Free Republic

'We will deal very big strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas' Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi on Sunday warned that overwhelming force would be used in Lebanon during the next potential war with Hezbollah. Speaking at the first National Conference on the Home Front, Kochavi detailed the IDF's strategy for responding to an attack from the radical Shiite terrorist group. "We will deal very big strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas. I say to...

IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said that AP Gaza-based journalists drank their morning coffee with Hamas operatives in the building the IDF flattened during Operation Guardian of the Walls, wittingly or unwittingly, Channel 12 News reported. “It came down for good reason,” Kochavi said, according to the report. “I don’t have a bit of regret.” According to the IDF, the Jala Tower was not only home to the AP, Al-Jazeera and other major media outlets but was also home to a Hamas intelligence office that controlled advanced military devices designed to interfere with the IDF’s GPS reception which could...

Israeli warplanes bombed Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in July, the Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported Tuesday, quoting Western diplomatic sources. The sources told the London-based newspaper that on July 19, Israel carried out an attack on the base of an Iran-linked paramilitary group in the northern Salahuddin province of Iraq. Reports initially said that the attack was carried out by a drone and and led to the deaths of an unconfirmed number of Iranian Revolutionary Guard fighters. According to the Saudi news channel Al-Arabiya, the base housed Iranian-made ballistic missiles hidden in food refrigeration trucks. Israeli officials, including...

The threats against Israel are changing and the global jihad is literally at its doorstep, the head of Military Intelligence warned on Tuesday. “It is possible that in the long run the winds of change will bring with them an opportunity, but in the short term the risks are increasing,” said Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi during a graduation ceremony for hundreds of new intelligence officers. “Syria, which is the most disturbing example, attracts thousands of global jihad activists and Muslim extremists from the region and around the world, who base themselves in the country, not only to bring down Assad,...