites believe that their nuclear systems will in the end keep them safe while all those around them fall. they are highly mistaken and still don’t understand their enemy.
this is completely absurd. the calculation in ukraine was completely correct and it is the us that is retreating. ukraine is lost. syria is an empty victory for the west. in iran, the west may find itself again embroiled in a long protracted attrition war that it doesn’t want because it will prevent it from pivoting to asia. the decapitation strike failed and iran is now lengthening the conflict.
putin himself said he made a mistake in how he dealt with ukraine, which led to this now three year war of attrition. had he acted like a commander, like a leader and nipped it in the bud none of this would have happened & syria would still exist as the sovereign state.
syria is a hollow victory with no benefit while it is the us that is retreating from ukraine.
syria is an empty victory, this guy says, meanwhile israel launches the most devastating air campaign in history against iran and now has complete air superiority over iranian skies. there will be no long, protracted war in iran—the iranians have no allies left. even putin is making excuses, stating that their military pacts don’t require intervention, only that they not assist your enemies.
and we have no idea what support iran gets. but imagining that iran will fall like syria is completely out of touch with the reality of what the war and the sanctions did to syria. iran is not quite in the same position.
people were saying with russia there that syria would not fall, and people who thought it might were out of touch with reality. it seems like it is someone else who is out of touch. if iran has to fight the american empire and its lackeys alone it will fall; that is the reality.
nobody cares about what “people were saying”. syria falling provides no benefit to the west. that’s it.
sure, it does. it cuts out a major iranian ally which was supplying weapons and other goods to hezbollah.
syria fell _after_ hezbollah had stopped attacking israel. do you think that hezbollah would have invaded israel ? of course not. it’s a nuisance, but certainly not any existential threat to israel. what is is being in a constant state of war, with all the consequences on the israeli population. and this is still ongoing.
israel is a 100% puppet state created first by the british and then taken over by the americans. it is in their dna to fight perpetual war, that is the reason for thier being, they have no other reason. that’s why they have to fool the world into believing that they are the ancient hebrews. israel is our unseekable aircraft carrier in the middleeast. it will not fall and it will continue to wage war. as long as it’s master pumps it with weapons and money.
israel has had sporadic wars during its existence, with some terrorism. you may think that it is ‘your’ unsinkable aircraft carrier. but you will have to realize to being in a _constant_ state of war for years on end with more and more massive destruction unleashed on it will send its dual passports citizens away. that is the existential threat it is facing.
the jewish supremacist organized crime enclave in palestine was sold as an outpost of the us empire faced off against wicked commies/mooslims, but like al capone, it usurped its patron. will the end come like the fictional scarface, or will it die clapped out like the real scarface?
i would like to note that having baerbock 360 having her face pixelated on syrian tv when she visited syria was a nice cherry on top. spend trillions of dollars building a democracy safe for women in afghanistan, retreat in defeat and then welcome the exact same kind of people in syria. what a victory.
the western beast power now controls syria, another major domino down.
syria in a wasteland and has no benefit for the west. it not a major domino by any stretch of imagination.
you are completely wrong, learn some geopolitics and stop bloviating.
still no benefit explained.
i already explained the benefit you don’t know how to read.
and i explained that is fox news level of understanding reality that you president is so fond of. hezbollah never was an existential threat to israel. constant war is an existential threat to the very existence of israel. like people just leaving the country. capicce ? hezbollah is just a tool for that, and mind you, it is still there.
it is now a staging area for zionist wars and terrorist camps
the americans don’t control syira, it’s literally out of control like libya.
they control it through al qaeda, like they do other nations.
they don’t control it, they deploy el kayduh because they’re incapable of controlling it. same wind-up jihadis were deployed in iraq, libya and syria. nato commandos literally helped move some of them from one theatre to the other.
they do control it through their proxies. al qaeda is a cia invention, a baby it has nursed since the 1980’s in afghanistan.
thanks for the update, walt cronkite. the americans built the jihadis, with the help of the british, pakistanis, saudis and chinese. but they do not control them beyond training, arming and providing logistical support. they are used to blow up regions that the us cannot control with puppets.
for fourteen years the russians worked in syria against the us and jewish supremacist wind-up jihadis. thanks for derping.
what they did was the minimum, and when it got a little too difficult, they just bailed, durp.
there is no point in wasting resources in a lost fight. syria is a hollow victory for the west that provides almost no benefits. holding it 14 years is a victory in itself, as it empeded the empire that long. you keep harping about syria but fail to point to any benefit. you don’t know sh*t except what you hear on fox news (ie lies).
syria was not lost and was very strategic for the resistance access. its loss is a major blow, which is what is allowing them to now go after iran, put the dots together.
in 14 years, iran had time to build a lot of missiles that israel is surprised to receive in the face. israel is embroiled is a multifront war that is literaly destroying it. as iran is bombarding israel quite precisely, this was obviously time well spent. geopolitics is a game a bit more complex and in a lot more of dimensions than you seem to realize.
i think it is you who fail to realize simple geopolitical concepts. you have the understanding of a fairly knowledgeable teenager.
sure man… just keep repeating ad hominem attacks and sound bites. at least you can pretend to yourself that you understand. syria was crucial to (what ?) hezbollah and that is why israel is threatening it : because it can’t do shit. also syria is important to attack iran because iraqi and jordan airspaces are not completely under us control. yeah, ok.
so did they stand aside or did they do the minimum? get your talking points sorted, derpster.
since you don’t know english very well. they did the minimum and stepped aside after it got too difficult, learn to read..
the minimum is nothing. did they do nothing? when obummer had to reel in his “no-fly zonez” it didn’t look like nothing, did it dipshit?
so minimum and nothing are the same meaning? you really need to take an english class.
the minimum, in this case, would be nothing. was preventing the no-fly zone the minimum? would doing nothing be less than preventing the no-fly zone? thanks for derping, shitcock.
allowed to fall ? hasbara terms
these israelis sound really whiny as if they just got smacked for the first time in their lives. katz has never felt pain but it will arrive like a sledgehammer on his fat, entitled head
benjamin mileikowski and katz should surrender people in israel were sleeping every night peacefully while people in gaza,palistine,raqqa syiria,irag,yemen were crying and sleeping outside in cold and rain.
if natayhu mileikowski and katz failed to surrender all big buildings and military facilities including demona will be flatten.you were denying this chargers now why are you crying for justice if you kill other nd leave babies without mothers nd fathers to feed them.tell the world that what happen now to your visiting country is legal and fair.eye for and eye.
murder create rhetoric repeat . you kind of have to laugh at the absurdity of israeli statements
hizzybolly a big disappointment
for whom? certainly the jewish supremacist organized crime enclave in palestine has seen a lot of disappointment trying to deal with the tiny non-state guerilla band for the last forty years.