ANALYSIS: What and Who are Behind the Massive Escalation in Southern Israel - Yochanan Visser ISRAEL TODAY

ANALYSIS: What and Who are Behind the Massive Escalation in Southern Israel

Tuesday, May 29, 2018 |  Yochanan Visser  ISRAEL TODAY

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Gaza

Islamic Jihad, an Iran-backed Palestinian terror organization, attacked southern Israel Tuesday morning by lobbing between 50 and 60 mortar shells at Israeli towns and communities in what is called the "Gaza belt."

Hamas later admitted it had condoned the attack after a number of their fighters attacked the Israeli town of Sederot on Monday evening with heavy machine guns.

The Israeli military first responded to the largest attack on Israel from Gaza since the summer war of 2014 by using tank fire, which was aimed at Hamas positions near the Gaza border.

The limited response drew the ire of Mayor Alon Davidi and residents of the Israeli town of Sederot who called for a large scale IDF offensive to finish off Hamas and the other Palestinian terror organizations in the Gaza Strip.

Later on Tuesday, Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the massive mortar fire, which was meant to hit Israeli citizens while on their way to work and schools.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad also started to evacuate military bases and installations across Gaza in anticipation of the Israeli retaliation.

Shortly after noon on Tuesday, IAF warplanes attacked a large number of Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, while Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu linked the morning attack to the situation in Syria, where the Iranian-backed pro-Assad coalition is trying to set up camp in the vicinity of the Israeli border on the Golan Heights.

“Israel will exact a heavy price from anyone who tries to attack it, and we view Hamas as responsible for preventing such attacks against us,” Netanyahu said after conducting an emergency meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office.

Netanyahu repeated that Israel would not suffice with a buffer-zone free of Iranian-backed forces along the Israeli-Syrian border, and again demanded a full withdrawal of Iranian-backed militias and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps from Syria.

The IAF, meanwhile, also destroyed a terror tunnel belonging to Hamas. The IDF spokesman said the tunnel led from Gaza via Egypt to southern Israel, and that Hamas planned to use it to smuggle weapons from Egypt and to attack Israel.

A short while after the string of IAF strikes on Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad lobbed a second barrage of mortar shells and rockets at southern Israel, with some missiles penetrating as far as 25 kilometers into the Jewish state.

The Iron Drome missile shield intercepted several missiles over the Israeli city of Ashqelon, while Ofakim, a city 20 kilometers west of Beersheba, was also targeted by what the IDF said were Iranian missiles.

“The Palestinian Islamic Jihad today used Iranian-made weapons,” according to the IDF in a statement, while emphasizing the organization is rooted in “Iranian ideology.”

The attacks on southern Israel were, in fact, another Iranian attempt to spark a new war on the southern border after the failed attempts to invade Israel from Gaza over the past seven weeks.

The so-called “Great March of Return” has been funded with Iranian money, Hamas earlier announced.

Islamic Jihad takes its orders from Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, while Hamas in October last year mended ties with the Islamist regime in Tehran.

The pretext for the Islamic Jihad attack on Israel was the liquidation of three Islamic Jihad operatives who were attempting to infiltrate into Israel from the Rafah area earlier this week.

However, by now it has become clear that the Iranians want to keep up the pressure on Israel by attacking it from different fronts. 

On May 10, Iran attacked Israel directly by launching 32 missiles at northern Israel, triggering a massive response in Israel which destroyed more than 50 Iranian targets in Syria.

The Islamic Jihad attack on southern Israel came less than a day after Israel and Russia reportedly reached understandings on the presence of Iranian-backed forces on the Golan Heights near the Israeli border.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday told reporters in Moscow that his government wants the Syrian army to re-conquer the border area with Israel and Jordan, and called upon all foreign forces, including the Iranians, to leave Syria.

The problem with this idea is that Hezbollah and other groups of Shiite fighters have become an integral part of the Syrian army, after Sunni conscripts refused to fight for the Syrian dictator.

