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Hizbullah Struggles to Recover
(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - On Nov. 23, the IDF eliminated Hizbullah's Chief of Staff, Ali Tabatabai in Beirut's Dahiyeh district. After Oct. 7, Israel is not allowing risks to grow. Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira, former military secretary to the prime minister, told Ha'aretz that from Hizbullah's "point of view, this is an attempt to provoke them to respond, in order to prepare a pretext excuse for a broader attack that will destroy everything of theirs that we didn't manage to destroy a year ago." There is disagreement at the top levels of Hizbullah over the character of the response to Tabatabai's killing. "Some are calling for a fierce response to avenge the humiliation inflicted on Hizbullah," he says. "And there is another camp, headed by the present secretary general, Naim Qassem, which says they should wait patiently and not hand Israel an excuse." "They fear that another war will erupt, resulting in renewed widespread damage and killing by the IDF, and Hizbullah will be blamed by the others in Lebanon for that turn of events. The thinking there is that in a time of distress, it's necessary to hunker down and wait for an opportunity. At the moment, those voices are in the ascendant."