The Israeli army is preparing for a long-term stay through logistical measures inside Lebanese territory that include fortified sites and a road network, in addition to expanding the burned areas in southern Lebanon located north of the “yellow line.”
The bombing range expanded deep into Lebanon, to Wadi Zibqin in the western sector, and the vicinity of the town of Mifdoun in the eastern sector, in an indication of the increase in the area of uninhabited areas, according to what local sources in the south say, and this is done “through bullet sweeps, artillery shelling, air strikes, and flying marches.”
This expansion is due to operational challenges reported by the Israeli media, the most prominent of which are explosive drones guided by fiber optics. The Ynet website stated in a report that the Israeli army has not yet reached a comprehensive solution to deal with these marches, while it is testing different systems and focusing on protection, early detection, and warning.
Logistical equipment
The measures taken by the Israeli army do not reflect any indications that its forces will withdraw from southern Lebanon in the foreseeable future. Ynet reported that the Israeli army is “preparing fortified sites and improving access to them, despite the end of the mission of the 55th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade and the handing over of its sites to alternative forces.”
According to the report, the brigade completed about 100 days of mobilization, including 80 days of operations in Lebanon, focused on the area extending between the border and what the Israeli army calls the “yellow line,” reaching a depth of about 12 kilometers.
Ynet reported that forces from the Bislamakh Brigade and the Giffen Battalion of the Officers' Course are replacing the 55th Brigade, and are carrying out training and improving positions that allow them to monitor and control areas in depth with fire.
The website quoted Israeli security officials as saying that the soldiers will reside during the winter in protected compounds inside the villages, after the buildings were equipped during the summer with electric generators, air conditioners, and sanitary facilities, in addition to preparing transportation routes in advance.
The report indicated Israeli fears that limiting the deployment line to security would lead to a decline in readiness and increase the possibility of targeting forces in southern Lebanon.
The second line of villages
In addition to the equipment in fixed military sites created by the Israeli army since next May, the number of which has reached 17 new sites, according to what security sources in the south told Asharq Al-Awsat, the Israeli army is expanding the circle of fire to the second line of villages adjacent to the “yellow line”, with the aim of turning them into areas devoid of residents, and turning them into dangerous areas.
Local sources said that the Israeli army “intensified combing operations and artillery shelling” in recent days, in addition to the continuous flight of marches. She explained that the bombing “extends the outskirts of the villages of the second line of the border, such as Wadi Zebqin in the western sector, and the town of Mifidoun, located southeast of the city of Nabatieh,” a town whose residents still reside, and some of its displaced people have returned to it in the past three months.
Raids and artillery shelling
In addition, the official Lebanese National News Agency reported that Israeli warplanes launched a raid on the town of Kafr Tibnit, after the area between the towns of Arnoun and Kafr Tbnit was subjected to artillery shelling. The vicinity of the public school in Al-Baydar neighborhood in the town of Mifidoun and Doha Kfar Rumman were also subjected to Israeli artillery shelling, which the agency described as “violent and focused,” and it also affected the outskirts of the towns of Haris and Hadatha in the central sector. A Merkava tank targeted the town of Hula with a number of shells, and the outskirts of the town of Shaqra in the Bint Jbeil district were subjected to Israeli bombing.
The artillery shelling targeted Horsh Kunine, and a series of raids shook Kafr Tibnit and Wadi al-Hujair, the echoes of which were heard in the city of Sidon and its environs.
In the western sector, the town of Al-Mansouri was subjected to intermittent artillery shelling by the Israeli army in Al-Bayyada and Tayr Harfa, south of Tyre. The bombing extended to Wadi Hassan on the outskirts of Majdal Zoun. The Israeli army carried out a violent bombing in Al-Mansouri, the repercussions of which reached Mount Lebanon, which was preceded by an explosion on the outskirts of the town of Baraashit in the Bint Jbeil district. It was also reported that a suspicious object left over from the Israeli aggression exploded on the outskirts of the town of Srifa.
Casualties among Israeli soldiers
Meanwhile, the Israeli army announced, on Sunday, that an officer and a regular soldier were injured in the town of Majdal Zoun in southern Lebanon, on Friday, “after throwing a bomb improperly.” The soldier’s wounds were described as serious and the officer’s wounds were moderate.
The soldier and officer were transferred to Rambam Hospital in Haifa, and the Israeli army announced that it was investigating the circumstances of the event.
Also on Friday, 8 Israeli soldiers were injured in a “separate incident” in southern Lebanon. According to the Israeli army, it resulted from a collision between two vehicles, and the soldiers were taken to a hospital, and the Israeli army opened an investigation into this “accident.”
Suicide drones have become an important player in Israeli operations inside Gaza, especially with their recent heavy use during assassination operations targeting prominent leaders and activists from the “Al-Qassam Brigades,” the armed wing of the “Hamas” movement, as well as the “Jerusalem Brigades,” the armed wing of the “Islamic Jihad” movement.
Field sources reported to Asharq Al-Awsat that the assassinations that took place during the past two weeks were mostly based on small suicide drones that explode strongly.
A field source close to the factions in the Gaza Strip in Gaza City noted that “nothing remains of the planes used in the recent operations, compared to the discovery of some fragments during the peak periods of the war of other planes that attacked activists in tents or the streets.”
