After missiles, "Israel" is afraid of Hizbullah's marine capabilities.
According to "Israeli" "Jerusalem Post", ""Israel" is concerned that in a war with Hizbullah, the Lebanese guerrilla group will try to blockade "Israel" by attacking ships."
"Israeli" Navy assessments fear that "Hizbullah will try to attack cargo ships within a 30-kilometer radius of "Israel", in an effort to get commercial vessels to refuse to sail there during a war.""Hizbullah has already proven that it can fire missiles, so the operational capability exists as does the readiness to act," a senior "Israeli" navy officer warned.
The officer cautioned "the economic ramifications for "Israel" if Hizbullah succeeded in stopping merchant ships from sailing to the ports of Ashdod and Haifa."
""Israelis "have not internalized what it means that 99% of what we import as a country comes by sea," he said. "Ships stopping to sail here would have economic and security ramifications and is therefore the first and primary challenge we will need to confront."
"Israel's" sea lines of communication span the length of the Mediterranean Sea and around the Magreb region of North Africa, with 99 percent of all goods arriving in the Zionist entity by sea, including ammunition and military hardware.
The "Israeli" assessment is based on the 2006 aggression against Lebanon.
In this context, the report feared the repetition of 2006 example "during the Second Lebanon War in July 2006, Hizbullah fired a missile at the INS Hanit corvette, killing four sailors and causing extensive damage. Another missile sunk a nearby cargo freighter."
"Hizbullah is believed to have a significant arsenal of Chinese-developed anti-ship missiles such as the C-802, which is radar-guided and was used to hit the Hanit in 2006," it added.
The report further admitted "Israeli" intelligence failure: "one of the failures that led to the missile strike on the Hanit was the navy's decision to deactivate the vessel's Barak missile system due to an absence of intelligence that Hizbullah was in possession of sophisticated anti-ship missiles."
"In addition, the "Israeli" navy is concerned with Syria's recent purchase of the Russian Yakhont anti-ship missile, which could be transferred to Hizbullah. Syria already tested the Yakhont in recent maneuvers and the missile is said to have a range of about 300 km," it added.
"We are closely following what is happening in Syria and if a response is needed, we will know how to respond," the officer said.
Source: JP, Edited by moqawama.org
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment