Bulletins and News Discussion from September 23rd to September 29th, 2024 - The War In The North
Image is of a Hezbollah missile attack on a military camp west of Jenin.
The situation between Hezbollah and Israel is rapidly escalating, with massive bombing campaigns on southern Lebanon by Israel predominantly on civilians (as the tunnels in South Lebanon are mostly unreachable to the Zionists, just like in Gaza), while Hezbollah and its allies respond with missile attacks predominantly on Israeli military facilities. Israel is spreading an evacuation order to the residents of southern Lebanese villages while also bombing their routes of escape and civilian infrastructure, similar to a terror tactic used widely in Gaza.
Northern Israel is currently under military censorship to hide their losses, so we get very little information other than what the Resistance provides and what videos and images get through the censors.
I don't know if Israel will dare a ground incursion soon, but it seems fairly likely in the coming days or weeks.
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis. Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language. https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one. https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts. https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel. https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator. https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps. https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language. https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language. https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses. https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
It's a direct link to the Times of Israel website.
Anyway, I hope they are wrong. Finkelstein had said in his recent interview that Iran knows if Hezbullah falls they will fall. To be frank, his saying is not far from the truth. If Iran sits on its bum and keep doing lip service it will end badly. Imagine a middle east with no opposing force to Israel, its hell.
It's still entirely possible that Nasrallah is dead, but the IDF also claimed this in 2006, there was total darkness, and then he emerged a few days later totally fine. So if he is alive, what's going on is not unprecedented.
The trouble is that ongoing events and the information blackout both correspond fairly well to "Nasrallah is dead but Hezbollah is not revealing it so as to buy time to create a remoralizing response to the assassination of their leader," and to "Nasrallah is alive but they don't wish to confirm or deny anything so that Israel does not gain intel on what is happening inside Hezbollah such as the positions of their commanders; the IDF currently has no idea what Hezbollah is planning so this is an opportunity to make them squirm," so both sides can debate each other endlessly and not reach any result because it's just what situation you, personally, vibe more with.
Finkelstein had said in his recent interview that Iran knows if Hezbullah falls they will fall. To be frank, his saying is not far from the truth.
I don't think this is totally true, but it makes things much more difficult; either they'd have to rebuild Hezbollah inside Lebanon covertly or they'd have to create a whole new organization over several years to fulfil its role in Iraq or something. A rising China and Russia allied to Iran is the wildcard that will make the coming decades a whole different ballgame than the previous decades.