Hezbollah on Sunday released a video claiming that no “security zone,” regardless of its depth, would stop alerts inside Israel, meaning the group’s attacks. The video showed Hezbollah operatives on motorcycles, riding above ground and through an underground tunnel belonging to the terror organization.
It is not clear when the footage was filmed, but the video closely resembled material Hezbollah released at the beginning of the war, and even before October 7, including clips documenting the terror group’s exercises. Sunday’s video was, of course, intended to send a threatening message to Israel and to glorify the organization in the face of the IDF’s advance.
Hezbollah has suffered, and is still suffering, significant blows. Its power has also weakened inside Lebanon. But it is still functioning, and that can be seen both in the number of launches into Israel and in the public appearances of the organization’s senior officials.
It is true that Hezbollah produces a great deal of propaganda. But when the terror group says something, it is also declaring its intentions. Right now, those intentions include continuing to act against Israel at any cost.
The propaganda produced by Israel’s enemies in Lebanon, Iran, Yemen and Gaza has flooded the internet throughout the fighting of recent years. There is, of course, no need to amplify it or republish hostile content, especially material that attacks Israel’s very existence or shows direct hits on IDF forces.
At the same time, these materials must be read as statements of intent. The other side, even when it suffers heavy losses, is not truly abandoning its ambitions. It is saying so very clearly, and we must listen, so we cannot later say we did not know.
There is sometimes a tendency to cling to tactical achievements during fighting on the various fronts. Today, it is the operation at Beaufort. Before that, there were targeted eliminations of highly significant figures, including Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, as well as exceptional events such as the exploding pagers in Lebanon, which shook Hezbollah.
All of these achievements, however meaningful, did not end the problem on any front. The war continued.
Iran also continues to threaten with its military capabilities and intentions through its propaganda. Even the Houthis, from whom there now appears to be a kind of “quiet,” have not abandoned their military plans. In their exercises, they also simulate attacks on Israeli communities.
Do they have a clear plan for how to carry this out? It does not matter. Nor does it matter how much their power has been damaged or weakened. Our working assumption should be that this is what they are planning.
After the past few years, we are no longer in a place that allows us to ignore the threats around us, even when we all understand that they are propaganda. Tactical achievements should not confuse us. They are steps along the way, but only a broader strategy can bring real change, and that is what Israel needs.
Our enemies, and we must remember this, understand the matter of strategy very well. These are terror organizations whose guiding concepts are “patience” and “steadfastness,” as they define them, until victory or “martyrdom.”