Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari published a short video Wednesday explaining that the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiyeh, where it has focused its airstrikes on the city, is not like the rest of the city.
For the four weeks since Israel’s security cabinet decided to make the safe return of the residents of northern Israel to their homes a core goal of the war, after nearly a year of fire by Hezbollah, Israel has focused its attacks on two areas in particular: first, the Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon; second, the Hezbollah infrastructure in Dahiyeh.
Dahiyeh is a Shiite Muslim neighborhood in southern Beirut that Hezbollah had turned into a military zone, placing its headquarters and bunkers under residential buildings and shopping complexes. Until recently, Hezbollah also controlled the movement of people into and out of the area and censored social media posts from people in the area.
Hagari explained:
The heart of Hezbollah operations is in the Dahiyeh. Dahiyeh isn’t just another area in Lebanon. Hezbollah itself treats it at a de facto military base. Hezbollah has closed off the the Dahiyeh area in Beirut, and it controls who goes in and who goes out. In recent weeks, we have conducted precise airstrikes on a number of significant targets in there. It was in the Dahiyeh that we eliminated Hassan Nasrallah inside Hezbollah’s headquarters underneath civilian buildings. It was in the Dahiyeh that we destroyed large stockpiles of advanced surface-to-sea precision missiles. And it was in the Dahiyeh that we destroyed weapons production facilities, and struck Hezbollah intelligence headquarters underneath civilian buildings. The Dahiyeh in Beirut is Hezbollah’s stronghold.
Critics, such as Al Jazeera, a mouthpiece for terrorists throughout the war, have accused Israel of targeting Dahiyeh as part of a tactic of “large-scale destruction of civilian infrastructure.” But the IDF’s strikes in Dahiyeh have been precise, and Israel has often preceded them by publishing maps of its intended targets and urging people to leave.
Israel is eager to demonstrate that it is not at war with the Lebanese people as a whole. In a video message posted Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid homage to the idea of Lebanon as the “pearl of the Middle East,” urging the people to cast of Hezbollah and Iran, and to be “One Country – One Flag – One People” once again.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.