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ANALYSIS: Despite Devastating Israeli Attack, Iran Continues Build-Up in Syria - Yochanan Visser ISRAEL TODAY

ANALYSIS: Despite Devastating Israeli Attack, Iran Continues Build-Up in Syria

Thursday, May 24, 2018 |  Yochanan Visser  ISRAEL TODAY

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Israel Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Amikam Norkin (pictured) on Tuesday revealed Israel is continuing to conduct airstrikes in Syria after the major confrontation with the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps in the war-torn country on the night of May 10.

Norkin also presented new information about what exactly happened in the hours-long clash between the IAF and the Iranians that night, which an Israeli eyewitness who spoke with Israel Today on condition of anonymity described as being like a scene from “Star Wars.”

Norkin told a gathering of international air force chiefs in Herzliya that Israel has maintained its freedom of action over Syria, and stressed: “Israel will continue to work with determination to thwart the entrenchment of Iran in Syria and the arming of Hezbollah.”

His comments followed reports that an Iranian operations center at the headquarters of the Syrian Department of Electronic Warfare near Damascus had been attacked early Monday morning. The strike took place after a large Ilyushin IL-76T cargo plane arrived from Tehran at Damascus International Airport a few hours earlier.

Iran is using civilian airplanes and Syrian cargo planes to transfer sophisticated weaponry and missiles to Syria in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits such activity.

Sky News reported that the attack also destroyed the barracks of Iranian-backed Shiite militias at a state security school in the area.

On Tuesday, the Anadolu news agency in Turkey reported that Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shiite militias in southwest Syria were withdrawing from the area after “intensive reconnaissance flights over the region.”

The state-controlled Turkish news agency also reported that the Iranian-backed militias had set up camp at a number of locations in Daraa near the Jordanian border, and in Quneitra on the Syrian Golan Heights.

On Saturday, the IDF used artillery to prevent Hezbollah from establishing positions in the village of Tulul al-Humur south of Quneitra, according to Anadolu.

This all shows that Iran is not giving up its efforts to encroach on the Israeli border, and is preparing for more confrontations with the Jewish state.

Gen. Norkin, meanwhile, revealed more details on the first major confrontation between Israel and Iran on the night of May 10.

Iran had launched 32 missiles toward Israel that night, according to the IAF commander. Only four of them were intercepted by Israel’s various missile shields, while the rest fell within Syrian territory. Norkin also announced that the “Adir,” Israel’s modified version of the American F-35 stealth fighter, is conducting combat missions in Syria.

Norkin disclosed that over 100 anti-aircraft missiles were fired at the 28 Israeli F-15I and F-16I warplanes that took part in the broad aerial assault. None of those missiles hit their target, however.

In response, the IAF destroyed almost all the Syrian anti-aircraft batteries, including the advanced Russian-made Pantsir S-1 (SA-22) anti-missile system that was considered practically impregnable by the Russian military.

In addition to what Norkin told the conference in Herzliya, researchers at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Laboratorium (ACDFRL) concluded that the IAF strikes on 50 Iranian targets on May 10 also exposed serious flaws in Syria’s air defenses.

Russian media insisted that the Israeli hit on the Pantsir S-1 system had been possible because the battery had been turned off. But that didn’t convince the researchers at the ACDFRL, because Israeli warplanes had been conducting airstrikes for hours and the Pantsir S-1 was stationed close to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s palace in Damascus.

They think the Israeli strikes exposed the Russian-made systems as inferior to US-made counterparts and to the tactics of the Israel Air Force.

For example, the Russian-made S-200 Wega-Es anti-aircraft missile system, which can fire up to five guided interceptors at a time, is currently causing IAF jets the most trouble. But, it was exposed as being ineffective against low-flying aircraft, a fact that was likely exploited by Israeli pilots.

That might explain why this reporter witnessed some IAF warplanes flying at very low altitude during the four hour-long raid, and why all Israeli jets returned safely to their bases.

