It seemed crystal clear on Thursday: the IDF counter-invasion of Gaza would start either Friday or Saturday.

The IDF had given certain deadlines for Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza, with the deadlines expiring by midday Friday.

The drum beat toward an invasion had started as early as Sunday-Monday and was only getting louder, with the air force having already paved the way with several days of withering bombing.

Yet, now we have arrived at late Monday, and if anything, the signs (which could also be psychological warfare) are that the invasion is further away, and not yet imminent.

What changed?
A number of factors seem to have caused a delay, but sources have told The Jerusalem Post that one factor has been a growing concern that Hezbollah is waiting for the moment that most IDF ground forces are committed to Gaza to open a full front with the IDF in the north.

In this narrative, the fact that Hezbollah did not engage at the start of the war Saturday morning and has kept its attacks on Israel at a fairly low threshold does not prove that it is deterred but is part of an elaborate fake-out to lure the IDF into a false sense of security, similar to what Hamas pulled off in the south.

As fodder for such suspicions, sources would note that Israeli intelligence and the political echelon must have a new level of humility about their assessments of enemy intentions after missing the boat regarding Hamas in the south.

This will not stop the IDF from invading Gaza, but it may have caused a delay to better double-check signs regarding Hezbollah's intentions as well as to further reinforce the northern forces in case the worst comes to pass.

There is also a deepening recognition in the IDF and at the political level, that the IDF has not done anything like this in decades, and that rushing in unprepared, simply to more quickly satisfy the wider population's thirst for retribution, could be a large mistake.

In this perspective, the 2006 Second Lebanon War ground invasion was a complete mess, with the airpower being the successful part, with both the 2008-9 and 2014 invasions of Gaza being more symbolic.

In other words, with all of the many "rounds" of conflict, the IDF should not be overconfident about its talent at conducting large land invasion operations.

Strategy against Hamas

While achieving strategic "surprise" would be impossible given that Hamas started this war, the IDF would also like to achieve at least a tactical surprise against Hamas, which requires planning.

A number of other delaying factors could be US pressure to avoid civilian casualties, domestic concerns about Israeli hostages in Gaza, and giving more time for Palestinians to evacuate.

Another factor is the US and world response to date.

Currently, Israel feels huge support and like it has more time to work with to deal with Hamas.

One question that arises at this point though is whether top IDF and civilian leaders are misjudging the clock.

According to Hamas' numbers, already a couple thousand Palestinians are dead and many more wounded. In 2014, when 2,000 Palestinians were killed, at least half were civilians despite the IDF's attempts to avoid civilian casualties.

Such is the fog of war.

The second that those numbers balloon, which will likely be when the invasion starts in a real way, there will be powerful US and world pressure to stop.

Also, the Post has confirmed from many sources that no one has yet decided what will happen to Gaza after the IDF will supposedly topple Hamas' rule.

This and all of the other above factors have left top Israeli officials huffing and puffing for new superlatives for what they will do to Hamas...while still basically having done very little new for about a week.

Only after the war will we know whether this extra time was spent wisely crafting a smarter and more effective invasion and post-invasion plan, or whether the delay will be looked back on as having wasted precious days to "change the reality in Gaza" and avoid future near term Hamas attacks.

Changes in the Middle East in recent years have made it more likely that violence in one place could ignite violence elsewhere. That’s because Iran has worked to knit anti-Israel forces in different countries into an increasingly tight web.

Israel has viewed Hezbollah as its most formidable foe since they fought to a standstill in a monthlong war in 2006 that killed more than 1,000 Lebanese and 165 Israelis. Hezbollah’s members are highly trained, have an arsenal of tens of thousands of rockets and possess precision-guided missiles that can pummel targets deep in Israeli territory.

Hezbollah’s arsenal, which includes air-defense capabilities, makes it much more dangerous to Israel than Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, said Orna Mizrahi, a retired Israeli deputy national security adviser. “They have long-range missiles, precision-guided missiles, well-developed cybercapabilities,” she said, all handing Hezbollah the ability to cause “much wider harm to the civilian population” in Israel.

