On this Monday’s edition of The Target stream, Mint Press News’ Robert Inlakesh breaks down the confrontation between Israel and Iran, cutting through the propaganda and presenting the evidence available to suggest what damage was inflicted.
After warning that any Israeli strike on Beirut would trigger an immediate response, Iran implemented its threats and targeted a series of Israeli military bases. Yemen’s Ansarallah later joined the defense of Lebanon, linking broader regional fronts and tightening the economic stranglehold over the US-Israeli alliance by locking down the Bab al-Manbad Strait.
Last Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to target the southern suburbs of the Lebanese Capital, but temporarily held back from doing so after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened retaliatory strikes in response. On Sunday, the situation came to a head, following a limited Israeli attack on Beirut, triggering a 15-hour battle between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
How big was this moment for the region and will it set a new deterrence equation? Can Iran reinstate the concept of the Unity of Squares – linking all the fronts – that former Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah had fought to achieve?
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s asymmetric warfare tactics on the ground in southern Lebanon are continuing to burden Israel’s occupation forces and inflict growing casualty numbers. Especially is this the case with the widespread use of First Person View (FPV) drones, which are impossible to jam using electronic warfare equipment and just as hard to detect before it is too late. In the latest edition of the target Stream, we review the latest footage emerging from the battlefield.
As the war wages on in the south, the US-backed Lebanese government continues to lash out and blame the Iranians for Israel’s airstrikes and invasion of their nation. Despite the recent assassination of a general in the Lebanese Army, President Joseph Aoun refuses to order his armed forces to resist and instead pursues direct talks with Israeli officials in Washington.
Reshaping regional dynamics the Yemeni Armed Forces have carried out missile attacks against Tel Aviv; overtly in support of the Lebanon front. In an even more devastating development, Yemen’s Ansarallah has re-instated its blockade in the Red Sea and closed down the Bab al-Mandab Strait to all Israeli shipping, a measure it had previously taken in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran, the potential that Yemen may fully blockade the Bab al-Mandab Strait, has many bracing for the enormous economic repercussions. All of this as tensions rise dramatically across the region, reaching boiling point and laying the groundwork for a renewal of full-scale hostilities.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
