It's 10:30 in the morning of November 7, 2004. "Mersad-1" flew for the first time over occupied Palestine, and reached the airspace of the Nahariya colony, before returning to its base safely. These were the first sorties of a resistance drone, "in response to the repeated violations of Lebanese sovereignty." This was not the enemy's first or last surprise, and it will not be. Hezbollah is crowning its fortieth year with more than 100,000 fighters, an activated air defense system, and the manufacture of precision missiles and drones. From the moment of liberation, the resistance, which expected a war to occur after the enemy's withdrawal to restore its dignity, hastened to prepare possible scenarios and military plans that were one of the most important reasons for the victory of 2006, as the resistance was not surprised by any "blow", unlike "Israel", which was approved by its president. Previous Shimon Peres, that “Israel has no surprise or creativity. In war, we stagnated."
For decades, the resistance has mastered the "shock strategy". Its surprises were present in every war, and in battles between wars, and were included in the three arms of confrontation, land, sea and air. The air defense systems that the Operations Division of the "Israeli" army spoke about two weeks ago are not new in the Hebrew media. Six years ago, the Walla website published a report on changes in the "air reality" of the "Israeli" Air Force. As its pilots became “exposed to tracking radars in the Lebanese arena, and under the threat of missile launches.”
The detection and warning systems on the "Israeli" warplanes made it possible to diagnose the degree of tracking and radar capture on them as an indicator of those systems that were "installed between Syria and Lebanon."
What has changed now? At that time, according to the report, “Israel” was not sure that Hezbollah would obtain the advanced systems, and it lived through years of anticipation, anxiety, and raids that it claimed were intended to transfer them. Today, the systems came to light, and the resistance began displaying them as a response to the "Israeli" threats. In this regard, the Hebrew media pointed to “two exceptional incidents in the skies of Lebanon; The first was in October 2019, after the operator of an Israeli Air Force plane noticed smoke from a missile being fired at it without hitting it.” About two months after the enemy drone was shot down in the southern suburbs. And “the second in February 2021, when an anti-aircraft missile was detected from Lebanese territory towards an Israeli Air Force drone.”
As for the installation of the "drone equation", it was recently drawn in the skies of occupied Palestine after the entry of the "Hassan" plane on February 18, 2022 for forty minutes, without affecting the Iron Dome, fighter jets and helicopters. This means, in addition to the economic losses, the failure of the enemy's military and technical systems to shoot down the plane or control it, before it disappeared from his radars. This disappearance has technical meanings that indicate a new superiority recorded for the resistance. “The sky” is no longer the enemy’s sole possession. A single march confused his army for hours, so what if its goal was more than mere reconnaissance?
start-up shocks
In reviewing the development of the direct war with “Israel”, the path of the resistance’s surprises can be summarized as follows:
1982: The first martyrdom operation (Ahmed Kassir) against the headquarters of the military governor in Tyre, killing dozens of officers and soldiers.
1985: Enemy soldiers ambushed to carry out a capture attempt in Jibshit. The capture plan failed, but the patrol was completely wiped out. In the clashes that took place at the "zero" distance, the shirt of the leader of the resistance operations in the region, Abu Hussein Al-Asmar, was stained with the blood of "Israelis", so he searched among their corpses for a neighborhood that could be exchanged with the prisoners of Ansar prison.
1986: The resistance succeeded for the first time in capturing two "Israeli" soldiers in the town of Konin, in a qualitative operation led by the martyr Samir Matout.
1987: The resistance carried out the first naval operation targeting the "Israeli" warship "Devora" off the coast of the town of Adloun, killing and injuring a number of soldiers, and the ship's hull was damaged, while the resistance fighters who boarded rubber boats were martyred after clashes.
balance surprises
1992: In the confrontations after the assassination of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Mr. Abbas al-Moussawi, the resistance used the Katyusha for the first time to deter, and worked to install it as a deterrent weapon in the seven-day war of "settlement of scores" in 1993, and threatened to strike Kiryat Shmona within the equation of "civilians vs. civilians.” In 1996, the "beam" of the resistance's missiles was enlarged while targeting the northern settlements, and its range was developed to 25 km.