Founded with Iranian guidance in the 1980s as a resistance force against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, Hezbollah became the prototype for the kind of militias Iran is now backing around the region. Hezbollah has evolved into a virtual arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, providing the connective tissue for the growing network of powerful militias.

Originally Posted By 9divdoc:
Biden Administration Discussed US Intervention If Hezbollah Launches Full-Scale Attack On Israel: Report
The Pentagon has said there are no plans to have American boots on the ground in combat roles.

Originally Posted By 9divdoc:
[url=https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2023/10/17/did-hamas-rocket-misfire-just-take-out-a-hospital-in-gaza-city-n2629969]Hundreds Killed by Islamic Jihad After Misfire Causes Explosion at Gaza City Hospital[/ur]

Following a blast at a hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, Hamas immediately claimed that an Israel Defense Forces strike was to blame — but the evidence does not support such claims from Hamas officials pretending to be impartial government ministers inside the Gaza Strip. In fact, the evidence disproves what Hamas — and many of its sympathizers in the media and politics — have said.
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Instead of what Hamas rushed to claim, it appears the attempt to blame Israeli forces and further demonize Israel and its people is nothing more than scrambling to draw attention away from the mass-casualty event that was, in fact, the result of a misfired Hamas or another Iran-backed terrorist's rocket and, potentially simultaneously, an attempt to cover up the fact that Hamas was again using a hospital to house terrorist infrastructure and weapons stockpiles.

Here's some of the video circulating that shows the cause of the explosion:

   #BREAKING: Local footage reported to have been the failed launch. https://t.co/XfeUeKaFGy pic.twitter.com/4lXYhcVdMY
   — Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) October 17, 2023

In addition, Al Jazeera unwittingly broadcast live video of the terrorist rocket misfiring and blowing up the hospital in Gaza City.

   An Al Jazeera broadcast documented the moment that the Islamic Jihad launched a rocket which misfired and hit a hospital in Gaza, killing hundreds. pic.twitter.com/O5Lx1BtOtJ
   — Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 17, 2023

The blast occurred just minutes after a large barrage of Hamas rockets were fired toward Tel Aviv and Hamas reportedly announced that they were in the process of launching their "most robust weapons" at Haifa just before the hospital explosion — but no such weapon reached Haifa.
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Hey, Liberal Media, Did You Miss This Part About That Dental Student From Gaza?
Matt Vespa

Originally Posted By 9divdoc:
Biden Administration Discussed US Intervention If Hezbollah Launches Full-Scale Attack On Israel: Report
The Pentagon has said there are no plans to have American boots on the ground in combat roles.

Dirar Belhoul Al-Falasi, a member of the UAE's Federal National Council, said in an October 13, 2020 interview on Kwait's Diwan Al-Mulla Online TV: "People from the Red Crescent told us that they built a hospital [in Gaza]... This hospital was for treating Palestinians. People from Hamas fired a rocket from the hospital's roof, so that Israel would bomb this hospital. Just see how low they can go..."

Speaking on an Al-Jazeera TV show amid the 2014 round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, American-Egyptian writer Magdi Khalil criticized Hamas' claim to have the moral high ground, saying:

"Is it moral to launch missiles from hospitals, from schools, from bedrooms, from mosques, and from the roof of a church, where thousands of Gazans had found refuge? The church's priest was interviewed on CBN and said: "From the roof of this church, Hamas members are launching missiles at Israel. We welcomed them in our church, but they began launching missiles at Israel from the roof." Is this the moral high ground that my colleague is talking about?!

"Is it moral for Hamas leaders to hide in Al-Shifa Hospital, thus risking the lives of regular people? Is this the moral high ground? They are fleeing like rats, hiding behind patients in Gaza hospitals. Is it moral for Hamas leaders to hide behind these patients?

"They garner sympathy over the corpses of children. This is part of the strategy of the Islamists. They consider sympathy garnered over the corpses of children to be a victory…

"The whole world knows that Hamas does not care about the spirit of humanity. They do not care about the children, about their people, about the losses, about the destruction of their country, or about the number of casualties.

In a speech he delivered at the Arab American University in Jenin in October 13, 2009, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas noted that, during the round of fighting between Israel and Gaza in December 2008/January 2009, Hamas leaders had used ambulances to flee Gaza, leaving the populace to do without these emergency vehicles.

He said: "When the [Israeli] aggression took place, [Hamas leaders] in Gaza and abroad said: 'We don’t care if Gaza is erased.'

They do not care if Gaza is erased. All they care about is that the Hamas movement continue to exist. They said this. Haniya and Mash’al said: We don’t care what happens. Mash’al went even further and said: 'What is happening in Gaza is insignificant and does not affect us.' Then they said that the Hamas movement is alive and well.

"The Hamas movement was hiding under the domes [of mosques]. The Hamas leaders – and I say this for the first time – fled to the Sinai in ambulances, leaving their people behind to be slaughtered. Then they say: We put up resistance."

Researcher Amjad Taha, a regional director at the British Middle East Center for Studies and Research (BMCSR), said in  a November 2018 interview on Russia Today that Hamas was launching missiles at Israel from the roofs of schools and hospitals on orders from Qatar and in coordination with Iran, provoking Israel to respond.

"What is happening in Gaza now is that Hamas, at the order of Qatar – from which it has just received funds – and in coordination with Iran, is firing missiles from the roofs of schools and hospitals, and then the other side is retaliating against them. They are blood merchants who follow the orders of Iran."

In his December 4, 2015 column on the liberal website Elaph.com, Kurdish-Iraqi writer Mehdi Majid 'Abdallah stated that Palestinians were harmed by Israeli fire because Hamas was using mosques and schools as launch pads for its rockets. He wrote:  "The Palestinian women and children who are killed in the Israeli army's defensive war against Hamas are not killed deliberately. They are collateral damage, for any war has innocent victims…  Were it not for the reckless actions of Hamas, which constantly fires rockets into extensive parts of Israel [where] peaceful [people live], there would have been no innocent victims, because Israel's actions are directed against the terrorists…

If the Palestinians want to avoid being harmed by Israeli fire, they should prevent Hamas from using their homes, mosques and schools [as bases from which] to launch its terrorist rockets at Israel."

I hear IDF Col. Golan Vach being interviewed...describing some of the challenges he’s encountered in this tragedy, including removing 120 bodies from a bonfire constructed by Hamas of its victims at the Supernova outdoor music festival, where over 260 people were massacred.

At Be’eri, where a sizable number of the 2,000-plus terrorists headed in pickup trucks and on motorbikes after bursting through the border nine days ago, the bodies of the 103 residents slaughtered here have been removed. So, too, the bodies of those in uniform who fell in the kibbutz’s defense. And the bodies of over 100 terrorists.

The fighting in the wider area raged for 50 hours — until the last of the terrorists was dealt with, and the threats to the Gaza-envelope area’s residents were deemed over. By then, a tenth of this kibbutz’s population was dead.

A failure to comprehend the nature of the enemy

...there was a belief inside the IDF that Hamas’s increasing professionalism would one day mean a harder struggle for the army, not that the terror group’s improved killing skills would continue to be primarily directed against civilians.

Despite the suicide bombings, summer camps training young kids to kill, and the bloodthirsty rhetoric, there was, in our army, a failure to comprehend that Hamas simply wants to kill Jews, and that its evolution into an increasingly effective and disciplined fighting force would do nothing to make it any less savage. (This, of course, parallels the political and security leadership’s assessment that Hamas could and had been deterred, that it could be bought off with the permitted influxes of Qatari money, and that it was interested in governance rather than slaughter.)

...one of the key details that emerged from our horror tour of Be’eri — ...the prime targets were the civilians.

Those who fought in this area quickly noticed car after Israeli car with the trunk open, the contents strewn on the ground, and the spare tire missing. At first, they thought the vehicles had been looted. But why take only the tires? And then they realized this was part of the Hamas planning — taking the tires to help set fire to the homes where many residents were trying to protect themselves in their saferooms, and either to burn them alive inside or to shoot them when they were forced out by the flames and the smoke.

...the Air Force could not use its capabilities effectively inside Israel, where the terrorists, the IDF and civilians were in close proximity, for fear of killing our own people. (Update, October 18: Many of the terrorists, I neglected to mention when I first published this piece, had donned army and army-style uniforms, to make the task of the IDF troops still more confusing and dangerous.)

...our leaders muster the strategic and tactical wisdom to ensure,...no more delusions about the enemy they are fighting. Hamas, as I’ve written before, will be on home ground, and believes it is luring Israel into a death trap. It will have known that Israel will enter Gaza after October 7, and it may well know more about Israel’s capabilities and plans having overrun IDF bases that black day.

The renowned Moroccan liberal intellectual Tahar ben Jelloun, idol of the left in Europe, wrote in the French media outlet Le Point: "The Palestinian cause died on October 7, 2023, murdered by fanatic elements mired in an Islamist ideology of the worst kind." Indeed, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can no longer be resolved with the paradigms of pre-October 7. They are dead and gone. It is a new reality.

No Israeli now would agree to put his security in the hands of Arabs. The experiment of Oslo... is a concept that collapsed with many tragedies over the last 30 years. Now it has been blown to bits,

What the savage Nazi organization Hamas did is one thing. But what has been revealed across the Arab and Muslim world is another. Of the world's 150 million Arabs, only two or three liberal Muslims came out publicly against Hamas. There are surely a few more who dare not speak lest they be murdered.

The heart of the masses is with Hamas the Arab world has never come to terms with Israel's existence, and whenever there is war – as on October 7 – the prevailing sentiment among the people..supports the annihilators

The Palestinians have no figure like the Germans had after the Nazi era...Abbas is a political corpse. Those who think they can install him in Gaza are delusional. He will not assume control of Gaza, and if he tries, he will be assassinated by Hamas.

While Iran is responsible for Hamas's military...Qatar is the one behind the October 7 attack. Hamas is Qatar and Qatar is Hamas, and Qatar joined in the war on Israel via Hamas. The blood of the Israeli citizens is on the hands of Qatar Emir Tamim Aal Thani and of his family – and on the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ...collaborated with Qatar in funneling $1.5 billion to Hamas to build its military forces.

Netanyahu allowed himself to be deceived, for reasons that still need to be understood. What he said to many in the defense establishment, political circles, and media was that he was buying Hamas. He never bought Hamas; he sold our lives. Every missile, every killer, every munition, every piece of military equipment, every tunnel – is Qatar.

Gaza as a center of life will cease to exist; it will become military terrain for Israel and its enemies, whoever they may be, for the next decade, with recurring flareups every year or two.

Anyone who dares to continue shooting from there at Israel – like the Japanese soldier who, after World War II, thought the war was still going on – will be bombed. There will also be no civilian return to Gaza until full security is guaranteed, perhaps in a decade or two.

Gaza's southern area will become a huge refugee camp, that will exist for decades.

Israel should immediately declare that it is ready to free all terrorist prisoners in its jails in exchange for all Israeli and non-Israeli hostages in Gaza. This is a moral imperative that the Israeli government must undertake immediately. If Hamas considers obtaining the release of all its prisoners a victory, as Gaza is gradually leveled to the ground, so be it.

Originally Posted By michigan66:
Long but interesting commentary from a former counter-terrorism official for multiple Israeli governments.

About the future

Mass Terror
Last spring, Hamas was already sensing isolation. Some observers—in Israel, the Arab world, and the West—perceived Hamas to be on the ropes. Around the same time, intelligence about a pending attack—electronic chatter and word from informants—began setting off alarm bells inside Israel’s stereotypically anxious security establishment.

The threat, indeed, is all too plausible to Israeli intelligence officials, who agreed to share with Vanity Fair the backstory of how earlier this year they may have narrowly averted their nation’s own 9/11. The alleged plan of attack ...was chilling: a surprise assault in which scores of heavily armed Hamas insurgents were supposedly set to emerge from more than a dozen cross-border tunnels and proceed to kill as many Israelis as possible.

“Hamas had a plan,” says Lt. Col. Lerner, summarizing on the record what six senior intelligence officials would describe on background. “A simultaneous, coordinated, surprise attack within Israel. They planned to send 200 terrorists armed to the teeth toward civilian populations. This was going to be a coordinated attack. The concept of operations involved 14 offensive tunnels into Israel. With at least 10 men in each tunnel, they would infiltrate and inflict mass casualties.”

As for the Nukhba fighters (Hamas unit tasked to carry out the attack) the Shin Bet official tells Vanity Fair, “They were an elite force . . . [trained] to execute strategic terrorist attacks. . . . [For the eventual operation, they would be] heavily armed: R.P.G.s, Kalashnikovs, M-16s, hand grenades, and night-vision equipment.” To maximize the element of surprise, they would wear—as can be seen from their own videos—I.D.F. uniforms, including mitznefet, the distinctive helmet covers worn by Israeli soldiers.

As a senior military intelligence official later explained, the anticipated attack was designed with two purposes in mind. “First, get in and massacre people in a village. Pull off something they could show on television. Second, the ability to kidnap soldiers and civilians using the tunnels would give them a great bargaining chip.”

Reports would later surface that Hamas’s main attack was planned to coincide with the Jewish New Year—Rosh Hashanah—in September 2014.

The next day (after Israel bombed a tunnel killing Hamas fighters), all hell broke loose, with Hamas firing some 150 rockets. Over the next 10 days, Hamas would send some 1,500 more, while the Israeli air force and navy would pound sites in Gaza with little letup.

Despite warnings by Israel to leave their homes, thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire. Human-rights groups charged that Israel failed to exercise sufficient restraint when hitting populated areas. Israel argues that Hamas used local citizens as human shields and fired rockets from civilian areas.

Once the I.D.F. entered Gaza, dodging R.P.G.s and fire from heavy machine guns, says Alian, they came to a harsh realization: “Entire houses were rigged to explode and collapse on our soldiers. There were all sorts of explosive devices. Some [were set to be] triggered by cell phones and other remote controls. Others were pressure activated and hidden under ordinary looking house tiles.”

In the end, with large portions of the Gaza Strip reduced to rubble by Israeli planes and artillery, he (Khalid Mishal, head of Hamas) failed to win any of his big-ticket items (a new airport and seaport, and the release of Hamas prisoners held by Israel) and instead acceded to an Egyptian framework, which, had he accepted it weeks earlier (as Netanyahu had), might have spared hundreds of Palestinian lives.

Netanyahu has an entirely separate set of problems. After being accused of using excessive force in Gaza that disproportionately killed or maimed civilians, including an estimated 500 children, the U.N. Human Rights Council opened a war-crimes inquiry. In world capitals, support for Israel’s policies is waning and anti-Semitism is back with a vengeance. Across Europe, there are calls to officially recognize a Palestinian state, and last week the former Israeli ambassador to the European Union conceded, “The problem is that we are drastically losing public opinion,” in the wake of scuttled peace talks and the Gaza war.

At the same time, members of Netanyahu’s own security cabinet say he failed to go far enough to decimate or expel Hamas’s leadership once and for all. Instead, the prime minister signed what some contend was a conciliatory ceasefire. Not only did it lack Israel’s central demand—the demilitarization of Gaza—but it actually allowed building materials back in, a concession that intelligence sources fear may help Hamas reconstitute its elaborate network of tunnels, which Netanyahu himself had cited as justification for launching a ground war. As for the Israeli public, there is lingering anger that the vaunted security establishment, which Netanyahu oversees, appears to have left the nation vulnerable to an elaborate and unthinkable attack from below.

