Prepared Israel gives Hezbollah yet another beating

After a series of impressive intelligence and military operations that culminated in taking out Hezbollah’s top military chief Fuad Shukr, Israel on Sunday gave Hezbollah yet another beating by suppressing a major retaliation operation that the Iran-backed militia had planned from south Lebanon against the Jewish state.

Hezbollah was locked and loaded, ready to attack, deep inside Israel, a “strategic military target to be announced.” Launch time was 5 am, local time. At 4:45, however, 100 Israeli fighter jets started pounding — simultaneously — dozens of Hezbollah rocket launchers that had moved into position to start the offensive.

The Israeli fighter jets took out most, but not all, of Hezbollah’s attack assets. Explosive drones and Katyusha rockets still crossed into Israeli airspace, prompting Israeli air defenses — the Iron Dome — to go into action and shoot down almost all projectiles. After all was said and done, only two images emerged showing damage in Israel:

• a Hezbollah rocket that exploded in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and
• a chicken coop that was shown burning, prompting the world to mock the Lebanese Islamist militia and call its attack “Operation Grilled Chicken.”

During the first hour of the escalation, Hezbollah released its first statement, which seemed to have been prepared before the operation. “We shall exact revenge on the criminals,” the statement opened.

At dawn, “along the lines of a primary response to the Zionist aggression on the southern suburb of Beirut that led to the martyrdom of the great jihadist commander Fuad Shukr,” the statement added, “the mujahideen of the Islamic resistance launched an aerial strike using a big number of drones aimed deep into the Zionist entity toward a