Lebanese terror group Hezbollah put on a show of force Sunday, extending a rare media invitation to one of its training sites in southern Lebanon, where its forces staged a simulated military exercise.
Masked fighters jumped through flaming hoops, fired from the backs of motorcycles, and blew up Israeli flags posted in the hills above a barrier simulating the one at the border between Lebanon and Israel.
The exercise came ahead of “Liberation Day,” the annual celebration of the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon on May 25, 2000, and in the wake of a recent escalation between Israel and Gaza. Gaza’s terrorist Hamas rulers and Hezbollah have longstanding ties.
The Israel Defense Forces declined to comment on the Hezbollah exercise.
Senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine said in a speech Sunday that the exercise was meant to “confirm our complete readiness to confront any aggression” by Israel.
On the other side of the border, Israeli forces have also occasionally invited journalists to watch exercises simulating a war with Hezbollah. Officials from both sides frequently allude to their readiness for conflict in public statements.
On the ground, however, the conflict has been largely frozen since the two sides fought a brutal and inconclusive one-month war in 2006.
Israel regularly strikes targets related to Hezbollah and its backer, Iran, in neighboring Syria.
Safieddine in his speech on Sunday alluded to the group’s possession of precision-guided missiles, which were not on display but which he said Israel would see “later.”
Elias Farhat, a retired Lebanese army general who is currently a researcher in military affairs, said Hezbollah’s “symbolic show of strength” on Sunday appeared to be in response to the recent escalation in Gaza. He said it could also be a response to Thursday’s annual Flag March in Jerusalem by thousands of Israelis, in which some of the more extreme participants chanted “Death to Arabs” and other racist slogans, in celebration of Jerusalem Day. The day marks Israel’s capture of the Old City and reunification of the capital during the 1967 Six Day War.
These humans on both sides of the conflict need to grow up and find less destructive hobbies. I mean you would think after a few thousand years it would get old. Stuck in a rut. It is like watching reruns of the Beverly hillbillies funny but … after awhile it gets old. Jumping thru flaming rings… come on…. Maybe just go back home and build a useful society for a change. While your at it drop all of the clown clothes. The medieval garb has had its run.
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