How FPV drones shaped Lebanon battle, with Jon Elmer

All right, you are watching and listening to the electronic inifat. I am John Elmer. This is the resistance report on day 993 of Israel's genocide in Gaza. It's day 116 of the battle in South Lebanon where we are currently on day five of a pause in fighting related to the Iran US negotiations. Um I am reporting this on the afternoon of Thursday, June the 25th. Of course, Israel's violating the ceasefire, but in broad terms, there's a major pause in operations that have been in effect all week, and Hezbollah, of course, has adhered to that. Um, I will be breaking down operations videos that were released in the past 7 days. As always, everything you're going to see is for the first time, and this is coverage of week 16 of the battle in South Lebanon. As always, we will start with some maps. um this particular map that I've been showing uh throughout this battle. I think it's uh useful to get your bearings. We're going to be focused today um principally near Yahar up at the top of the Galilee panhandle there. You see north of Matula. Matula is inside Israel. Yahar is on the northern side of the Latani River. Um and then that is where the Boowfort Castle is. And up from the Bowfort Castle is the Ali Alahare ridge line which we are going to be focused on on this show today. Um let's look at the second map. This is the IDF's map of where they are establishing their buffer zone 10 kilometers along the border but also you can see in the same place if you follow Matula is uh in the black of the Galilee panhandle there and you can see it marked with a dotted line. that line is is connecting Matula um up to Bofort Castle and further to the Ali Alah Ridge. Um so this is a map that Israel released this week, but of course the memorandum of understanding that was signed in Islamabad in Islamabad is very clear. Uh Lebanon uh is number one. It's the number one point of the 14point uh MOU and it says specifically that the uh ceasefire will ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. So the games that Israel are playing here are in uh contravention of theou and we'll see how that uh unfolds. Netanyahu yesterday said that the uh IDF will not be withdrawing from the buffer zone as long as he is prime minister. There's of course elections coming up in Israel in a few months. Um Naim Kasam from Hezbala, the secretary general of Hezbollah said that uh he repeated uh also uh yesterday what we have heard him say many times which is that we have made the decisive choice and we will never return to the era before March 2nd. The project to eliminate Hzbalah has failed. be confident that the Israelis will be driven out of every inch of our land and victory will be achieved. In the negotiations, they have set up a monitoring cell. They're calling it a deconliction cell that includes Pakistan, Qatar, Iran, and the US. So, this is not a ceasefire that is going to be overseen by the United States, which obviously has zero credibility. They are the same military uh in all for all intents and purposes as the Israelis. Um and so obviously them alone monitoring the ceasefire is absurd. It has always been absurd. We can see it in Gaza. Um and the Iranians are not allowing that to happen in the memorandum of understanding through these negotiations. So um there's definitely some optimism um of that track. We will wait and see how it unfolds in the coming days and weeks. Um, let's take a look at map number three. This is the NASA uh topography map that gives you a really strong sense of the fighting in South Lebanon and the challenges to it. Um, we can see uh all of South Lebanon. Here on the far right, you see Kirat Shmona that is just south of Matula. So, just matching up these maps so everybody's eyes are in the same spot. Um, if you go up to the north there, you see Kafarcala. If you go up, you see that ridge line and along that ridge line uh north to Nabatia is the strategic ridge line that we are going to focus on today, Ali Alahir Heights. Um and at the bottom of that is the Bowfort Castle, which I think we'll see on this next map uh as we zoom in a little bit more. Um there we see uh the high point on Ali Atah uh ridge line 690 meters. That is the site of a former Israeli military outpost, the DAT outpost that was destroyed in 2000 when Israel uh was defeated in South Lebanon and fled in humiliation, leaving their computers on and literally running down the hill. They abandoned that post uh and it was blown up by Hezbollah shortly after. But you can see on that map how significant a ridge line that is. If you follow from the top X over Ali alahir and follow down past through Kifar Tibnet which is also going to be a focus of this show today um you continue to go south to Arnoon and then below that is the Bowfort Castle. So Israeli troops moved north attempting to take this ridge line when the ceasefire uh when ceasefire talks were seemingly going to curtail Israeli operations. uh and they were met with steep uh fierce resistance in uh along that ridge attempting to uh to fight uphill like SunSu would recommend you do not do and um the Israelis took uh significant losses over the weekend during those battles in that area. Let's take a look at the next map. It's a tighter zoom here and this is really where the focus is on the battle. You can see how steep that ridge line is. Kafar Tibnet is where the Israelis were attempting to advance from uh up onto the Ali Alahir Ridge. The ridge line is the highest point. It overlooks um the city of Nabatia, which is a major city in the south. It also overlooks to the south uh into Palestine and into the Galilee panhandle over uh northern Israel. Um so that is the focus of the show today. Let's take a look at number seven because as the Israelis attempted to come up the ridge line on Thursday night uh overnight Thursday night uh into Friday morning here we see an anti-tank guided missile strike, a cornet strike hitting a tank. You're going to see it again. Watch it coming from the right to the left. Um this is just from civilian cameras presumably from Nabatia uh recording this. But in that strike, four Israeli tank crew were killed, including the commander of the 52nd armored uh battalion as part of the 401st Armored Brigade. Um, which of course uh ran roughshod over Gaza is responsible for the killing of Hindra among others. Um, and they have paid the price in Lebanon with that operation. The tank was destroyed, burned uh with the tank crew inside and Israel could not recover the bodies. This is Friday night. Uh this is overnight Thursday. So it's Friday morning at 12:20 a.m. is this operation. They killed the crew uh of this tank, the commander of the 52nd uh armored battalion. The gunner, the loader, and the driver were all killed. Uh and the vehicle was not able to be recovered. And we remember this uh back from the resistance report back in Gaza when it we watched uh Kasam fighters deliver a guerilla action device through an open hatch of a Nom troop carrier uh exploding inside. What Israel did in that circumstance was allowed the troops inside the 10 of them inside to burn alive while they towed the tank back to Israel. um that was unable to be done because of the uh logistics and the attacks by Hezbollah uh over the weekend. Uh and Israel was not able to recover the bodies uh in that tank until the ceasefire came in place uh on Sunday. They were able to get it Sunday night, three nights after um the tank was torched by a cornet anti-tank guided missile strike. We can look at number eight. Hezbollah pointed this out there. You can see another one of the uh attacks. There was three anti-tank There's three Merkova tanks that were attacked with anti-tank guided missiles. Not sure if there was multiple strikes on one. Um, but this points out uh the date of the operation. This is again civilian camera of the uh the hit on the tank. Um, and it's sort of uh poking uh mocking the uh Israeli uh tank uh armored corps. uh and that their slogan the man in the tank will win is the Israeli armored corps slogan which comes from Israel Tal who was the uh designer of the Marava tank uh that was thought to be uh unde uh indestructible until it uh met the resistance in Gaza and it met the resistance in the 2006 war of course particularly in the battle of Wadi Saluki where uh the is an entire Israeli tank column was destroyed of Merkova tanks, but that that quote comes from him. Um, and so it has a long history within the Israeli armored corps and and the 401st Armored Brigade is part of that core. There's three uh brigades that make up the armored corps. The seventh uh armored brigade and the 188th armored brigade. And then each of those brigades have three battalions under them. So the 401st has the 52nd battalion, the 9inth battalion, and the 46th battalion. The off uh the officer that was killed, the commander of the 52nd battalion. He was the fourth member of the 52nd battalion to be taken off the battlefield uh two times in Gaza and two times uh here in Lebanon. Let's take a look at the next one cuz this is a field report and if people were following this week um you you would have noticed that Israel said what happened to the tank uh on that Friday night. They basically listed every possible option because they couldn't access the tank uh to do an investigation. So they literally just at one point they said it was an FPV, another point they said it was an IED, another point they said it was a hatch was open. Uh, one point they said it was a malfunction. Um, they just had no idea. But here, if you simply read the Hezbollah field report, they could have known exactly what happened. It says, "The Islamic resistance lured an Israeli armored and infantry platoon attempting to infiltrate the northern side of Aliatah Heights into an ambush kill zone where they were where they destroyed three Marava tanks with guided missiles and continued to engage the force with intense rocket and artillery fire. the US ambassador to Israel, the Israeli ambassador to the US, sorry, um said that over a 24-hour period, Hezbollah fired 147 rockets, 20 explosive drones, and nine anti-tank missiles during this battle uh that went from Thursday night to Saturday afternoon. The Israelis lost uh in those three days 42 uh killed and wounded, including that entire tank. um and they suffered that defeat, were unable to take control of the ridge line. Um and this piece of art uh in this next one uh is I think a beautiful uh capturing of the moment. This is uh in Al Akbar. Um the Lebanese newspaper uh cartoonist here that says Ali alahir Ridge. It shows the merk of a tank burning. It shows the corded anti-tank uh tank killer unit at the top of the hill. This is by Muhammad Nuhad al-Madin. Uh, and it's an excellent piece of art that I think captures the operation. And again, because the operation was in the middle of the night, because the fighting was all through the night, I don't expect that we're going to see any more footage than we saw already of this operation. Uh, but it was clearly a significant hit. And again, Israel goes into a ceasefire, adheres to the ceasefire in their way um because they take significant casualties. That was the consistent um the consistent pattern in Gaza before the ceasefires. Um when the Israelis get hit really hard, they're ready for a ceasefire. And that seemed to be the case uh here as well. Let's take a look at some of the videos