Lebanese President Joseph Aoun Resigned to Major Israeli Operation

It's not his fault. The "unbiased" American "mediators" have left him with only two options, and he has two weeks to make up his mind.

Either he triggers a civil war between the various Lebanese communities over Hezbollah's weapons, in the hope that Hezbollah won't win it, or

Israel will wage yet another war against Lebanon and occupy and potentially annex the southern part of the country south of the Litani River.

If Aoun wages a civil war pitting his vulnerable and badly equipped army against Hezbollah, he might not only lose the war but the entire country, in which case Israel (and Sunni-ruled Syria too) might not be too unhappy to intervene and steal land from the Greater Lebanon entity. 

Israel in both cases stands to annex south Lebanon.

So, Mr. Aoun's inaction is understandable, but it has the consequence of forcing the default option of a major Israeli attack, assault, and invasion. No one can later blame Aoun. He did nothing and everyone knows that "nothing" was his only option. He should already be thanking Trump, Tom Barrack, and all the cudgel-wielding goodwill ambassadors. 

With this situation, Donald Trump is laying the ground for another expansion of Zionist Israel's lebensraum into the Lebanese Upper Galilee. Together with the Zionist Anschluss of the Golan, the Zionist Reich is healthy and growing, with plans for tourist resorts in Palestinian Gaza, the Syrian Golan and the Phoenician-Lebanese city of Tyre.
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IDF to continue attacking Hezbollah until it disarms, even if leads to another war
YONAH JEREMY BOB
Tue, July 29, 2025


AN ISRAELI M109 howitzer fires artillery shells. (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON)

Since the November 2024 ceasefire, the IDF has detected around 456 new threats and attacked Hezbollah over 500 times.

The IDF has said that it will continue regular attacks on Hezbollah – despite the November 2024 ceasefire – until it disarms, even if this leads to another war.

A significant part of this calculation is the ongoing substantial harm that the IDF has caused to Hezbollah’s ability to threaten Israel to date.

If pre-war Hezbollah had around 150,000 rockets and tens of thousands of launchers for firing rockets, as of now, the number of launchers is down to a couple of thousand, with the total number of rockets down between 70-80%.

In practical terms, the implications are staggering given that this means that if pre-war Hezbollah could easily fire around 1,500 rockets at a time, now the Lebanese terror group can only fire some dozens at a time.

Hezbollah also has lost virtually all of its multiple rocket launching platforms.


This completely changes how Hezbollah operates, and limits its options for coordinated attacks, since it only has individual rocket launchers, which makes each rocket launch a strenuous and exposed effort.

Hezbollah retains a small number of long-range precision rockets, but would struggle to fire them given that the areas where it would need to move them to in order to fire could leave them exposed to IDF attacks, and many of these areas have already been attacked in the past.

Hezbollah’s loss of Syria for smuggling weapons has hit the group hard in any rearming efforts.

The new Syrian Sunni regime is blocking the vast majority of Iran's weapons smuggling efforts from Syria to Hezbollah on its own initiative and without any Israeli assistance as part of its opposition to the spread of Shiite influence.

The IDF has attacked some cross-border positions between Syria and Lebanon as many as five times to determine whether they still represent a smuggling threat.

IDF sources expressed some hope that Lebanon might eventually get Hezbollah to disarm, and are confident for now that Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem is heavily deterred and intimidated from launching a rocket attack on Israel.

On the other hand, IDF sources said Iran continues to stream around one billion dollars into Hezbollah to prop it up, whereas the West is only sending Lebanon up to $250 million.

This disparity could keep Hezbollah overall in power even if it has lost some of its standing.

Also, the military said it has attacked Hezbollah over 500 times since the November 2024 ceasefire.

Some 230 of the attacks were killing Hezbollah terrorists, 90 were attacks on rocket launchers, 20 were attacks on Hezbollah bases or outposts, 40 were attacks on weapons storage areas, and three were attacks on Hezbollah’s special forces Radwan training camps.

These numbers, added to the Hezbollah terrorists killed before the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, mean that 4,000-5,000 operatives are dead and around 9,000 are wounded badly enough to be permanently out of fighting.

Hezbollah manpower, munitions, threat to Israel significantly reduced since before war

The IDF said that this meant over half of Hezbollah’s standing army of 25,000 is out of service.

Before the war, Hezbollah was also said to have tens of thousands more reservist fighters, but IDF sources estimate that only 10% of them are still active now.

This is due to fear of being killed, or their commanders being killed, leaving no one really in touch with them, or a lack of weapons and arms.

Also, the Radwan forces are down to 2,500-3,000 from their pre-war 6,000 numbers.

They have also been reassigned to internal security issues, given how much smaller Hezbollah’s forces are across the board, as opposed to being focused on potential attacks.

Further, the IDF has said that, at least for now, there is no Hezbollah invasion threat, given how far they are being kept from the border.

This does not mean that a small group of Hezbollah fighters could not surprise Israel in one or two spots.

But the scenario of 6,000 Radwan invaders striking Israel all over the north simultaneously is not and will not be a threat for some time to come.

The IDF is complimentary to the US on handling the dispute mechanism for resolving Hezbollah violations of the ceasefire, as opposed to UNIFIL pre-war.

The IDF has submitted 1,263 violations. Of these, around 456 were new threats, many of which the IDF in the end dealt with, and 666 were passed on to the Lebanese army, which dealt with 546 of them, or 82%, properly.

This is a high percentage of success, and the IDF credits the US for helping the Lebanese army follow through against Hezbollah.

At the same time, the IDF still acts whenever needed, and some violations, which have multiple aspects to them, are dealt with by a mix of the IDF, the mechanism, and the Lebanese army.