Northern Front no longer attrition battlefield; it entails humiliation

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Israeli media
18 Jul 2024 21:56
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Israeli media report on the necessity of admitting that "Israel's" deterrence ability on the Northern Front has hit "rock bottom".

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Rockets fired from southern Lebanon are intercepted by "Israel's" Iron Dome air defense system over the Upper al-Jalil region in northern occupied Palestine, on July 16, 2024. (AFP)

The Northern Front has been exhausting "Israel" since last October 7, confirmed the former commander of the IOF Ground Forces Command Reserve Major General Yiftah Ron-Tal, who stressed that the occupation is not prepared for such a long period of attrition, as it is more used to decisive and rapid battles.

Speaking to Israeli Channel 14, Ron-Tal said, “This is not only attrition, as it [the battle] entails some sort of humiliation.”

It is a fait accompli that “our deterrence has hit rock bottom," he added.

Ron-Tal stressed that the Israeli army’s main efforts have been focused in the north for quite some time now and that what is required is to connect the battlefront, stressing that there is no military solution other than moving to a decisive battle.

Ron-Tal made these in an interview conducted by Channel 14, on Wednesday, covering the situation in northern occupied Palestine and the latest speech by the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Reserve Colonel Ronen Cohen, former Deputy Head of the Research Division of Aman, the Israeli military intelligence directorate, took part in the interview.

Cohen saw that Sayyed Nasrallah “works in stages, within equations,” and on the basis of “if you target this, we target that.”

“This is his style, which is comfortable for him as he has thus far maintained the rules of the game with the level of fighting he wants, without an all-out war erupting,” he stressed.

‘Gallant unaware of what's happening in the north’

In the same context, the chairman of the Local Government Committee of the settlement of Margaliot, Eitan Davidi, attacked the Israeli Security Minister, Yoav Gallant, stressing that he “is unaware of what is happening in the north.”

Davidi offered Gallant, also in an interview for Channel 14, to take him “on a tour near Margaliot, Menara, Misgav Am, and Avivim, so that he can see the reality up close and realize the proximity of the distance” with Hezbollah fighters deployed right at the fence.

“What agreement are they talking to us about? What are they talking about? Maybe they see something that we cannot see,” he tersely stated, adding, “Let him [Gallant] come to the people of the north and tell us: Our intention is to reach peace or to go to battle. Let him tell us what he wants, and whatever scenario he chooses, he has to give us time to prepare."

Lamenting the ongoing situation, he added, "We are now in July, and in a month and a half, the new scholastic year will start, and still we do not know if we will be able to register our children in schools.”

While Davidi stressed that it is the duty of the Minister of Security “to give the settlers of the north an overall image at least several months ahead,” he lamented the fact that they cannot manage their lives for two weeks ahead.

Israeli Channel 14 had previously acknowledged that “the situation in the north is unbearable,” noting that about 7,000 rockets fell on settlements in northern occupied Palestine, in addition to hundreds of anti-tank missiles and one-way drones.

The channel's military affairs correspondent, Hallel Bitton Rosen, confirmed that the situation in the north is in short "a [real] war" and this is the ongoing case "without calling it as such and without an official declaration of war."

Rosen stressed that the issues of returning the settlers or the restoration of Israeli deterrence have no horizons and neither do pushing Hezbollah away from the border line or destroying or disarming it, affirming that the current talk about red lines, in light of all this, is simply nonsense.