The Golan Ablaze: Are Hezbollah and Iran Behind It?

by Jerry Gordon and Ilana Freedman (February 2015)

IDF soldiers aid wounded comrade on Golan
Source: AFP/Getty Images/NYPost.com

Overnight, IAF struck several military targets in Syria in response to four rockets fired from Syria into Golan Heights on Tuesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We will respond with force against those who try to challenge us.”

According to preliminary reports, an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit an Israel Defense Forces vehicle patrolling the border in the Har Dov area on Wednesday morning. The vehicle went up in flames and multiple casualties were [reported].

Lebanese authorities said the IDF then fired at least 35 artillery shells into Lebanon following the incident.

[…]

Meanwhile, several IDF positions in the northern Golan Heights near the borders with Lebanon and Syria were also hit by mortar shells. Subsequently, the IDF evacuated civilians from the Mount Hermon area. Residents of border-adjacent communities in the north were instructed to enter bomb shelters.

Two Israeli Soldiers Killed in Attacks Claimed by Lebanon’s Hezbollah.”

Some Israeli and foreign mainstream media believe this may be retaliation by Hezbollah for the IAF attack, January 18^th that took out a convoy in Quneitra, Syria, on the Golan frontier, killing 4 and injuring 6 senior Hezbollah and Iranian commanders. The causalities were confirmed by Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and Iran’s Supreme Ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei. They included Iranian Revolutionary Guards General Allahdadi and Jihad Mughniyah, son of the terrorist mastermind, Imad Mugniyah.

killed by Israel’s Mossad in a February 2008 bombing of his vehicle following his attendance at a celebration at the Iranian Embassy commemorating the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah confirmed that a Senior Hezbollah leader had been arrested and confessed as a possible agent for Israeli Intelligence.

warned about possible invasion of the Galilee in Israel and use of “sophisticated missiles.” Israel’s air force conducted raids last month on Damascus international airport and Dimas on the Lebanese border. Those raids on December 8, 2014 may have destroyed Russian equipment that might have deployed to counter a proposed no-fly Zone inside Syria. The IAF has conducted several prior raids that included targeting longer range Iranian–supplied Fateh-110 missiles. Hezbollah has been engaged in actions in Syria and along the Lebanon border fighting Sunni opposition forces. Its casualties in the nearly four year civil war have steadily mounted.

This latest cross border exchange followed the January 18^th Quneitra, Syria IAF attack. This may be reflective of the Hezbollah threat cited by former Israeli National Security Adviser Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Armidror in a Begin-Sadat Center Strategic Studies report:

“The strongest of [threats facing Israel] is Hezbollah, which was formed with a dual purpose in mind. It represents Iran’s long reach in the area and against Israel, while at the same time it aims to control Lebanon, where the Shi’ites are the largest ethnic group.”

Hezbollah most closely resembles an army, and its arsenal has more than 150,000 missiles and rockets, several thousand of which can target any area in Israel.

“This rare and substantial firepower apparently even exceeded the firepower possessed by most of the European states combined,” Amidror said in the report.

Additionally, Hezbollah is armed with surface-to-sea missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, drones and modern anti-tank missiles.

“It is well organized into a military-style hierarchy and appears to possess command and control systems of high quality. It was established by Iranian leaders, but its leadership has always consisted of Lebanese people who were closely linked to Iran’s interests,” the report continued. “Hezbollah assisted the Shi’ites by providing for their needs in the civilian sphere as a base for building its military power.”

‘Hezbollah Terror Tunnel’ Video Shatters Ya’alon’s Claims:

We disclosed in an August 2014 Iconoclast post, “How Israel’s Military Bureaucracy Bungled the Terror Tunnel Threat” that the Hezbollah tunneling threat to Northern Israel was known as early as 2010:

The Times of Israel reported the IDF is trying to reassure vulnerable Northern residents that the tunnel threat may not exist, “IDF combs north for possible attack Tunnels.” That may be related to possible tests of a new tunnel detection system rushed to completion after the disaster in Israel’s south. That was occasioned by the failure of Israeli intelligence to discover Hamas attack tunnels dug with Hezbollah assistance and Qatar funding during Operation Protective Edge. Or it may be, as reported in the Jerusalem Post that: “The IDF has begun drilling in search for possible tunnels” near the Lebanese border.

column, suggested that perhaps Hezbollah’s Nasrallah may not be immediately inclined to unleash a cross border war:

Bergman attributes that assessment to several factors, among them:

[…]

Ronen concludes:

Keying off Ronen’s assessment, it may be that the rockets, mortars and anti-tank weapons fired into the Golan from Lebanon and Syria that set off IDF responses may have been from both Al-Nusrah and ISIS. These Jihadists are fighting both Assad and Hezbollah forces left in the vicinity. However Bergman’s assessment of Hezbollah’s future plans may be overly simplistic.

Nasrallah is caught between a logistical rock and a hard place. On the one hand, his mission to strike an annihilating blow against Israel is an integral part of Hezbollah’s founding mission:

Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.

To this end, Iran has been supplying Hezbollah with its immense armory of over 150,000 rockets and missiles (50,000 more than four years ago) and the military equipment to support them. They have also constructed a complex network of tunnels throughout southern Lebanon to facilitate their secret transport across the country.

Nasrallah’s forces are stretched thin, with thousands of his fighters in Syria, supporting the government of Iran’s client, Bashir Assad, against the terrorist forces of ISIS, al Qaeda, al Nusrah and several other smaller, less organized terrorist groups. The possibility of opening up a second front against Israel while Hezbollah forces are so badly divided may give Nasrallah pause.

Sheikh Naim Qassem accused Israel of trying to lay down new rules in its conflict with Hezbollah. He said, “Israel is too weak to be able to draw new steps or new rules. . . . We will continue our jihad and we will be where we should be without (allowing) anything to stand in our way.” He no doubt believed his own words.

Qassem did not consider two things: Israel is anything but weak, and, in a battle for its survival, Israel is prepared and will do what is necessary to prevail. In the end, however, everything will depend on the dynamics of the evolving war that is expanding throughout the Middle East. The flash point may be in Iraq or Syria, or it may be on the Israeli border. The decision does not have to be logical or militarily sound. This is, after all, the Middle East.

Israel has moved batteries of Iron Dome missiles as its first line of defense against Hezbollah missiles, but these are defensive systems. Israel will not start a war without serious provocation. All the more reason why they must be ready for whatever Nasrallah decides to do, whether it begins with a small cross border attack or a major assault with rockets and missiles.

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