The military commentator of the Israeli news site - "Walla News" Amir Bohbot published the following important information today:

"A finger in Israel's eye: Hezbollah exposes the air force to warn of an attack"

According to sources in the IDF Operations Division, the operation of the systems in public was intended to threaten the IAF aircraft and convey a message that the reality in Lebanon's skies has changed.

The Hezbollah organization has begun exposing on the ground the air arrays in its possession, which it has managed to smuggle out of Syria in recent years and does not take care to hide them - according to sources in the IDF's Operations Division. In closed conversations, the sources said that the operation of the systems openly without concealment was intended to defy and threaten the Israeli Air Force aircraft and convey a message that the organization's secretary general Hassan Nasrallah said that the reality in Lebanon's skies had changed.

The security change in the area has led to a change in the Air Force's patterns of action and caution when photo shoots and intelligence gathering do not prevent them. On the other hand, the IDF and the Ministry of Defense are working to deal with the changes in the Lebanese arena through new technological developments, creative patterns of action in order to continue to maintain the superiority of the Israeli Air Force in the region and to prepare for the possibility of Hezbollah downing a manned aircraft or unmanned aircraft.

Security officials recently said that the IDF would not relinquish freedom of action in the skies of Lebanon and the work of gathering intelligence as long as Hezbollah and Iran build terrorist sites throughout Lebanon in a way that threatens the State of Israel. The accuracy that suffers from difficulties in the face of foreign publications about attacks attributed to Israel but the project did not stop.

After years of threats from Nasrallah, the security situation has deteriorated in stages. Initially, Hezbollah operatives wore radars on Air Force planes, and then two unusual incidents occurred in Lebanese skies. The purpose of launching the anti-aircraft missile is to deter and not to strike. And a second case in February 2021 when an IDF Spokesman confirmed that anti-aircraft fire had been detected from Lebanese territory at an unmanned aerial vehicle of the Israeli Air Force. In both cases, the IAF completed the collection mission over Lebanese skies.

It should be emphasized that Hezbollah managed to smuggle from the Syrian regime with the help of the Assad regime and Iran into the territories of Lebanon air defense systems made by Russia type SA-8, SA-17 and others to disrupt the activities of the Air Force and on the day of an order to shoot down aircraft. It is estimated that Hezbollah operatives have undergone training and operation on the systems in Syrian territory. The Iranian regime sees Lebanon as a front post against Israel and the importance of the Hezbollah organization rises especially when there is friction between Iran and the United States and Sunni countries from the region and in the background negotiations on the nuclear project are underway.

The military commentator of the website Nziv.net - Guy A. Responded to what was said in the article as follows:

This has been the situation for for a long time. The Air Force has been operating under the danger posed by Hezbollah air defense threat for a decade, even more in recent years, when there is information about motivation to hit and produce an ambush for an airplane / UAV in the skies of Lebanon.

There have been two such unsuccessful attempts to activate an ataack on a UAV (The did not dare to do so on a manned aircraft because they know it will result in an immediate attack of the aircraft) on the source of launch. In both attaempts, the launcher was pinpointed and destroyed.

Most of the Syrian anti-aircraft missile batteries were brought to the Hezbollah complexes in Lebanon in the years before 2012, most of them SA-8 and SA-17 missiles and also some Panzer systems.

To the best of our knowledge there is a good "grip" on the array and capabilities and it does not limit Air Force activity but definitely requires attention and planning before missions.