Recently, the Founder and President of Alma Research and Education Centre, Lt. Col. (Res) Sarit Zehavi, through a video, uploaded on the Alma Centre’s YouTube channel, provided a wartime briefing on the current circumstances unfolding in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The Alma Research and Education Centre is a non-profit and bipartisan organization with the mission of making in-depth geopolitical knowledge about the Middle East, accessible to English speakers. In addition to offering field briefings at various lookout posts along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon and Syria, it also provides lectures and workshops around the globe based on its daily research and analysis of the developments in Israel’s border conflicts.
Speaking from just 12-13 KM from the Lebanese border in northern Israel, Zehavi said that since the attack on Israel started, more than 1400 people have been murdered, more than 3500 have been wounded, and there are above 200 hostages kidnapped and confined in Gaza. Furthermore, around 150 more people, not of Israeli citizenship, have been murdered, while 140 are missing.
Highlighting how not every report on the activities of the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) can be believed, because the IDF does not reveal all its plan of action; two of the goals of the IDF are crystal clear, one is the complete destruction of the military capabilities of Hamas, and the other one is to get the hostages released. She added how an effort by the USA can be seen, to either bring in humanitarian ceasefire or some kind of an arrangement which will enable the hostages to be freed.
‘To tell the truth, I do not know where this is leading, I see my enemy, and I see how it is playing its games, and I am very worried about what may happen is that the civilian hostages will get released but the soldiers who have been held hostage will not be. The mission of the soldiers is to defend the civilians, but on the hand, those soldiers are our brothers, husbands, sons, daughters, and sisters.’, expressed Zehavi.
Sarit further said that the IDF has seen success as far as killing Hamas commanders is concerned, and in every two hours, there is news of more Hamas commanders being neutralised.
She said, ‘The atmosphere in Israel is that of a warzone, children are not going to school all over the country, and everybody is mobilised in this war, which means that those who are drafted are fighting, and those who are not, are supporting them with all sort of assistance and equipment. Everybody is here for the soldiers, and up north here, the soldiers are here to protect us.’
Zehavi remarked how this campaign is life and death to the Israeli state, not because of the oppression and the threat of Hamas, but she truly believes that if we just look at Hamas, with all the catastrophe that has happened, if we speak in pure military terms, Israel can deal with it, but the problem is that this conflict is not between Hamas and the state of Israel, but is something greater. Everything is happening according to a plan, with the mastermind being Iran.
‘This is all an Iranian plot against the state of Israel, launched from Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, from inside Israel, from Iraq, Syria, and from Yemen. They built proxy militias and openly published their plan of how they are going to carry this out. We have a lot of material around all this, but the only thing that is erroneous is the decision to start from the south. I do not know what the Israeli intelligence missed exactly, which will be figured out after the war, but I can tell you that the grand plan was conspicuous, we knew about it. The IDF knew about it and talked about it, but we did not know when and where.’. revealed Sarit.
Concluding about the Israeli strategy, Zehavi expressed that no physical barrier can prevent mass invasion into the state of Israel, which was seen back in 1973 and now as well. The measures implemented on the Gazan border are effective against small squads but not against full-blown campaigns like the current one. The same problem is rampant up north as well. This is why the IDF is fully prepared up north to counter the invasion of Israel.
Talking about the Lebanese front, she mentioned how it is speaking in two voices, on the one hand, Hezbollah continues to make threats about joining Hamas if Israel continues, and on the other hand, Lebanese politicians and the government keeps on saying that Lebanon is not interested. But ultimately, all this is a game, and the mastermind, Iran, does not care about the number of lives lost, and believes that it can annihilate the state of Israel.
Touching upon the USA’s role, the Alma Centre Founder mentioned how the US carrier which was sent to Israel is extremely important because, first it encouraged Israel and assured the country that it is not alone, and second, because there is now, operational preparedness to help them protect themselves.
She further revealed that the reason why Hezbollah did not do what Hamas did is because both of them are pretty different. Hezbollah wanted to create an impression inside Lebanon that Israel is the one to be blamed. Actually, the Hezbollah’s action plan of dragging Israel into war did not start with the Hamas attack on October 7, but much earlier.
During the last few months, there was a lot of activity seen on the Lebanese border, with the movement of military operatives around it, which indicated towards the fact that they were preparing for something big against Israel.