According to the same source, the assassination of Izz al-Din al-Bik, commander of the Northern Al-Qassam Brigade, which took place on the twenty-ninth of last September, inside a residential apartment in the Al-Nasr neighborhood, northwest of Gaza City, in which the Israeli forces used three suicide planes, coinciding with the firing of two missiles at the apartment to ensure the success of the targeting operation.
The source indicated that the suicide planes caused a large fire inside Al-Baik’s apartment, which lasted for approximately 40 minutes, without the ability of the civil defense teams to extinguish it, even though it was confined only inside the targeted apartment, due to the lack of capabilities of those teams.
A second field source indicated that “most of the suicide planes were causing fires,” suggesting that this was “with the aim of increasing the chances of killing the targets by burning or suffocation to make it difficult to rescue them.”
Returning to the first source in Gaza City, “Al-Bik was injured at the beginning of the bombing, and it is likely that the large fire in the residential apartment prevented him from being able to leave the place, and later it became clear that some of the contents of the residential apartment had collapsed on his body,” citing some of those who examined Al-Bik’s body after it was recovered, “Some signs of suffocation from smoke appeared on his body after the large fire.”
The two sources agreed that “the use of suicide planes makes it easier for Israel to carry out assassinations inside residential apartments by entering them through windows, whether closed or open, and making it easier to reach the target.”
Repeat the method with Al-Amoudi and others
Factional sources in western Gaza City confirmed that Israel's attempt to assassinate Ali Al-Amoudi, the leader of the Hamas movement in Gaza, at dawn last Saturday, was carried out in a double manner using missiles and at least one suicide plane that targeted an apartment in the area and claimed the lives of those inside it.
According to activists from the southern Gaza Strip, the assassination of Nael Abu Ubaid, commander of the Rafah Brigade in the “Al-Qassam Brigades,” was also carried out by two suicide planes, even though he was inside a tent in the Mawasi Khan Yunis area in the southern Gaza Strip.
The sources confirm that the majority of assassinations for many periods were using these suicide drones, while many of the operations that occurred recently while targeting activists while they were walking on foot in the streets, or on the rooftops of certain houses, were done using small bombs dropped by drones with the aim of killing them directly or injuring them with critical injuries that lead to the amputation of their limbs.
Planes do not leave the skies of the Strip
The sources explain that the Israeli army uses a series of types of suicide and intelligence drones, which almost never leave the skies of the Gaza Strip, indicating that the majority of aircraft that collect information rely heavily on artificial intelligence to identify targets.
It indicated that intelligence aircraft target certain residential squares, which constantly indicates the presence of danger in those squares, or the presence of specific operations, which prompts the continuous issuance of generalizations about the possibility of possible assassination operations, or the presence of special forces on the ground, as happened in the kidnapping of prominent official Moin Al-Arabid at the beginning of last month.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed a few days ago in the explosion of a suicide drone that they had launched to target a Palestinian from a new military site inside the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. However, for some reason, the drone turned back and fell into a military tent, and when the two soldiers tried to pull it off the ground, it exploded on them.
As a result of that event, the Israeli army stopped using that “Bat” plane, and it was revealed that during the last year it had exploded 3 times in similar incidents, but no casualties were reported in those incidents.
In the field context, a Palestinian was killed after an Israeli drone targeted a vehicle with a single missile, wounding 10 Palestinians who were in another nearby vehicle, south of the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. While another was killed as a result of a raid that directly targeted him while he was walking on foot in Hamad Town, north of Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, it was announced that a girl and a young man died from their wounds in previous Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. Six Palestinians were injured in an Israeli shooting and raid on Jabalia and Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
A meeting was held today in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates building in Damascus, with the head of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) mission and its commander, Major General Anita Asma, to discuss ways to enhance coordination between the two sides.
The meeting took place in the presence of the Director of the International Organizations and Conferences Department at the Foreign Ministry, Saad Baroud, and Colonel Ahmed Issa, the Director of the International Cooperation Department at the Syrian Ministry of Defense.
According to SANA, the discussion focused on coordination between the two sides, which would contribute to facilitating the forces’ carrying out the tasks assigned to them in accordance with their “UN” mandate, in light of the continued Israeli violations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
The Syrian side stressed the importance of the role played by UNDOF in monitoring and reporting violations, and the need to continue strengthening coordination channels with the relevant Syrian authorities, in a way that supports the implementation of the mission’s mandate and contributes to maintaining security and stability in the region.
It should be noted that UNDOF is not a combat peacekeeping force, but rather a monitoring mission with limited powers, relying more on documentation and reporting than on military intervention.
Last August, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Forces (UNDOF) conducted a field tour in the southern countryside of Quneitra, to determine the reality of the region and follow up on the effects of repeated Israeli violations and incursions, as part of carrying out its tasks in monitoring the implementation of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
Israel continues to violate the agreement, through its repeated incursions into southern Syria, raiding civilian homes and arresting them, leveling lands, and firing missiles.
Syria constantly demands the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation from its lands, stressing that all the measures it is taking are invalid and void, and do not have any legal effect in accordance with international law. It also calls on the international community to assume its responsibilities and oblige Israel to completely withdraw from Southern Syria.
