JERUSALEM. Minutes after the Israeli military spokesman confirmed the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, ballistic missiles were fired at central Israel. A couple of them were intercepted by anti-aircraft fire above the Palestinian village of Beit Iksa in the West Bank and were clearly heard throughout Jerusalem.
Already on Saturday morning, Hezbollah sent hundreds of rockets and robots against the Israeli cities of Haifa, Karmiel, Nahariya and Safed. Most of them were repelled by the anti-aircraft system, known as the Iron Dome, but robot fragments caused fires and minor injuries.
At the same time, the Israeli bombing continued in Lebanon, and against the positions of the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Golan Heights. A dramatic moment occurred this morning as a plane from Tehran approached Beirut International Airport. The Israeli cyber unit 8200 saw this and immediately a voice from Israel broke in and warned the control tower to let the plane land. The staff consulted with Transport Minister Ali Hamiyah, who decided not to give the plane permission to land. Earlier in the day, Israel's military spokesman Daniel Hagari had said that the airport in Beirut would be bombed if any weapons landed there. According to Israel, Hezbollah stores large quantities of weapons nearby, something the movement denies.
The big question in Israel right now is why Hezbollah's reaction to Hassan Nasrallah's death is so limited. According to all wargame scenarios, immediately after the attack in Beirut, Israel's power plants, airfields and fuel depots would have been subjected to barrages of homing ballistic robots. Israel's anti-robot system can handle tens of incoming robots in each sector. To damage its vital assets, Hezbollah would have to overwhelm air defenses with hundreds of simultaneous strikes—something Nasrallah used to describe with great drama in his speeches. Why is none of this happening?
Is it confusion after the heavy casualties in Hezbollah's top leadership, or the difficulty of communicating with the hundreds of artillerymen in the field, or an order from Iran to lie low, that is holding back Hezbollah? Iranian experts had promised Nasrallah that the headquarters in Beirut was indestructible. What conclusions does Iran now draw about its own strategic installations - built by the same engineers?
Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, surprised Israeli observers with his relatively low-key comment on Nasrallah's death. Khamenei, who left his residence for "a safe space", vowed that the resistance will continue "under the leadership of Hezbollah", but refrained from threatening Israel or promising retaliation.
At the same time, it is clear that Israel managed to irritate the US leadership more than usual during this war. Was Wednesday's Israeli acquiescence to US-led ceasefire negotiations a sham, intended to lull Nasrallah to safety? There are people close to President Biden who sense it. Even Israel's staunchest partner at the top, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, sounded very unhappy on Saturday when he described the situation.
Read more by Nathan Shachar here .
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