As I wrote the other day, Israel's brilliant pager attack revealed that Israel had penetrated Hezbollah completely. When they set off the pagers, they made that clear. Then they set off the walkie talkies the next day, which made it clear it was even more thoroughly blown. The day after that, they killed the majority of the Hezbollah senior leadership and are cleaning up the survivors.
See that single lonely commander at the top right? He was eliminated yesterday ๐ฏ
โ Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) September 25, 2024
It looks like someone in Hezbollah is ratting on others ๐คฃ
_ pic.twitter.com/ewf2alw8dQ
(As an aside, notice the hint here that Hezbollah insiders were feeding Mossad. I don't think that's necessarily true โbut it is sure a notion that serves Israel's purposes.)
Then they followed that up with the revelation that Israel had infiltrated the civilian infrastructure in Southern Lebanon, doing it in a very dramatic way:
Hezbollah positions right now ๐จ
โ Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 23, 2024
That's a lot of rockets firing off pic.twitter.com/jxssS3TnVb
(Massive secondary explosions. Israel either got really lucky or they knew where Hezbollah was keeping the goodies.)
Proof Hezbollah hiding missiles between civilians. It couldn't be any more clear than that. pic.twitter.com/8SFamddH5A
โ Jonathan Elkhoury- ุฌููุงุซุงู ุงูุฎูุฑู (@Jonathan_Elk) September 23, 2024
And they followed that with detailed intelligence about civilian homes being used to conceal long range, high-payload missiles.
Super interesting thread from @Saul_Sadka
โ Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 23, 2024
Hezbollah spent nearly two decades preparing for this moment, building bunkers, tunnels, and fortifications. But in that time, Israel's technological advancements have vastly outpaced them. The IDF now possesses centimeter-accurate 3Dโฆ https://t.co/8aNWJQRN4o pic.twitter.com/pV2rs4T9ER
Including actual photographs of missiles concealed in civilian homes.
The rocket that you see below is a long-range rocket, stored on a hydraulic system directed toward Israeli civilians and ready to be launched at a moments notice.
โ Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) September 23, 2024
This is just one of the 1,300 targets including long-range cruise missiles, heavy-weight rockets and UAVs that wereโฆ pic.twitter.com/XHGsKPzxbQ
This really has some interesting implications. First of all, this intelligence shows the Israelis have penetrated Hez to an even greater extent that I thought the pager exploit indicated โ it's one thing to do traffic analysis from suborned pagers, it's a whole different thing to be getting photographs from inside a presumably secret missile site.
In any case, here's the current state of play:
See that single lonely commander at the top right? He was eliminated yesterday ๐ฏ
โ Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) September 25, 2024
It looks like someone in Hezbollah is ratting on others ๐คฃ
_ pic.twitter.com/ewf2alw8dQ
That's all of the top tiers except the top guy. Now, I'm sure he's spending a lot of time under his bed, but there's another part to that: If you kill everyone in the top tier, there's a struggle for who the new top guy will be, but it will eventually be settled.
Kill everyone except the top guy, and the top guy will be trying to re-establish his own command and control ... while a struggle to become the pre-eminent successor is still going on.
It's a guarantee of more chaos. Which, to repeat my point from the last article, is just fine with me.
But in the meantime, we have some other evidence of Israeli information-dominance.
They were able to subvert broadcast radio in Lebanon to warn people to get away from missiles hidden in their homes.
They produced a video showing just how missiles are being hidden with their launchers in "civilian" homes. Pro tip for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN: if you have missiles and missile launchers in a "civilian" home, it's a military installation and a war crime.
A regular house in a regular village in Lebanon is attacked by Israel. A rocket stored there is launched directly at a neighbor's house, destroying it ๐ pic.twitter.com/jKHMPmjmMR
โ Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) September 23, 2024
Israel hit more than 800 Hezbollah launcher sites and missile depots.
Hezbollah. of course, is cosplaying Monty Python's Black Knight and swearing it's just a flesh wound. But...
JUST IN ๐จ
โ Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 23, 2024
A senior Israeli security official: "This is just the preview, we have tens of thousands more targets."
Basically, Israel has only just begun.