The Mirror’s Defence and Security Editor Chris Hughes is in Israel and has witnessed first hand the Israeli operation that has conducted pre-emptive strikes on Lebanon today. Here, he details what he suspects could happen next
This morning’s huge Israeli operation was the escalation we have been bracing for in the Middle East – and all eyes are now on Iran and its proxy Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.
What happens in the next few hours or days could take this violence-hit region to the brink of all-out conflict, one that may even drag in other nations into a wider war.
Hezbollah had vowed revenge more than three weeks ago for the killing of one its kingpins Fuad Shukr, closely followed by the hit on Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh the next day in Tehran.
In a brilliantly planned suspected Mossad operation someone had called Shukr and persuaded him to go to a higher floor in his hotel, where he was hit with a possible Hellfire missile.
Then hours later Hamas man Haniyeh was blown up in his Tehran apartment – a major humiliation for Iran whose leaders were playing host to him.
Israel and the rest of the Middle East have been braced for an Iranian and Hezbollah response to these seismic events from Hezbollah and Iran ever since.
Hezbollah has been regularly hitting Israeli targets for months now, as the Daily Mirror has witnessed first -hand in northern Israel and the Israel-controlled Golan Heights.
Myself and photographer Phil Harris have just returned from the Golan Heights where we heard the incessant nightly blasts of Hezbollah missiles and Israel Iron Dome defence system.
And we have also spent time in Jish, close to the Lebanon border and where former Israel Defence Force paratrooper Shadi Khaloul, a friend of mine and a Christian Maronite,, told us: “Hezbollah will have to be dealt with and this could well mean a ground operation.
“They have to be driven back as these missile attacks are happening all the time.
“You cannot stand within view of the border for more than a few seconds as they will hit you.”
Shadi knows too well the tragedy that is unfolding in this region – since this fractious border has split his Maronite sect, with many on the Lebanese side and some like him on this side.
Now it seems Hezbollah had indeed planned to hit northern and even central Israel with a salvo of thousands of rockets sometime today or soon.
That attack has been prevented with the offensie by Israel this morning and Hezbollah’s potency vastly degraded – but we are all waiting for a response from the Lebanese militants.
It is estimated that Israeli bomber crews hit more than 1,000 Hezbollah rocket launchers in an immensely complex attack.
The response is likely to be huge from Hezbollah and possibly even Iran – and the size and effect of that response could trigger all-out war.
But I also believe Hezbollah and its Iranian paymasters, definitely in cahoots with Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, will plan unconventional attacks, usually what the military calls “assymetric” war, as in terrorist attacks on the ground.
This could involve using suicide bombers in unclaimed attacks inside Israeli cities or against Israeli or western allied interests globally.
Like Shadi Khaloul , there are many Israelis living in the north of the country who want troops to cross into Lebanon and push back Hezbollah to stop the constant missile attacks.
And, again, that is something that could well trigger a further escalation since it would involve a ground war against Lebanese Hezbollah – which is an extension of Iran’s state military power.
