Game over: Hezbollah drone footage of key Israeli sites rattles Tel Aviv regime 

By Musa Iqbal

While the Israeli regime threatens Lebanon with a full-scale invasion, the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah puts words into action and rattles the Israeli military apparatus 

Earlier this week, Hezbollah’s media division released nine minutes of drone footage from within occupied Palestinian territories.

Using a “Hoopoe” drone, the Lebanese resistance group monitored Israeli military installations, strategic structures like power stations, and a swath of Israeli commercial centers - all while evading detection. 

The drone was able to go over Israeli-occupied settlements of Afula, Nahariya, Kiryat Shmona, Safad, Karmiel, and most importantly Haifa - a key port that if successfully shut down would ravage the crumbling Zionist economy. 

Hezbollah demonstrated it has visuals of key Israeli military installations such as Iron Dome batteries, David’s Sling defenses, radars, and more.

Much of these were found in a facility owned and operated by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli military technology company focused on research and development.

With the surveillance of Haifa, the drone was able to capture footage of not only commercial ships (information it can pass onto Yemen who are attacking ships that deal with Israel) but also Zionist naval vessels. 

Or Heller, an Israeli analyst whose media work is widely read, stated that Hezbollah “wants to show Israel that it has the ability to fly over its airspace as Israel flies over Lebanon."

Hezbollah Brigadier General Mohammad Abbass said the drone is named “Hoopoe” as it is able to go long distances. However, it may also be a sly psychological attack on the Israeli regime, as the Hoopoe is the national bird of the Israeli regime.

Naming something “Hoopoe” could imply that the drone was launched from within occupied territory.

According to the Guardian, the Israeli regime has spent millions of shekels to deter the drone threat from Hezbollah alone (one million shekels is roughly $268k).

However, they are unable to completely stop the threat due to numerous tactics utilized by the Lebanese resistance group, including low-altitude flyovers that Israeli radars cannot pick up. 

The Jerusalem Post admitted that it was a challenge for the Israeli regime because “it is used to being the hi-tech superpower in the region, and prides itself on being able to use drones and other means of surveillance against enemies near and far.”

“What Hezbollah is saying is that it can accomplish this as well,” the Zionist newspaper wrote.

The timing of the footage, as with any move Hezbollah makes, is calculated to the most optimal degree. Keep in mind, that Hezbollah has had multiple successful drone infiltrations for months - likely going back even before the start of Palestinian Operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7.

The release of the latest footage likely has three intended audiences: Israeli regime top brass and officials, Israeli settlers, and the international community. 

Let us start by dissecting the most obvious: Zionist officials. Since October 7, Hezbollah has put the Israeli military into a chokehold, depleting military resources away from the Israeli invasion of Gaza and into the north.

Hezbollah’s cross-border bombings have not only destroyed swaths of Israeli troops and vehicles, it has driven out a projection of over 100,000 Zionist settlers.

With this comes deep financial cuts to the Zionist economy. The regime can no longer rely on the northern settlements to generate agricultural resources, forcing it to import resources from abroad.

Of course, by displaying the key port of Haifa in its surveillance video, Hezbollah is showing that even the highly guarded port is at risk of destruction if the Zionist entity escalates aggression against Lebanon.

The destruction within the northern economy paired with the port of Eilat being shut down by Yemen is already making economic analysts within the entity nervous.

A devastating blow to Haifa’s ports would force a new grim reality on the Israeli regime. 

Furthermore, Hezbollah displaying that it has the ability to circumvent Zionist aerial power - dubbed the best in the region and often the world - tells Israeli top brass that their best assets are not safe.

Israel understands Hezbollah’s calculus - that they would never flex their best intelligence in a video release. Hezbollah likely has access and intelligence on even more sensitive sites than the Rafael Advanced Defense Systems depot within the video. 

Whatever calculation the Zionist entity was bragging about before the release of the drone footage is likely irrelevant now. Military sites have been identified, labeled, and displayed for the world to see.

And that is just a taste of what Hezbollah wants the enemy to know. 

Next are the Israeli settlers. The drone footage spans across several cities totaling hundreds of thousands of settlers. Hezbollah is putting everyone in check: if the Israeli regime invades and strikes Lebanese citizens, then they can be reached too.

Striking critical infrastructure such as substations and hydro plants can paralyze entire cities and neighborhoods. 

The Israeli military has evacuated thousands of settlers while Zionist media keeps a lid on just how dire the situation is. Thousands of settlers remain uncertain when they will be allowed to return, others wonder if they will return at all - while more flee every day. 

Even Zionist military officials are conceding they have lost northern towns like Galilee to Hezbollah.

A former Israeli commander was quoted as saying: "I was in Kiryat Shmona yesterday. It is a ghost town. It is an abandoned war zone. The only thing you can see there are animals. You just want to cry."

This creates a unique pressure cooker on the Israeli regime. Israeli settlers have been protesting the Netanyahu regime for months now. Hundreds of thousands have demonstrated in Tel Aviv - adding thousands of more frustrated fleeing settlers from the north is adding additional pressure to a deteriorating political situation. 

Over the months, not only has Israel’s Iron Dome system failed at preventing Hezbollah’s rockets from hitting targets across the northern border, but the Iron Dome itself has been disabled several times.

US officials have poured billions of dollars into the Iron Dome, but are now worried that it will not be enough to deter Hezbollah.

And lastly, the international community. Hezbollah’s stealthy reconnaissance video puts anyone wanting to do business in these territories in check: If the Zionist entity strikes Lebanon and you are assisting them, then your assets can be hit too.

This is also a precedent set by Yemen as they continue their Red Sea blockade.

The recon video makes investing in these areas unattractive. Corporations that seek new business opportunities would be deterred by sirens that can go off at any moment and that their structures can be possibly damaged.

The Bank of Israel would likely have to subsidize businesses for operating in targeted areas, burning more money to hold the occupation together. 

Israeli settlers looking for work would likely be offered high-paying jobs to maintain critical structures within the targeted areas, but many would find the cost of potential death and injury outweigh the benefits of a few extra shekels. 

As far as governments go, those aligned with Washington are being shown that their billions of dollars of investments in Israeli weaponry are all for nothing.

Serious concerns will be raised next time budgeting is in question for Zionists, as billion-dollar weaponry is being subverted by thousand-dollar rockets. Wouldn’t this money be better off spent at home? 

Paired with the laundry list of war crimes and the threat of arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for top Israeli regime officials, there is simply no guarantee that the stream of revenue the Israeli regime once enjoyed will continue forward. 

With a single nine-minute video, Hezbollah has forced the Israeli regime to re-do its battle calculations.

Is war against Lebanon really something the Israeli regime can afford as it is defeated in Gaza, failing to meet any of its objectives? 

General Secretary of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has promised time and time again that there are weapons and intelligence that Hezbollah has that Israel cannot even imagine.

Is the settler-colonial entity willing to take the risk and find out after it has been rattled by mere surveillance footage?

Israel has once again found itself in a political and strategic chokehold by the resistance. The permanent damage the Zionist entity has suffered will leave it scarred for the rest of its likely short existence. 

Musa Iqbal is a Boston-based researcher and writer with a focus on US domestic and foreign policy.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

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