‘Judgment Day’

“Here’s the truth,” Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday, addressing the UN General Assembly. “Israel yearns for peace.”

Minutes later, the IDF took a shot at Hassan Nasrallah, leveling four residential buildings in the process. Borj al-Brajneh, a neighborhood in Dahiya, Hezbollah’s suburban stronghold in southern Beirut, was engulfed in acrid black-orange smoke.

Locals described the strike in apocalyptic terms. An entire city block was reduced to rubble. If there were any questions — any questions at all — as to Israel’s intentions regarding Hezbollah, they were answered on Friday. Netanyahu targeted the senior-most leadership at what the IDF described as the group’s “command center,” located beneath two apartment buildings.

By “senior leadership,” I mean the Shura Council. The commanders killed in recent weeks presided over the Jihad Council, a subordinate branch. The Shura Council is the chief decision-making body. Friday’s strike was, by every account, an attempt to eliminate the panel, Nasrallah included. There was no immediate word on his status or whereabouts.

Daniel Hagari described a precision strike on the “central headquarters” of Hezbollah, “which was intentionally built under residential buildings… in order to use them as human shields.” Those humans — the civilians — are probably dead. Entombed. As Lebanon’s health minister put it, “Whoever [was] in those buildings is now under the rubble.”

In a testament to the potential gravity of what took place in Beirut Friday, Netanyahu walked out of a UN press conference at the urging of a military advisor. He was set to fly back to Israel immediately. As The New York Times noted, it’s “highly unusual for Netanyahu to conduct state flights on the Jewish Sabbath.”

The Pentagon had no prior knowledge of the strike, other than a courtesy heads up at the very last minute. According to a spokeswoman for the US military, Yoav Gallant was actually on the phone with Lloyd Austin just prior to the attack.

Regardless of whether Nasrallah survived Friday’s strike, he’s a dead man. They’re all dead men. Regular readers will attest that I’ve wondered aloud in recent weeks — including on Wednesday, in “Endgame” —  if the IDF would target senior Hezbollah officials outside the Jihad Council. The answer, as it turns out, is “absolutely.” Nasrallah, Hashem Safieddine and all the rest are marked men on borrowed time.

Last week, at Ibrahim Aqil‘s funeral, Naim Qassem (Nasrallah’s deputy) said Hezbollah’s “ready to face all military possibilities.” Well, Qassem, bear witness:

That’s verified footage of Friday’s strike on the leadership. Note the screams of civilians beginning at the 0:15 mark.

On Thursday evening, I described Hezbollah as “defenseless.” I wasn’t expressing sympathy. Not for Hezbollah, anyway. Rather, I was conveying the reality of the group’s predicament. For all the bombast and the post-2006 build up — for all the missiles and the training — they’re still “just” a militia. The most capable militia on Earth? Sure. Maybe. But a militia all the same. They’re woefully outgunned here, and their counterintelligence capabilities aren’t just insufficient for the task at hand, they’re comparatively piddling such as to be of no consequence whatever.

Over and over again this year I emphasized — specifically and unequivocally — that Israel almost surely knew the locations of every ranking Hezbollah commander and official. Now you see what I meant. Hezbollah’s leadership are fish in a barrel. And it’s important — crucial, in my view — to understand that they always were.

Yes, Hezbollah’s capable of fighting Israel to a standstill in a variety of limited-war contexts, particularly those that involve the IDF fighting the foot soldiers in close-quarters in Lebanon. But no, Hezbollah has no hope (none) in the event Israel brings to bear, unrestrained, the full force of its air power and on-the-ground targeting capabilities against the group’s leaders and commanders, with no regard for civilians. That’s what Netanyahu’s doing right now, and you’re seeing the results: Fire and brimstone, folks. Fire and f–king brimstone.

There’s nothing Hezbollah can do now. Notwithstanding some loud shouting from Iran’s embassy in Lebanon on Friday, the IRGC’s not coming to help. And guess what? If they do, they’ll be incinerated too.

I wish there were a more sophisticated way to put this, but I’m afraid there isn’t, or at least not if I want to make the point as forcefully as it needs to be made: All the talk — all the years of Nasrallah’s finger-wagging bluster and Khamenei’s trademark balderdash — was, in the final analysis, just one big bluff from two of the world’s biggest bullsh-ters. Israel’s in the process of calling that bluff.

So, it’s put up or shut up time for Nasrallah, assuming he’s still alive. If he’s not.. honestly, I don’t know what then. I have no idea what they do in the event he’s killed. Apparently, Safieddine was unharmed Friday, according to initial indications. I assume he’d step in to lead (probably over Naim Qassem if my guess counts) if or when the IDF reunites Nasrallah with the big guy. But again: Safieddine’s a dead man too. There’s no future for Hezbollah’s leadership.

All I know for sure is that this bloody melee, carried out in the name of religion and holy land, is manifesting as hell on earth for the millions of people caught in the “righteous” crossfire. “It was like Judgment Day,” a 54-year-old Borj al-Brajneh resident told the Times, of Friday’s strike in Beirut. “I can’t describe it.”