The next Lebanon war will be catastrophic

July 12, 2006, 9 A.M. Another beautiful, clear morning in Israel’s coastal resort city Nahariya. As an IDF liaison officer, I sat with my UNFIL counterpart over coffee to discuss heightened tensions on the Lebanese border. The situation was already tense in the wake of the Gilad Shalit kidnapping two weeks earlier by Hamas, the ideological comrades-in-arms of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The coffee wasn’t yet finished when I received an urgent call ordering me back to base immediately. Two IDF soldiers had been kidnapped, several others killed and wounded in an unprovoked Hezbollah attack 20 km from where we sat that violated Israeli sovereignty and sparked the Second Lebanon War.

Ten years later the Middle East continues to be rocked by violence and instability, and Hezbollah is still here and more powerful.

IDF to begin giving its medics chemical weapons antidote

The IDF has acquired tens of thousands of doses of a drug used to combat nerve agent chemical poisoning and will distribute them to all combat medics in the coming months, according to a report in the new issue of the army’s Bamahane weekly magazine.

The drug, diazepam, is an anti-convulsant, halting seizures caused by nerve agents such as VX and sarin. Until now, the IDF supplied all medics with atropine, a drug that counters attacks on the respiratory system, but diazepam, which protects the central nervous system, was available only in intravenous form and was distributed only to rear echelon battalion medical centers.

Peace by Thursday or the tanks roll in: Israel sets deadline for truce as it delays ground invasion for 48 hours

Hamas dared. Israel has obliged. We now have a time table for war.

Get ready for an escalation and the possibility of the entire Middle East getting set on fire. The Middle East getting set on fire could bring forth a whole host of things such as retaliatory terrorist strikes on the US homeland to the collapse of economies. This is not a prediction, but a possible scenario, which hopefully will not come to pass.

As explosions terrorise both Palestinians and Israelis for a seventh day running, Israel has put plans for a ground operation in Gaza ‘on hold’ while talks to secure a truce with Hamas militants continue.

While it is understood a Thursday deadline has been set for the Egypt-brokered talks, an Egyptian intelligence source said ‘there is still no breakthrough and Egypt is working to find middle ground.’

Israel launches scores of airstrikes into Gaza

(CBS News) GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister’s headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports that, despite vague talk of a cease-fire, Hamas managed to hit a southern Israeli city with four rockets, and retaliation continued unabated.

Missile siren in Jerusalem after Gaza rockets in Tel Aviv area

Two long-range Fajr-5 missiles exploded Friday, Nov. 16 on open ground in and around Tel Aviv without causing casualties or damage. Warning sirens sounded first. Residents told to open bomb shelters. Three civilians were injured in the Eshkol district in the continuous Palestinian rocket fire raking southern towns and villages from early Friday morning. Iron Dome intercepted some missiles before they hit Beersheba, Ashdod and Ashkelon in salvoes. Israeli ground forces continue to build up on the Gaza border awaiting government orders to go in.

debkafile reported earflier Friday: As Hamas government officials greeted Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil on his arrival for a short visit to the Gaza Strip, Friday morning, Nov. 16, Palestinian rocket crews stepped up their barrage against Israel. After Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu acceded to Cairo’s request to suspend military action for the visit, air strikes were resumed over northern Gaza to counter Palestinians fire across the South: Dozens of rockets exploded in Beersheba, Ashdod, Hof Ashkelon, Ashkelon, Shear Hanegev, Ofakim, Sderot, Eshkol and Kiryat Malachi. There were several panic victims and direct hits to houses.

It’s War

As described in many previous entries, and as a case in point here, the conflicts will continue to escalate until the region enters into an all-out war. The back-forth-fire can only happen for so long before an incident crosses the proverbial line and sets it off. This is also when things will become dangerous via thousands of terror cells on the American homeland — a place America has never been attacked. Knowing that these terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah are proxies for Iran and Syria, look for them to also enter the fray during a regional war. Syria will likely use its chemical weapons stockpile and Damascus will be razed in retaliation while Iran will probably only get set back a few years on its nuclear program.

No matter who or what starts the war, America will be coupled in with Israel as the usual “Great Satan” while America with the current administration will blame Israel for all of the world’s ills. What also remains to be seen is whether the American military can withstand the bombardment of thousands of speedboats and Russian designed supersonic cruise missiles in Iran aimed at the US Navy fleets within the area. The worst case scenario can go further than this, and hopefully it never comes to pass. One can only hope the allied side is well prepared.

The Israeli military commenced what government officials are calling a “widespread campaign on terror sites and operatives in the Gaza Strip, chief among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets” after suffering nearly a week of rocket attacks on Israeli territory.

The Israel Defense Forces opened Operation Pillar of Defense with an airstrike on a car carrying the head of Hamas’ military wing Ahmed Jabri. More airstrikes quickly followed and are believed to have targeted other top Gaza-based terrorists and their weapons caches. Update (12:25 PM): The IDF has released video of the strike.

Israel warns Damascus against Syrian Golan overflights

Israel has given Damascus a final warning that a military response would be forthcoming if its fighter aircraft infringed the airspace over the Golan demilitarized zones, debkafile’s military sources report.. The warning was relayed through the UN Disengagement Observer Force in an effort to contain any spillover of the Syrian civil war across Israel’s border. Ratcheting up border tensions, Damascus was warned to desist from the following actions:

1. Ordnance of any kind must not be allowed to fly across the border, including shells and bullets.

Israel Disaster Drills Prepare Nation For War

Israel is conducting mass casualty drills to train the nation for a national disaster which focuses on responding to an earthquake but which military officials admitted was also a rehearsal for how to respond to war.

Mired in conflict since before its birth in 1948, Israel’s first ever national disaster drill envisages 7,000 dead, 70,000 casualties and 170,000 made homeless as a consequence of an earthquake along the Rift Valley fault.