Hizballah attack targeted IDF commanders on an inspection tour of northern border security

Iran’s Lebanese proxy, Hizballah, used five anti-tank rockets and roadside bombs for an ambush Wednesday, Jan. 28, outside Kafr Ghajar, which killed two IDF servicemen. Maj. Yohai Klangel, 25, from Har Gilo on the West Bank and Staff Sgt. Dor Nini, 20, from Moshav Shtulim. They were traveling in unarmored vehicles debkafile’s military sources report. Another seven soldiers were injured.  

Hizballah and Iran, who had vowed to avenge the air strike which killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and six Hizballah officers on Jan. 18, pulled off three feats in this attack:

One: their agents were able to cross the border unnoticed to plant roadside bombs. Two: they moved anti-tank rocket launchers right up to the border fence – undetected. And, three, astonishingly, they did not find it hard to strike and blow up the two command vehicles and inflict Israeli losses.

This three strokes were achieved – notwithstanding IDF assurances that all the necessary security measures  had been put in place and reinforced in readiness for the promised Iranian-Hizballah revenge attack.

Our military sources note that something must have been seriously amiss with the convoy’s security for Hizballah to achieve its stunning success.

In the first place: How did it happen that an IDF command convoy risked exposure to harm by traveling within sight of the enemy without proper protection?

Inhabitants of the northern border towns and villages locations are entitled to pin down the IDF with a hard question: Why are they held so strictly to military instructions for keeping civilians safe, when the army is so careless with the security of its own “senior officers” and men?

Israel’s armed forces will now be obliged to pull out the stops to recover respect for its deterrent capacity. There is little choice but to inflict a serious military blow against Hizballah and the Iranian intelligence officers based in Syria, whence their Lebanese proxy procured the intelligence for attacking the IDF command convoy.

Israel must also recover the initiative in the long conflict with Iran and Hizballah and reinforce the message conveyed in its Jan. 18 air strike on their mission near Quneitra, that it will not sit still for the Golan to be transformed into a forward position for attacking Israel from Syria.