WarSclerotic

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah organization said Wednesday the organization would defend Iran in the event of war, saying the Islamic republic would not be alone in a confrontation with America.

Hassan Nasrallah said the Islamic republic is currently the strongest state in the region, and the so-called axis of resistance led by Iran is the strongest it has ever been. The axis groups the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad with Shiite militias in Iraq and Hezbollah.

Nasrallah was speaking to supporters at a rally marking the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution and the overthrow of the shah.

“If America launches war on Iran, it will not be alone in the confrontation, because the fate of our region is tied to the Islamic republic,” he said.

Speaking via a large screen, Nasrallah said America is set to retreat from the region and has no real option to squeeze Iran except with sanctions.

“We see the struggle in the region may escalate and may take different forms but in all cases, today the Islamic republic is the strongest state in the region … and America is headed for more withdrawals and retreats from the region,” he said.

AP

Nasrallah spent over an hour extolling Iran and the Islamic revolution’s political and economic accomplishments.

The Shiite group was formed in 1982 under the guidance of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to combat Israel. It has been Iran’s most successful investment abroad, serving as the Islamic republic’s arm at Israel’s doorstep.

The group dominates the political and military landscape of Lebanon and possesses tens of thousands of trained fighters as well as an array of sophisticated armaments. Its intervention in Syria on the side of President Bashar Assad also expanded its influence and reach in the region.

At home, the group remains the unrivaled armed force, also making significant political gains along with allies in the last parliamentary elections. This positioned the group to secure three ministerial posts in the new government, sworn in last week, including the powerful Health Ministry, which has one of the country’s largest budgets.

Legislation that would penalize entities for boycotting Israel got overwhelming support in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, dealing another blow to the boycott divestment and sanctions movement.

The Senate backed the Strengthening America’s Security in the Middle East Act by a lopsided 77-23  hours before President Donald Trump delivered his annual State of the Union speech discussing his policies for the year.

To become law, however, the bill would need to pass the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, where it is unlikely to move without significant changes.

Opponents of the bill, which include presidential hopefuls in the Democratic Party, argue that Americans’ participation in boycotts is protected by the constitutional right to free speech.

Sirens blared in southern Israel overnight Wednesday after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip exploded in an open field in the Eshkol region, the IDF confirmed in a statement.

The IDF said one of its tanks fired at a Hamas military post in southern Gaza in response to the rocket attack.

There were no reports of damage or injuries on either side.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket launch. Israel has maintained that it holds Gaza’s Hamas rulers for all fire emanating from the territory.

Palestinian news outlets on Wednesday night reported that two additional rockets had been fired from Gaza but landed inside the Strip.

Earlier this week, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported that a Friday meeting in Gaza between Hamas representatives, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East and Egyptian intelligence officials resulted in an agreement to maintain quiet on the Israeli front.

Meanwhile, according to a Channel 12 news report, Israel has sent messages to Hamas warning it to cease the weekly border riots or risk facing an Israeli military campaign despite the upcoming general election on April 9.

“Hamas was warned – the election is not a restraining factor,” Israeli officials reportedly told Hamas via third-party mediators.

Iran tried to hack Israel’s missile-alert system over a year ago, IDF Cyber Defense Division Commander Noam Sha’ar told Israel Hayom.

In an interview with Israel Hayom’s weekend magazine, Sha’ar says the cyberattack was successfully repelled by his unit, avoiding potentially catastrophic results. The full interview will be published on Friday.

The Homefront Command’s missile alert system is one of the most sensitive parts of Israel’s civilian and military infrastructure.

Anyone who gains control over the system can set off sirens at will and can even disable the highly-important features that provide early warning on incoming rockets and missiles.

The attack was detected due to the constant monitoring of an Iranian cyber group, one of dozens run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with a budget of over 1 billion dollars. It turned out that the group tried to hack several systems in Israel apart from the missile-alert system.

According to Sha’ar, Iran is constantly trying to compromise Israel’s sensitive infrastructure, both in and outside the military. He notes that his unit has managed to foil about 130 such attacks, most of which originated with Iranian entities.

“There is a nonstop Iranian effort to engage in cyberwarfare against Israel,” he said in the interview. “This activity is directed mostly at the IDF’s soft spots, and we are using a variety of means to counter this,” he said.

Sha’ar said his unit managed to thwart a similar attack from terrorist group Hamas, which tried to hack Israel’s intelligence apparatus in Judea and Samaria.

According to Sha’ar, had Hamas been successful, its hackers would have been able to undermine crucial intelligence-gathering operations and compromise counter-terrorism efforts, as well as use the IDF’s own observation posts to monitor Israeli activity.

He says that the number of such attacks will likely grow exponentially in the coming year, in part because of the increasing resources states and organizations allocate for such purposes, but also because the IDF is increasingly relying on sophisticated technology.

Sha’ar, who began his military career in the IDF’s elite signal intelligence unit, Unit 8200, concedes that there is no such thing a hacker-proof system. “In my old unit, the underlying assumption was that everything is hackable; that is why we have to monitor our most important assets as closely as possible.”