from this week. This is uh in Kafarnet. Like I said, this is where the Israelis were based for their push on Ali Alah Ridge. This is an a forward command position. The uh the text on the screen there just tells you that this is a recon mission uh looking for targets. They'll come back um as you see, come back and hit uh the base, the forward position of the Israeli military there. They said it was a command position. um a number of casualties in drone strikes. Unclear if it was this one, but in Kafar Tibnet, an FPV drone strike that day. Um seriously wounded five soldiers um in Kafar Tibnet. So unclear if it's this operation which penetrates inside the house and of course it's going to detonate uh a shape charged uh copper dart that we'll send into the building. We can take a look at the next one there. uh number 12 I believe. Um this is near Bowfort Castle. And again, you're seeing these operations covering usually the week before we're presenting them, but you can see the way that the battle unfolds uh up into the moment. And so this is an operation um that was last week uh at Bowfort Castle against uh another troop position. You can see there always uh you know, they used to stand in the window. Now they put uh netting in the window so you know exactly which window uh to strike. Uh in a strike uh around Bowfort Castle on Saturday, one were killed and 13 were wounded in a single strike from the Commando Brigade. Let's take a look at number 13. Coming around the castle again here again you can look to the right side and see the steep drop off on this ridge. That is the ridge line. It is a strategic ridge line. um that runs across the area. This we're going to pick up on an M113. People remember these are aluminum uh 70s era um troop carriers that are not fit for uh contemporary battle. You can see it. What the Israelis used them for and have used them for in Gaza and are using them for in Lebanon is to use them as bomb shuttles, explosives shuttles, or themselves a bomb uh essentially a car bomb. It looks like the remote sensor on that one didn't light the ash vault uh ahead of it. It got stopped and the resistance destroyed it before it could blow anything up. Let's take a look at 14. This is uh one of 30 anti-tank operations in the three weeks leading up to the pause in fighting. I don't know what to call it. You guys know why it's not a ceasefire. We don't really have another word. The word ceasefire was supposed to have a meaning. Uh Israel has of course and the United States have destroyed the meaning of ceasefire, but right now we have a broad uh broadly speaking a pause in fighting. And we'll see how long that lasts here down into the turret gap there of that tank in Yahmar. Again, this is right near Bowfort Castle covered in netting. There you see the strike on the netting. But again, I've said this a number of times, the netting is strong enough, the speed of the uh quadcopter is going fast enough that when it hits that netting, especially that dense tactical netting, the proper netting, not that fish net that we saw draped all over the neighborhood, um that kind of tactical netting is going to detonate the uh warhead. It's not going to protect it. And I think people might have saw this week social media ran with a a photograph that Israel released of a Milan anti-tank guided missile on a drone um that had been caught up in the in the webbing of a uh Humvey, but that was not a Hezbollah drone. That was an Israeli drone that they were testing to see if they could uh to have something that uh with weight um and with size that was similar to the Hezbollah drones. But that was not a Hezbollah drone. That's an Israeli test and then they put it out. What we have not seen is from the battlefield Israelis showing which they we all know they have their cameras all the time. If they were to intercept a drone in a net um that they had put up, they would have they would publish that both for their own audience um to show that they're protecting their soldiers, but to show that it works. We haven't seen anything like that and I expect we will see it immediately. And that video that circled of the Humvey from this week was not from Hezbollah. Let's take a look at uh are we 16 now? Again, these are also in around uh Bowfort uh Bowfort Castle. Here going to see uh amphibious all-terrain vehicle. They use these vehicles to cross the Latani River. Um, and this is the first time we've seen one of these blown up, but it's definitely uh a good target considering they need to go back across the Latony River at some point. Let's look at 17. This is another anti-tank operation, one of 30 anti-tank operations in the weeks leading up to the ceasefire. And again, we see there you see Bowfort Castle. You can see the ridge line that I tried to show you in the map so we would understand what we are looking at throughout these operations. Um, but the battle around Bowfort Castle was significant and steady. And here you see another tank that gets it in the side skirt. Probably a mobility kill, although it's also the entrance into the It's also the cabin. So, if it did penetrate, it's penetrating into the cabin. Um 17B is against a D9 armored bulldozer. And I told you there's again um there's again Bo for Castle in the upper left there. you can see uh obviously has significant overwatch over the whole area both north and to the south. Here they are coming in with the drone behind Bowfort Castle to hit um this D9 armored bulldozer. This is one of four D9s that were hit in the last week and a half. Um, and I reported last week that Yediho Aeronaut uh admitted that the Israelis had drastically reduced the number of engineering vehicles because they were just getting uh picked off and destroyed. So there's a Caterpillar D9 uh from the BDS list uh being uh the D of BDS destroyed. Um you can see that hit on the side of it there. 