This week marks the 15th anniversary of the July 2006 War the “Israeli” entity waged on Lebanon.
If we didn’t need any more evidence that there’s still a belligerent force facing “Israel” from north of the Lebanese border, Hezbollah released a reminder on Tuesday.
The Lebanese Resistance group released a video of the 2006 operation and abduction of “Israeli” Occupation Force [IOF] soldiers.
The revulsion of seeing the tragedy replayed and the timing of its release are a sobering reminder of the peril that still confronts the entity from its north, 15 years after the harrowing conflict that still divides “Israelis” as to what was achieved and at what cost.
According to former Meretz leader Zahav Gal-On, writing in Haaretz this week, the July War “has become a symbol of the folly and irresponsibility of the government and army, which dragged the ‘state’ into a needless war while concealing their failures behind lies”.
On the other hand, those behind the decision to launch the attack on Lebanon, including then-prime minister Ehud Olmert and then-IOF chief of staff Dan Halutz, staunchly supported the efforts in retrospect.
The “state”-appointed Winograd Commission, headed by retired “Supreme Court” judge Eliahu Winograd, discovered “grave failings in the decision making… both on the military and political levels” in its final report, which was particularly harsh about the conduct of the ground war in the last few days of the conflict, in which the “Israeli” entity lost many soldiers for questionable gains.
Stopping short of blaming any one individual or institution, the report said, “The ground operations at the end of the war did not bring any clear achievements… or stop the launching of Katyusha rockets. After the decision for a ceasefire there was no intelligent discussion on how to stop the ground war.”
After 15 years, Hezbollah still provides a lethal threat to “Israel”. “Israelis” believe it has continued to build its arsenal since 2006 and now is estimated to have hundreds of thousands of short-range rockets and several thousand missiles that can reach deeper into the entity.
It is believed that in the next war, Hezbollah will try to fire some 1,500-2,000 rockets per day until the last day of the conflict.
Whether the war was a victory or a disaster for the “Israeli” entity will continue to be debated for years to come.