Under Palestinian Authority law, every terrorist who is killed attacking Israel is defined as a “Martyr” whose family is immediately rewarded by the PA with a 6,000 shekels ($1,511) grant and a 1,400 ($353) per month allowance for life.

This means each family of the 1,500 dead Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel will receive 7,400 shekels for this first month. Families of those terrorists who were married and had children will receive even more. The PA will pay at least 11,100,000 shekels ($2,789,430) this month as a reward for participating in last week’s murders and atrocities against Israeli civilians.

In addition, the 50 captured Hamas terrorist murderers will receive monthly salaries in prison starting at 1,400 shekels/month which will eventually rise to 12,000 shekels/month. Terrorists who are married and have children will receive even higher salaries. This month these newly arrested terrorists will receive at least 70,000 shekels ($17,590).

The Palestinian Authority should be sending a big thank you to the EU countries and Norway, currently the largest funders of the PA because the PA could not possibly make these terror payments without them. These donor countries like to pretend that it’s not their money rewarding terrorists, but everyone knows that the PA could not reward terrorists without this generous foreign funding. When payments to teachers, police, and street cleaners are taken care of by international donors, the PA has the hundreds of millions available it needs to pay for terror.

A senior Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah, who requested anonymity, said Hamas leaders are beginning to realize that they have been left to confront Israel alone. The tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border have still not escalated into an all-out war, the Palestinians in the West Bank have not launched a new intifada, and most of the Arab Israelis are sitting on the fence, the official noted.

He cautioned, nonetheless, that the situation could change after an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

“A lot depends on what happens once the Israeli army enters the Gaza Strip,” the official said.

Hamas yet to give up on the ‘unity of the battlefields’ against Israel

By KHALED ABU TOAMEH  

Prior to the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, leaders of the group seemed confident that the “axis of resistance” would immediately attack Israel once a war erupts in the Gaza Strip.

Thursday’s escalation along the border between Israel and Lebanon has revived Hamas’s hope of fulfilling its vision of the “unity of the battlefields,” which aims to trigger a multi-front confrontation with Israel.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the firing of dozens of rockets at Israeli army bases and communities. Hamas is desperate to drag Hezbollah into the war.

Hezbollah, for its part, is seeking to send a message to Hamas that the Lebanon-based group has not abandoned its Palestinian allies and is ready to join the war.

According to the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper, an operation room involving all members of the “axis of resistance,” including Hamas and Hezbollah, has been set up to coordinate military activities in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

The increased tensions in northern Israel came less than 48 hours after Hamas leaders expressed concern over the failure of Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah, to join the fight against Israel. Despite the concern, Hamas has still not given up its hope that Hezbollah would ultimately join the war.

Unity of the Battlefields
In the past few years, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have been promoting the idea of “wihdet al-sahat” (unity of the battlefields), which envisions other parties joining the fighting during another war with Israel. In addition to Hezbollah, these parties include Iran, the West Bank, east Jerusalem, Arab Israelis, the Yemen-based Houthis, and Syria.

In 2022, PIJ named its three-day military confrontation with Israel as the “Battle of the Unity of the Battlefields.” That confrontation erupted after Israeli security forces arrested Bassam al-Sa’adi, a senior PIJ activist from Jenin.

Yet the name PIJ chose for the confrontation did not match the reality on the ground as the group was left to fight alone while Hamas was sitting on the fence. Hamas also chose not to get involved in last May’s Israel-PIJ confrontation, which erupted after Israel killed three military commanders of PIJ.

Prior to the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel, leaders of the group seemed confident that the “axis of resistance” would immediately attack Israel once a war erupts in the Gaza Strip.

