IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi launched his “we are changing the equation” campaign against Hizballah with a drone attack on Beirut’s Dahya district last Saturday, Aug. 24, with no official disclosure of its real target.
DEBKAfile’s military sources find Gen. Kochavi running this campaign in person. He is the first Israel military chief to be granted by the prime minister and defense minister full latitude for a war operation, after first presenting his plan for crushing Hizballah’s tools of war to the national security-foreign affairs cabinet.
When a northern front commander asked the chief of staff this week: What if the government interferes? He replied: They’ve given me a free hand.
Since the Dahya operation, the army chief has been stalking Hizballah in slow steps up to the brink of war.
- On the operational level, IDF forces are conspicuously ranged ready for a full-scale conflict against the Shiite group along Israel’s borders with Syria and Lebanon, especially the latter. Pushed up front was a full array of the IDF’s armored and artillery brigades, as well as its special and naval forces. The Air Force started round-the-clock circuits in Lebanese air space, primed ready to strike at any moment.
- An unprecedented intelligence/propaganda campaign was switched on. Select confidential data gathered by Israeli intelligence was leaked judiciously day by day. Its purpose was to drive home to the leaders of Hizballah and Iran’s Al Qods the unsettling news that their highest operational ranks were deeply penetrated and their secret plans an open book. READ MORE
