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Our latest newsletter is out!

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We’ve been having email deliverabilty issues to Gmail, Hotmail and Xtra accountholders.

If you are affected, or you’d just like to read our newsletter, then you can download the newsletter from here.

Shalom.

Report: 28 Hezbollah missile launch sites aimed at Israel |Arutz Sheva

The Alma Center’s Research Department initiated a project to find the locations of missile launching sites in South Lebanon adjacent to the civilian population, as part of what is known as the “Human Shield tactic”.

In their report, Alma notes that, despite the fact that a large proportion of Hezbollah’s missiles are located in south Lebanon, the information in public sources on the subject is scarce.

The primary source of Alma‘s project was the Wikimapia.org website.

“The first locations we found were all close to civilian infrastructure”, the report states, “which drove us to further the research on the subject and thus find 28 missile launching locations and the sites connected with these locations”.

According to the report, the missiles are medium-range missiles – “The same as those subject to the Hezbollah missile precision guided missile project (PGM’s)”.

The report explains that “as part of its modus operandi, Hezbollah stores its weapons in civilian structures and in the proximity of densely populated areas throughout Lebanon, with highest concentration in the capital city of Beirut, the Beqaa Valley and southern Lebanon”.

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US President Donald Trump called Iran’s bluff and won | Stuff

US President, Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump is not a strategy man. He has made clear he doesn’t like to think too far down the road; he likes to govern by instinct.

In short, he is a tactical leader, a Twitter president. Tactical leaders tend to make mistakes, largely because they cannot see the long-term implications of their decisions.

On Iran, however, President Donald Trump has not made a mistake.

His tactical game has worked, at least for the moment. He has called Iran’s bluff, taken out one of its most valuable leaders and, so far, made the correct calculation that Tehran will not risk a wider war with the United States.

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Lebanese wary as Israel destroys Hezbollah border tunnels | NZ Herald

MAYS AL-JABAL, Lebanon (AP) — As Israeli excavators dug into the rocky hills along the frontier with a Lebanese village, a crowd of young Lebanese men gathered to watch.

The mood was light as the crowd observed what Israel says is a military operation — dubbed “Northern Shield” — aimed at destroying attack tunnels built by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. The young men posed for selfies, with the Israeli crew in the background, as they burned fires and brewed tea to keep warm. More about
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But Lebanese soldiers were visibly on high alert, deploying to new camouflaged posts behind sandbags and inside abandoned homes. About two dozen U.N. peacekeepers stood in a long line, just ahead of the blue line demarcating the frontier between the two countries technically still at war.

The scene highlights the palpable anxiety that any misstep could lead to a conflagration between Israel and Lebanon that no one seems to want.

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Lebanon: Israel border tunnel operation won’t endanger calm | NZ Herald

Hezbollah’s tunnels

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s president said Tuesday Israel’s operation to destroy what it says is a series of cross-border attack tunnels built by the militant Hezbollah group won’t endanger the calm along the frontier, adding that his country takes the issue seriously.

Michel Aoun spoke hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the border where he said the Israeli military has discovered a third tunnel.

“If Hezbollah makes the big mistake and decides in any way to harm us or to resist the operation we are conducting, it will be hit in a way it cannot even imagine,” said Netanyahu.

The Israeli army said its soldiers placed explosives in the tunnel revealed Tuesday, warning Iran-backed Hezbollah against entering it.

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Israel calls for international response to Hezbollah tunnels | NZ Herald

Hezbollah’s tunnels

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister on Thursday asked the international community to impose additional sanctions on Hezbollah and condemn the Lebanese militant group in response to the discovery of tunnels stretching from southern Lebanon into northern Israel.

Stepping up an international pressure campaign against Hezbollah, Israel also hosted the commander of a U.N. peacekeeping force, showing him one of the tunnels and urging the force to take action across the border.

The Israeli military this week launched an open-ended operation meant to expose and thwart what it says are tunnels built by the Lebanese militant group aimed at infiltrating Israel. The two sides are bitter enemies and fought an inconclusive monthlong war in 2006.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, toured the operation’s area with a group of foreign ambassadors Thursday.

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Israeli operation targets Hezbollah cross-border tunnels | NZ Herald

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military launched an open-ended operation Tuesday to destroy what it said was a network of attack tunnels built by Hezbollah, saying it had foiled a plot by the Iranian-backed militant group to carry out a deadly infiltration in northern Israel.

Israeli forces did not enter Lebanese territory, and there was no immediate reaction from Hezbollah. But the Israeli announcement threatened to push the bitter enemies closer to an open confrontation for the first time since a bruising 2006 war. The military said it had protectively increased forces along the border and warned Hezbollah to keep its distance from the tunnels.

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For Israel, a rearmed Hezbollah in Lebanon is top concern | NZ Herald

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah

ON THE ISRAEL-LEBANON BORDER (AP) — On a moonlit night, some two dozen Israeli soldiers in full battle gear march near a Lebanese border village with a bomb-sniffing dog, searching for explosives and infiltrators.

Suddenly the force stops. Through night-vision goggles, two suspicious men appear over the ridge, holding what looks like binoculars. Could they be undercover Hezbollah guerrillas? Lebanese soldiers on a night patrol? Or perhaps U.N. peacekeepers?

The men appear unarmed and since they are on the other side of the internationally recognized “blue line” that separates the two countries, Israeli troops move on, completing another routine foot patrol along a scenic frontier that has remained quiet but tense since the bloody battles of a 2006 summer war.

Even with attention currently focused on Gaza militants along the southern front, Israel’s main security concerns lie to the north, along the border with Lebanon.

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