Hezbollah
The new Tnufa (“Momentum”) multi-year program recognizes that Israel’s enemies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and Shi’ite militias, have been upgrading their ability to threaten the Jewish state.
Syrian state media reports that the country’s air defenses “successfully confronted” missiles fired at targets in the center and south over Lebanon and the Golan Heights.
Syria closes airspace over Idlib Province • Turkish Defense Ministry: Warplanes downed in response to the shooting down of a Turkish drone • Turkish strikes in Idlib kill nine Hezbollah fighters, wound 30.
Hezbollah operative Imad at-Tawil was killed in the Syrian Golan Heights by an Israeli drone, Arab media reports.
“Hezbollah profits from the sale of goods vital to the Lebanese peoples’ health and economy, such as pharmaceuticals and gasoline,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
Professor Rear Adm. (ret.) Shaul Chorev, former director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, tells JNS that new types of diplomatic action could help prevent Tehran from turning Syria into a new battle front against Israel and expanding its influence across the region.
Jonathan Spyer, an expert on the region at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, says a mutual deterrence system applies between Israel and Lebanon that could “be broken in the event of a conflagration involving Israel and Iran.”
“We all know that the Iranian regime’s top terrorist proxy Hezbollah has found a home in Venezuela under Maduro. This is unacceptable,” says U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
The move comes one year after the Israeli military discovered and destroyed six large tunnels under the Israel-Lebanon border, believed to have been constructed by Hezbollah.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s minister of public security and strategic affairs, applauded the move.
“You express the deep and long-standing friendship between the two countries, Mr. President,” said Ofir Akunis, Israeli Minister of Science, Technology and Space.
The Israeli military sees an opportunity for strategic change in Syria following the death of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, while instability in Lebanon and Judea and Samaria pose the greatest risk to the Jewish state in the new year.