18. Another FPV strike, 115 FPV operations. This is at a Israeli base near Hiam that was established, one of the five uh forward bases that Israel established during the ceasefire that I showed you uh over the course of these. Of course, if you ever miss a resistance report, you can find them uh in the resistance report playlist on the electronic inifat channel and get caught up. Uh, but this is against an Ashcarit. This is a not a Nom or a Merkova. This is uh built off a Soviet tank hull. And the fact that these vehicles come out, we saw them in Gaza with engineering units. Um, but these don't hold up well. Uh, they that would not hold up well against that strike. So, pretty sure that's a destroyed uh Ashkarit there. Um, going to the next one. I'm going to chase down some soldiers here on this one. Again, um also to note that uh on the day of that previous operation, there was one killed and seven wounded in an IED operation on the Latani River. Um so now these guys uh you can see maybe we'll watch it one more time to get a a better perspective here, but you're going to see the uh drone hit beside them. The drone is going to hit the ground and send out its shape charge directly at that soldier you can see jumping through um trying to get in through the door there. Um the kill radius, the wounding radius on these particular um anti-tank warheads are directional. So their their significant shrapnel and uh destructive capability is being projected directly forward rather than a grenade say which would blow up uh all around the area. But the kill radius for a landing one of these is only um a couple of meters. So depending on where these strike and depending on whether they have frag sleeves like fragmentation sleeves that they put over uh the warhead. We saw that a couple of times when they were dropping the warheads. We saw those sleeves basically ball bearings that are put around the anti-tank weapon so that when it detonates then you get a omnidirectional uh effect not just a unidirectional effect. So that was in Odessa this operation and just take a look at the map here number 20. Um, this area I told you about last week, Majdal Zun, which is just uh on the just inland through the mountains um from Rasal Baya, which is the uh the highlands, the headlands that you see there um where it does the little elbow. Um so, this is in the area that we have seen. We know that the Israelis uh reduced their troops to virtually nothing there. But just before the ceasefire, they wanted to go into Majun and they made uh a propaganda video. They got a bunch of embedded journalists to go with them and Israel showed them a tunnel that they made seem like it was, you know, the most important tunnel ever found uh by Hezbollah. Uh but of course it wasn't. What we saw in that tunnel was a bunch of rusted uh old um Abmobile drones, the original Abmobile drones um and some uh hell cannons. Um but did not look in any way like an important uh tunnel like Israel's trying to make it. Israel's trying to find a victory scene, a victory image for their population for what is effectively a failed operation in Lebanon here. So let's look at 21. Uh, this is another FPV operation. And here, if you see right dead straight ahead, you're going to see a hemmet that's already been destroyed. Again, targeting these fuel trucks is a very important logistics kill. No question about it. Especially when you're now in some of these places um 10 12 km from the border makes your resupply lines uh a problem. here coming in on a tank for the strike after the battle damage assessment and again aiming for the turret gap in there. We've seen them do this a number of times depending whether the warhead is on top or in the middle. Um that is either a successful strike or uh probably um that's a pretty heavy armored spot on the tank. So that's why they are aiming for the gap underneath. Let's take a look at 22 is another D9. Again, one of four in the last uh week or so that we have seen. This is in Terra Hara. Um this is right near Majal Zoon. These operations were targeting the Israeli push into Majaloon that I reported on last week. Now we see the videos of the leadup to that. You're going to see this D9 covered in appropriate netting. This is appropriate netting. Uh it's camouflaged. It's dense. But again, when you put the point, you can see with with the netting there clearly that that is going to be enough to trigger the uh fuse on the anti-tank warhead and it's going to send its copper dart through that netting obviously and also into that vehicle. So, I think you're probably seeing a destroyed D9 there. But you are also seeing the Israelis adapt from the from the age where they put in the ridiculous fishing net all over the neighborhood to actually uh trying to camouflage one of their vehicles in an effective way, but still got destroyed. So, uh can't be that effective. Uh let's take a look at 23. This is against an excavator that looks uparmored. Again, it looks like we have artillery strikes in the background and they're moving forward from those. uh here in uh Majal Zun. This was one of 31 operations uh against the Israeli push into Majun uh FPV operations uh into Majun. You can see there a bit of an uparmored uh excavator that gets hit and also destroyed because they have no chance. You can see it's occupied um on that uh on that shot there. So that is what Hezbollah showed us this week. That's everything that they released in the last 7 days. So this has been the resistance report covering week 16 of the battle in South Lebanon. Heat. Hey, Heat.