Israel’s power grid is vulnerable to
a Hezbollah attack that could render it “uninhabitable” 72 hours later, Haaretz
reported on 21 June.
According to the CEO of a company
that manages and oversees Israel’s electrical systems on behalf of the
government, Israel is entirely unprepared for a war with Hezbollah that would
likely target the country’s power infrastructure.
“We are not ready for a real war. We
live in a fantasy world, in my eyes,” said Shaul Goldstein, head of Noga – the
Israel Independent System Operator.
Goldstein made the comments while
speaking at a conference organized by The Institute for National Security
Studies (INSS) in the southern city of Sderot. He said that Israel would be
“uninhabitable” after 72 hours without power. “You look at all of our infrastructure,
the optical fibers, the ports – and I won’t go into the sensitive things – we
are not in a good place.”
“If Nasrallah decides to paralyze
Israel’s power grid, he only needs to pick up the phone and call the head of
Beirut’s power grid, which is [technically] identical to Israel’s.” Goldstein
added, “the upside is that we have invested a lot in protection, working
together with Israel Electric Company.”
On Thursday, Reuters noted that
Hezbollah likely possesses upwards of 150,000 missiles and rockets of various
types and ranges.
Hezbollah says it has rockets that
can hit all areas of Israel, including precision missiles, drones, and
anti-tank, anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles.
Israel and Hezbollah have been
exchanging increasingly hostile threats in recent days. Hezbollah chief Hassan
Nasrallah warned an invasion of the Galilee is “still on the table” in the
event of war.
Israeli-born Amos Hochstein, adviser
to US President Joe Biden, traveled to Israel and Lebanon this week amid the
heightened tensions.
In Israel, Hochstein met with Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant, Knesset opposition leader Yair Lapid, and former war cabinet member
Benny Gantz.
Haaretz writes that Hochstein warned
of the possibility that war with Hezbollah could lead to a wide-scale Iranian
attack on Israel, of a kind that would be difficult for Israel’s defense
systems to repel in concert with possible wide-scale fire by Hezbollah from
Lebanon.
Israeli leaders have for months
threatened to “copy-paste” the destruction of Gaza onto Lebanon if Hezbollah
did not halt its attacks from the north, which forced the evacuation of some
200,000 settlers.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army
announced its Northern Command had approved operational plans for war with
Lebanon.
Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese MP and
spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi stated earlier this week that if Israel wants a
full-scale war, the Islamic resistance is ready.
“If they want to come to Lebanon,
they are welcome. We are waiting for them. Ahlan wa Sahlan, as they say in
Arabic,” he stated.
Moussawi noted that Israel is having
difficulty managing the war in Gaza and asked where Israel would get the troops
to launch a much more difficult invasion of Lebanon.
“They can’t manage themselves in
Gaza, and they want to come here? In Gaza, they are not fighting. They are just
bombarding and sending drones. But if they do come, we are anxiously waiting
for them. We have made preparations that they can never imagine,” he added.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant has asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to schedule an urgent
meeting to discuss extending compulsory military service to three years, Hebrew
news outlet Makan reported on 21 June.
The request comes in light of a
serious enlistment crisis and shortage of soldiers in the Israeli army.
“The new security reality requires
finding means to continue the war effort,” Gallant was quoted as saying.
Gallant has requested that Netanyahu approve this in government within the
coming days.
The war minister’s request also
comes less than two weeks after Israel’s Knesset voted in favor of a
controversial draft conscription bill to delay the enlistment of Haredim
(ultra-Orthodox Jews) to the army. 63 voted for the bill, and 57 opposed it.
The conscription of the Haredim has
been a source of much tension in Israel lately. Far-right parties, on which
Netanyahu’s coalition relies, favor continued exemption for the Haredim, while
others, including Gallant, believe the burden of military service is a
responsibility for all Israelis.
Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews of
military age have been able to avoid compulsory enlistment into the army for
decades by enrolling in yeshivas (religious schools) and obtaining repeated
one-year service deferrals until they reach the age of military exemption.
The government has been unable to
reach a consensus on the matter.
“For many months, the security and
military establishment has been working to advance the draft law and reach
agreements with the Ministries of Finance and the Judiciary, without success or
progress in meeting the immediate and urgent needs of the army,” Gallant said.
The issue of the Haredim has
contributed to severe shortages of soldiers in the army during wartime.
An Israeli army radio correspondent,
Doron Kadosh, reported on Monday that the military is setting up a new division
for reservists over the retirement age of 40 in order to meet the “urgent need
for more troops.”
The new division is in “advance
stages” and will call on Israelis who were previously exempt from serving,
according to Kadosh.
The Israeli government also
supported a draft bill over the weekend to extend the reservist retirement age
despite public opposition.
Due to “a very high volume of deaths
and injuries as a result of the war, the IDF still needs a significant amount
of manpower,” the draft bill reads. Israel has been taking heavy losses during
battles with the Palestinian resistance across the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military has quietly
handed over significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to pro-settler
civil servants working for Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the Guardian
reported on 21 June, in a move that will help accelerate Israel’s illegal
annexation of the occupied Palestinian territories.
The Israeli military announced the
transfer of responsibility for dozens of bylaws at the Civil Administration on
its website on 29 May. The Civil Administration governs the West Bank under the
military's direction.
Michael Sfard, an Israeli human
rights lawyer, said: “The bottom line is that [for] anyone who thought the
question of annexation was foggy, this order should end any doubts. What this
order does is transfers vast areas of administrative power from the military
commander to Israeli civilians working for the government.”
The transfer will allow Smotrich and
his civilian appointees from his religious settler movement to further remove
domestic legal obstacles to the theft of Palestinian land for Jewish settlement
in the West Bank.
It will also allow Smotrich to
further limit Palestinians from building new homes on their own land, which are
needed as their population grows.
Israel captured the West Bank and
militarily occupied it in 1967. It is home to millions of indigenous
Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
Acquiring territory through war and
establishing foreign settlements therein is illegal under international law.
The Guardian notes that Israeli
politicians have long sought to find ways to annex the occupied
Palestinian West Bank and make it formally part of Israel.
The transfer of laws, which received
little attention in the Israeli press, follows a years-long campaign by
pro-settlement politicians to acquire legal powers in the West Bank previously
held by the Israeli military as the occupying power.
The laws cover everything from
building regulations to the administration of agriculture, forestry, parks, and
bathing locations.
Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst
for Israel–Palestine at Crisis Group, said, “The big story is that this is no
longer ‘creeping annexation’ or ‘de facto annexation,’ it is actual
annexation.”
“This is the legalization [and]
normalization of a long-term policy. Smotrich is basically re-establishing the
way in which the occupation works by taking a large part out of the hands of
the military,” Zonszein added.
Smotrich, a leader in the religious
settler movement, became finance minister and a minister in the defense
ministry as part of a coalition agreement that brought Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu back to power in late 2022.
He quickly began calling for the
annexation of the West Bank, as well as ethnically cleansing Palestinians from
it to clear the way for additional Jewish settlement.
Smotrich has called for the
destruction of Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the strip, and
its annexation as well.
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