Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah

Al-Jazeera
..Let us start militarily and in the field. The general headline we can speak about clearly on the military level is steadfastness--the great and significant steadfastness first and, secondly, full absorption of the Israeli strike. Over the past few days, the Israelis, in our opinion, did the maximum that they can do, from the air and the sea. Of course, we will discuss the ground option shortly. There is no target--old, new, assumed, expected, based on information or analysis--that they did not hit. Also, when we speak about what was hit, this includes military and civilian targets, but I want to speak now about the military aspect. I can confirm at this moment--this is not an exaggeration and not part of psychological warfare, but facts--that the command structure of Hezbollah has not been harmed...

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Israel's military stunned by the failure of its air war

TEL AVIV — Israel's new chief of staff, an air force general, believed that most of Israel's future operations would be conducted from the air.

Military leaders were convinced that with superior communications and air power they did not even need new U.S. "bunker buster" munitions to root out terror leaders in underground hideaways.

Today, this vision of air power as a panacea has been shattered.

Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz and his advisers have been stunned by the failure of Israel's air war against Hizbullah, which has shrugged massive air bombings on its headquarters in Beirut to maintain the rocket war against the Jewish state.

"Air power is not the answer here," a senior officer said. 'You have to go from one Hizbullah [weapons] bunker to another. Some of these bunkers are seven meters deep and can't be destroyed by aircraft, even if you could find them."

The air force learned that lesson in Beirut as fighter-jets sought to destroy Hizbullah headquarters, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials acknowledged that 23 tons of munitions failed to penetrate the thick walls of the underground command headquarters constructed by Iran.

Indeed, the air force did not even deem the purchase of deep penetration munitions a priority. Earlier this year, Israel decided against purchasing U.S.-origin bunker-buster weapons regarded as a requirement for any air strike against Iran or Syria.Military sources said Halutz was convinced that communications and air power rather than troops would rapidly win Israel's wars.

They said the air force was surprised by its failure to halt or even reduce Hizbullah rocket strikes. >>>CONT

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