Judging from the statements of the Hamas leaders, they were also pinning high hopes on the “armed resistance” in the West Bank. The past two years have seen the emergence of a number of armed groups in the West Bank that are affiliated with Hamas and PIJ. These groups include the Jenin Battalion and the Lions’ Den. These leaders were also hoping that many Arab Israelis would take to the streets and engage in violent attacks against Israelis, as was the case in 2021.

The clashes that erupted along the Israel-Lebanon border over the past two weeks have been welcomed by Hamas as a sign that the “unity of the battlefields” is finally happening. However, some Hamas leaders did not conceal their disappointment over Hezbollah’s failure to launch a major attack on Israel.

Hamas officials Khaled Mashaal and Musa Abu Marzouk have been quoted as expressing disappointment with the failure of the “axis of resistance” to join the fight against Israel.

“The reaction of the axis of resistance to the event [the Israel-Hamas war] is disappointing,” said Abu Marzouk.

“The steps of Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria are insufficient,” complained Mashaal. “History is not made with timid and hesitant steps.”

This criticism has also been reflected in comments made by some Palestinians and Arabs who have been mocking Hamas for believing the belligerent statements, threats, and promises of Iranian and Hezbollah leaders. This criticism may also be behind Hezbollah’s increased involvement in the rocket attacks from Lebanon.

“[Syrian President Bashar] Assad, Iran, and Hezbollah have cracked our heads with lies,” remarked Nedal al-Amari, who describes himself as “an independent journalist working for the Syrian revolution.”

He added: “Why are they hiding like mice from Israeli airstrikes? Because they are busy bombing civilians in Idlib and its countryside. Most of Assad’s forces – Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah – are present in northern Syria to kill innocent civilians.”

Saudi petroleum engineer Dr. Mansour al-Malik also scoffed at the prospect that Iran and Hezbollah would come to Hamas’s rescue. “Iran sold Gaza, Hamas, [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad, and the resistance in return for the safety of the mullah’s regime,” al-Malik wrote.

Voicing concern that Israel would target Lebanon in retaliation for a Hezbollah attack, several Lebanese citizens have recently been warning that “the unity of Lebanon is more important than the ‘unity of the battlefields.’” Their message to Hezbollah: Lebanon doesn’t want to be dragged into the Israel-Hamas war.

A senior Palestinian Authority official in Ramallah, who requested anonymity, said Hamas leaders are beginning to realize that they have been left to confront Israel alone. The tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border have still not escalated into an all-out war, the Palestinians in the West Bank have not launched a new intifada, and most of the Arab Israelis are sitting on the fence, the official noted.

He cautioned, nonetheless, that the situation could change after an Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.

“A lot depends on what happens once the Israeli army enters the Gaza Strip,” the official said.

Hamas terrorists who carried out a surprise attack on October 7 were found to be under the influence of Captagon, a synthetic amphetamine-type stimulant that has been clandestinely produced in southern Europe and trafficked through Turkey to the consumer markets on the Arabian Peninsula, as reported by Nir Dvori of Channel 12.

The pills were recovered from the pockets of many terrorists who lost their lives on Israeli soil.

Captagon gained notoriety in 2015 when it was discovered to be used by ISIS fighters to suppress fear prior to carrying out terrorist operations. As the influence of terrorist organizations like ISIS diminished, Lebanon and Syria took the reins and began producing and distributing the drug on a large scale.

Once a source of revenue for ISIS members through drug smuggling, Captagon has now become a major source of income for Syria and is actively supported by Hezbollah.

Around two years ago, an investigation conducted by The New York Times revealed that individuals associated with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, including family members, had established a thriving industry for the production of Captagon.

The profits generated from the drug trade in Syria exceed those gained from legitimate exports.

Reliable estimates suggest that Captagon's exports from Syria alone reached a minimum of $3.5 billion in 2020 – a figure five times greater than the combined value of Syria's legal export industries, estimated at just over $700 million.

Originally Posted By RattleCanAR:

There was a guest on Joe Rogan in the last week who talked about the drug. It is primarily produced in Syria.