On the morning of
Tuesday, December 20, missiles fired from fighter jets destroyed several weapons storage facilities and other infrastructure belonging to Iran’s
local proxies in the vicinity of Damascus airport. According to Al Arabiya TV, an anti-aircraft
battery positioned near the airport just after the landing of an Iranian plane was also
struck. The Syrian authorities hold the
Israel Defense Forces responsible for the attack.
Later that same day a
Hezbollah drone attempted to enter Israeli airspace from Lebanon. The IDF shot it down. It was intercepted near the moshav of Zar’it
(population around 250), which is located close to the Lebanese border in Upper
Galilee. The drone was identified as a quadcopter, a small device with
four rotors.
This was the latest in a
recent spate of provocative anti-Israel actions promoted, if not initiated, by
Iran. On November 9, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported that
a convoy believed to have been smuggling Iranian weapons into Syria had been
hit by Israel. According to the report the strike, near the Syrian border town of
Abu Kamal, destroyed several vehicles. There were at least 10 casualties.
Israeli sources usually
refrain from acknowledging the counter-measures it takes, but on December 14 Lt.
Gen. Aviv Kochavi, IDF Chief of Staff, appeared to confirm this particular
operation. Speaking at Reichman University in Herzliya, Kochavi referred to
both Israeli intelligence and its strike capabilities. He said, “We could have not known, a number
of weeks ago, about the Syrian convoy moving from Iraq to Syria. We could have
not known what was in there. We could have not known that among 25 trucks, this
is the truck—truck number eight—that is the truck with the weapons.”
And even knowing, he
continued, “We have to send the pilots. They have to know how to evade surface-to-air
missiles. Make no mistake: There are operations in which 30, 40 – at peak
times, 70 – surface-to-air missiles are fired at them during sorties. They have
to strike, hit, come back, and they have to, in some of the attacks, avoid
killing those who should not be killed. Those are very advanced capabilities.”
Recently Hezbollah
operatives have been increasingly active on the Lebanon-Israel border. They have set up dozens of lookout posts,
increased their patrols, and openly monitor and document Israeli troop movements.
Hezbollah’s use of Iran-supplied drones has
increased over the last few months. In the summer drones were dispatched to
film Israel’s off shore gas rig, prior to the Israel-Lebanese maritime
agreement. They were destroyed by the IDF.
Hezbollah is also
continuing efforts to strengthen its presence in Syria. Earlier in December it
was reported that the IDF attacked a radar site belonging to the Syrian
military at Tal Qalib. The next day the Israeli
Air Force dropped leaflets in the Quneitra area of south-western Syria, warning
Syrian soldiers against working with Hezbollah.
“The continued presence
of Hezbollah in the Syrian site of Tal Qalib,” they read, “and cooperating
with them will go badly for you. The presence of Hezbollah in the region has brought
you humiliation, and you are paying the price for that.”
The effort to contain,
or diminish, Iran’s anti-Israel efforts has spilled over to social media. The respected Al-Monitor website recently
reported that posts on Twitter from various sources claimed that Israel has the
names of 63 pilots employed at the Iranian Mahan airline who are involved in
flying weapons from Tehran to Beirut. The tweets promised to post the pilots’
names and photos soon. There was no indication of what action, if any, might
follow.
Iran is engaged in a
determined effort to smuggle advanced weapons by air to various Syrian
airports, and also by land through Iraq and Syria, to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has been waging an equally determined campaign
over the past decade to frustrate Iran’s intentions, which are clearly aimed at
arming Hezbollah in preparation for an eventual conflict with Israel.
This campaign took a new
turn on December 10 when rumours emerged that Iran was planning to launch
an aerial smuggling route from Tehran to Beirut using civilian flights. Meraj Airlines, operated by Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), started direct flights from Tehran to Beirut
in mid-November. This corridor would reportedly complement or replace the arms smuggling
to Hezbollah carried out in recent years through Syria, shipments that Israel is
believed to have targeted repeatedly.
Israel must view
Hezbollah’s growing precision missile arsenal as a major strategic threat, on a
par with Iran’s nuclear program. Indeed, if Iran eventually developed a nuclear
capability, there would be nothing to prevent it arming its proxies similarly. The
London-based Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported earlier in December that
Israel had formally warned Lebanon’s government that it would consider bombing
Beirut airport if it serves as a destination for weapons smuggling from Iran.
The implications of such
an attack, were it ever carried out, are incalculable. The mere threat may be sufficient to deter
any attempt by Lebanon’s Hezbollah-dominated administration from using civilian
flights as a new route for smuggling in Iranian arms.
As long as Iran is intent on pursuing its obsessional anti-Israel policies, Israel’s response must continue to be deterrence by every means, including the destruction of weaponry clearly intended to turn Syria into an Iranian armory, or to boost Hezbollah’s military capacity. For deterrence to remain effective, Israel has to enhance its world-class intelligence capabilities even further. It needs also to take to heart the well-known motto of the Scouting movement: “Be prepared”. This is the only way to thwart the enemy’s malign intentions without resorting to all-out conflict.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-725964
Published in Eurasia Review as "The war between wars", 6 January 2023:
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