IRAN’S biggest and most formidable terror proxy Hezbollah is Israel’s biggest threat amid ratcheting tensions in the Middle East, a security analyst told The Sun.
After the militant group fired some 30 rockets at Israel last night, what happens in the next day is vital in determining whether the entire region will break out into war, the expert said.
Professor Anthony Glees, an intelligence expert from the University of Buckingham, told The Sun what he thinks we can expect in the next crucial 24 hours.
He believes some sort of retaliatory attack from Iran or Hezbollah is on its way in the next day and “the peace of the world hangs by a thread”.
This revenge strike could follow on from Iran’s missile-style launch on April 13th.
But the some 300 rockets fired from Tehran then were blitzed by Israel’s impressive Iron Dome air defence system – just as the ones fired from Lebanon were last night.
Prof Glees says Iran is therefore likely to turn to Hezbollah, which he describes as Israel’s biggest threat in the region.
Larger and better funded than Hamas or the Houthis, Hezbollah arguably poses a bigger threat to Israel than Iran itself because they are just across its northern border.
Iran, with little air force capabilities thanks to international sanctions that have cut it off from high-tech developments, can’t strike Israel via rockets or jets.
With over 2000 km and three different countries between them, as well as a much smaller armed forces, land warfare is also limited.
Speaking after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel last night, Prof Glees told The Sun: “I think the dial has moved several notches up today.
“If there is nothing in the next 24 hours, we can breathe a small sigh of relief.
“But I would expect there to be something in the next 24 hours which will indicate a wider Middle Eastern war is now to be expected.”
During a trip to the Israeli State Department years ago, Prof Glees said of the officials: “Each and every one said, the people we’re really afraid of, as long as Iran does not have nuclear weapons, is Hezbollah.
“They’re the really dangerous ones. That’s the enemy that Israel fears”, he added.
An expert previously told The Sun how Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) have been gearing up for a possible invasion by Hezbollah – and preparing to defend against one – for some time.
It has launched renewed attacks against Israel across their shared border since war broke out in Gaza in October last year.
The militant group is thought to have 30,000 to 50,000 fighters and between 120,000 and 200,000 missiles, rockets, attack and reconnaissance drones.
It is believed to be the world’s biggest and most powerful non-state military force.
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
IRAN launched an unprecedented aerial barrage on Israel overnight on Saturday April 13.
In the first attack of its kind, Iran hurled 110 ballistic missiles, 36 cruise missiles and 185 attack drones across Middle Eastern airspace.
Between Israel’s impressive Iron Dome air defence system and allied efforts from the UK and US, Tehran’s attack was largely thwarted.
At least four Typhoon fighters took out some of the weapons bound for Israel after scrambling from the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the ambush as a “declaration of war”.
Despite worldwide calls for cool heads to prevail, Netanyahu’s ranks repeatedly insisted that a retaliatory strike would be the only response.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “We cannot stand still from this kind of aggression, Iran will not get [off] scot-free with this aggression.
“We will respond in our time, in our place, in the way that we will choose.”
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council vowed to hit back against Israel if a counter-attack was launched.
US president Joe Biden, said to privately fear a catastrophic escalation in the Middle East, pushed Netanyahu to call off an immediate retaliation on Saturday night.
Israel’s war cabinet then spent days locked in crunch meetings and quickly approved plans for an “offensive” but the timing and scale remained murky.
Despite Israel claiming otherwise, the US made clear that it would not contribute to a revenge hit against Iran.
The conflict in Gaza, Prof Glees says, has become a “war without limits and a war without boundaries, and literally now without territorial boundaries”.
The security analyst thinks an urgent mission will be going on “behind the scenes”, with the US, UK and Germans doing everything they can to deescalate tensions in the region.
But, he warned, “there comes a time when those back-channel diplomatic efforts simply don’t work any longer.
“When the pressure for an all-out war on both sides becomes uncontainable.”
After almost ten months of war in the Gaza Strip, tensions have appeared to enter an all new high after a series of deadly strikes and high-profile assassinations by Israel in late July and early August.
On Saturday July 27, a rocket strike fired from southern Lebanon hit a football pitch in Golan Heights – a Druze village occupied by Israel – killing 12 young people including children.
Israel and the US both said Hezbollah, the largest of Iran’s terror proxy groups, operating out of Lebanon, were responsible for the deadly strike.
On Monday July 28, the IDF dropped an airstrike on an area of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, killing Hezbollah’s most senior military commander Fuad Shukr.
Less than two days later, at around 2am on Wednesday July 30, Israel killed Hamas’ top political leader Ismail Haniyeh as he slept in Iran’s capital Tehran.
Israel has yet to explicitly claim responsibility for the hit, but after vowing to take out all of Hamas last year, they are widely believed to be behind it.
US officials have also said they suspect Israel of being behind the assassination.
On the morning of Thursday August 1 morning the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) also announced that a strike on Khan Younis, southern Gaza, had killed Mohammed Deif on July 13.
Dief had worked as head of Hamas’ ruthless military wing, the al-Qassam brigades, since 2002.
It marked another major loss for Iran’s terror proxy groups in the region.
Early reports this week suggested Ismail Haniyeh was taken out in a precision strike, when a rocket was fired from a drone outside his window and detonated inside the room.
Then an investigation by the New York Times suggested a bomb had been planted in his room at the military-run compound where he was staying and detonated remotely.
Unnamed Iranian officials also shared the explosive theory with The Telegraph, further confusing the murky details around Haniyeh’s death.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), concluded its investigation into the humiliating security breach on Saturday August 1 and said he died after a “short-range projectile” was fired from outside the building.
A statement shared on Iranian state TV said a 7kg rocket warhead was used in the attack.
Iran and its proxy groups; Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen all vowed to seek revenge on Israel over the assassination of Haniyeh.
The UK, US and France have all urged their citizens to evacuate from Lebanon as fears of a wider war breaking out in the region continue to spiral.
America is even set to deploy warship USS Abraham Lincoln to the region and a fleet of fighter jets in case they are needed.
