JERUSALEM — With Israel’s stunning capture of the strategically valuable Ali al-Taher ridge in south Lebanon on Sunday, a major Hezbollah and Iran stronghold, the campaign to degrade Tehran’s so-called "Axis of Resistance" suffered a severe blow.While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) triumph is not a death blow, it means that the Iranian-regime-backed Hezbollah terrorist movement lost one of its key offensive bases to plan an invasion of Israel.IDF Lt.Col.
(Res.) Sarit Zehavi, the founder and president of the Israel-based Alma Research and Education Center (Alma), told Fox News Digital that "In the past three years Israel has attacked Hezbollah against various areas, for instance, we degraded the amount of rockets and missiles."EXCLUSIVE: ISRAEL SEIZES VAST IRAN TERROR AXIS ARSENAL WITH SURPRISING FOREIGN ORIGINSHezbollah members salute and raise the group's yellow flags during the funeral of their fallen comrades Ismail Baz and Mohamad Hussein Shohury, who were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicles, in Shehabiya in south Lebanon on April 17, 2024.(AFP via Getty Images)She noted that the IDF has decimated 90% of Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal.
Zehavi said, "Today Hezbollah is holding between 10,000 to 15,000 rockets, which is much less than what it used to have.Most of the array of sophisticated missiles, accurate missiles and long-range missiles was either eliminated or neutralized."She said, "The capability to launch an invasion of thousands of terrorists into Israel which was the plan, and this was the preparedness three years ago.
This capability doesn't exist anymore since the IDF is based in South Lebanon along the borderline, preventing Hezbollah from coming back to those places."In late August, Alma released a widely read analysis on: "Hezbollah – Situation Assessment: From a Large-Scale Terrorist Army to a Persistent Dispersed Threat."Smoke rises after Israeli strikes in Lebanon, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Isra...