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Reports: Israeli Preemptive Strike Thwarts Iranian Attack - Yochanan Visser ISRAEL TODAY

Reports: Israeli Preemptive Strike Thwarts Iranian Attack

Wednesday, May 09, 2018 |  Yochanan Visser  ISRAEL TODAY

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The Israel Air Force (IAF) on Tuesday evening preempted an Iranian drone or missile strike on the Golan Heights.

While evening news programs were speculating about President Donald Trump’s long-awaited announcement that the United States would ditch the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, news came in that the IDF had ordered municipalities on the Golan Heights to open public bomb shelters on the mountainous plateau.

Prior to this shock announcement there was highly unusual IAF activity in northern Israel. 

An hour before Trump announced that the US would leave the “rotten” deal with Iran, a host of IAF warplanes were patrolling the skies in north-east Israel.

At 10 PM, the unusual IAF activity suddenly stopped, and after that only the sound of drones was audible from the ground.

These drones were reconnaissance aircraft that were hovering over Mount Hermon, the Sheeba Farms and the Syria-Israel border, according to Lebanese media.

It later became clear what exactly had triggered the IDF warning to prepare bomb shelters on the Golan Heights.

Israeli intelligence had detected unusual Iranian activity in both Lebanon and Syria.

Iran appeared to be preparing for the long-anticipated retaliation against Israel after a string of IAF strikes on Iranian bases in Syria, and after the Mossad humiliated the Islamic Republic by stealing thousands files documenting Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program from a warehouse in Tehran.

Arab and Israeli media later reported IAF warplanes had launched a preemptive strike on the Iranian al-Kiswah base south of Damascus.

The base is in use by the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah. The same base was previously hit by the Israel Air Force in December 2017. 

Al-Kiswah is used by the IRGC for multiple military purposes and as a launching pad for drone operations, according to experts.

On April 19, Iran reportedly used the base in a first attempt to strike Israel with three drones, just as it had done on February 10 when a large Iranian attack drone loaded with explosives infiltrated Israeli air space in the area of Bet Shean in the northern Jordan Valley.

The attempted Iranian strike against Israel on April 19 was reportedly foiled by the Russian military, which interdicted or shot down the Iranian drones before they could reach Israeli airspace.

The  new IAF strike at al-Kiswah reportedly killed nine “pro-regime fighters” according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, while Syrian state-controlled media claimed two Israeli missiles were intercepted.

CCTV video footage taken at al-Kiswah showed the impact of the IAF strike which included secondary explosions, an indication Israel had again hit an explosives, missile or ammunition depot at the base.

Israel's Channel 2 later reported IAF warplanes had launched the strike from the Syrian Golan Heights, and not from east Lebanon as was done in earlier attacks against Iranian targets in Syria.

The timing of the attempted Iranian retaliation against Israel, which coincided with Trump’s announcement he would ditch the nuclear agreement, suggests the Iranians were planning to make good on their promise to deliver “special surprises” whenever the US would quit the deal.

The Iranian military, however, is no match for the US army, and is also not able to engage Israel in a conventional war because both the Israeli and American air forces are able to destroy crucial military and economic infrastructure in Iran within minutes.

From the port of Kargh, for example, Iran exports 90 percent of its oil, while only eight refineries in the country produce 80 percent of the fuel it consumes.

The Islamist regime in Tehran has used disruptive and asymmetric warfare since the devastating war with Iraqi in the 1980s, indicating Iran is the weaker power in its conflict with the US and Israel.

For this reason, the Quds Force of the IRGC has always used proxies to hit Israel, and will continue to do so while being careful not to trigger all-out war with the Jewish state.

Yesterday’s IAF strike at the al-Kiswah base shows Israel is determined to prevent Iran’s military built up in Syria and has learned from the Lebanon scenario where it allowed Iran and Hezbollah to take over the country and to threaten the Jewish state with roughly 130,000 missiles.

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