1997: An ambush in the town of Ansariya led to the killing of 13 members of the "Sheetet" unit, the second most important elite unit in the "Israeli" army, and a doctor from the rescue squad.
2005: The Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, revealed that the number of resistance missiles is more than 12,000, and that their range hits all the vital "Israeli" installations in the north. And after the July 2006 war, he announced that the resistance had more than twenty thousand missiles. Since that day, no official statement has been issued regarding the number of missiles.
The shocks of the second war
In the aggression of 2006, the resistance shattered the myth of the “God’s chariot” and the threat of battleships at sea, and declared its capabilities in the missile dimension, and it was no longer hindered except by the air superiority of the enemy:
- The surprise capture operation on July 12th.
- The resistance thwarted the landing and infantry plans after it shot down the Ya'sur helicopter in the town of Yatar. The task of "Ya'sur" was to transfer the leadership staff that would manage the hostile axis of progress. The resistance removed enemy helicopters from the equation during the day, due to the difficulty of seeing at night, so the enemy relied intensively and unprecedentedly on the Air Force.
- The resistance took the "Israeli" naval force out of the equation by targeting the barge "Sa'ar 5" with a "C802" cruise missile. Although the process of launching a smart missile of this type is complex, and it involves calculations related to wind speed, barge speed, waves, sea surface, temperature and distance, The battleship was hit from the first hit, which was unusual. This missile was among the group of surprise weapons that the enemy was not aware of, as evidenced by the fact that the battleships and gunboats moved comfortably before the bombing of "Sa'ar 5".
- The resistance surprised the enemy by possessing long-range missiles, and perpetuated the equation of Haifa and beyond Haifa. And Sayyed Nasrallah declared that "there is no place in occupied Palestine that is not reached by the resistance's missiles, at any angle and at any point."
- The resistance used Kornet missiles for the first time when the "Israeli" took the decision to launch a ground invasion a week after the start of the war. The myth of the "Merkava", the pride of the "Israeli" military industries, was shattered, and the balance of war changed after the enemy bet on the ground operation.
Surprises to deter
2010: Sayyed Nasrallah launched the equation of "a building in the suburbs in exchange for buildings in Tel Aviv" and "Rafik Hariri Airport in exchange for Ben Gurion Airport".
2011: Sayyed Nasrallah asked the resistance fighters to be "prepared for a day when war is imposed, the leadership of the resistance may ask you to control the Galilee."
2016: The resistance threatened to target the "ammonia" tanks in Haifa Bay, forcing the enemy to close its tanks after 30 years of operation.
2017: Sayyed Nasrallah called on the enemy to dismantle the Dimona nuclear reactor before targeting it.
2018: Sayyed Nasrallah announced that the resistance had obtained precision missiles, and "this matter has been accomplished."
2018: The enemy discovered tunnels on the Lebanese borders, which were among the tools of the plan to control the Galilee. However, the failure of the "Israeli" military intelligence was evident when there was a tunnel that was more than 13 years old.
2020: The enemy failed to spot a resistance reconnaissance plane that roamed over occupied Palestine and took pictures of an enemy army maneuver before returning safely.
2022: In addition to announcing “making drones and converting missiles into precision missiles” years ago, and activating air defense in the face of the danger of drones, Sayyed Nasrallah warned the enemy of “Ansariya 2” in case it dared to search for missiles or their factories. The definition of “Ansariyya” means that the resistance warns the enemy of “the presence of infantry or Israelis” on Lebanese territory, and vows to target them in a similar ambush if they think of approaching “sensitive places” such as the sensitivity of targeting “cadres.” (Source: Al-Akhbar - Iman Bashir)