The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a special military drill in the northern part of the country to prepare for combat with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist army, which has been firing into Israel since early October.
Israel began by responding to each instance of Hezbollah fire, but in recent weeks has stepped up its responses, attacking Hezbollah bases further from the Lebanese border and targeting Iranian generals in Damascus, Syria.
In a statement, the IDF said:
As part of enhancing readiness on the northern border, yesterday (Monday), the 146th Division completed a comprehensive defensive exercise in cooperation with the Israeli Navy and the Israeli Air Force, alongside the Israel Police and the Search and Rescue Forces.
The 146th Division is the largest reservist division in the IDF, and has been operating in the Western Galilee region since the beginning of the war.
The division’s command and the maritime control array trained for a large number of scenarios including defending terrain, evacuating wounded under fire, and various breach and strike scenarios to increase readiness and strengthen cooperation between the forces.
As part of the training, the joint security authorities of the Haifa arena practiced managing a variety of threats and operational scenarios that they might encounter in the northern maritime arena.
The exercise was conducted in cooperation with the Haifa naval base, the helicopter squadron, the Israeli Air Force cooperation unit, and various forces in the region, including heads of joint security authorities, members of the civilian rapid response teams in the different communities in the north, Israel Police and rescue forces, armored and engineering forces and the 146th Division’s brigades.
The IDF continues to train intensively to maintain full readiness for all threat scenarios and enemy attempts to harm Israeli civilians or territory.
Hezbollah is in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1707, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and requires that Hezbollah withdraw forces north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. The United Nations observer force in the area has not enforced the resolution, nor has Lebanon’s regular army shown any will or capability of doing so, despite the risk to the entire country of a war with Israel.
Separately, Israel successfully deployed a ship-based version of the Iron Dome missile defense system, shooting down a drone that had neared Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat. Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen, as well as militas in Iraq, have been sending drones to, and firing missiles at, Eilat.
Asked about concerns regarding Israel’s weapons supplies in the event it has to fight a two-front war, especially with the U.S. hinting at restricting supplies, Israeli government spokseman David Mencer quoted Winston Churchill on Tuesday: “Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” He added: “Our victory is your victory.”
Mencer also added a comment about Iran, which is behind all of the various terrorist armies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — attacking Israel: “Iran is the enemy of Israel. But of course they are the enemy of the US and all the free world. And when I say Iran, I mean the regime of Iran, and not the people of Iran.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
