Hezbollah reveals new details of 2006 kidnapping
Footage shows how terror group prepared for operation that prompted Second Lebanon War
Hezbollah’s television station on Sunday aired new details about the ambush on an IDF patrol along Israel’s border with Lebanon which killed three soldiers and saw soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev taken hostage, precipitating the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
The Al-Manar TV station aired footage (Arabic) of the Hezbollah commander in charge of the operation, Khaled al-Basli, also known by the nom de guerre Al-Haj Kassam, giving orders to gunmen on the ground near the border with Israel, as they prepare for the operation.
The video also shows al-Basli training with the men beforehand. He is believed to have been killed, along with two other senior Hezbollah figures, sometime during the ensuing 34-day war.
Al-Manar also showed how Hezbollah prepared for the attack, with continued surveillance and monitoring of IDF patrols at the precise location where the operation eventually took place.
The bodies of Regev and Goldwasser were returned to Israel in 2008 in exchange for Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar, four Hezbollah members and the remains of some 200 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners. At the time of the exchange, Hezbollah had not provided any information to Israel on the condition of Regev and Goldwasser, although Israeli assessments, based on forensic evidence from the scene of the attack, said the two had been critically injured in the onslaught.
The 2006 Second Lebanon War is widely considered a failure for Israel, militarily and politically. The IDF echelon was severely criticized for soldiers’ apparent unpreparedness for battle and its inability to provide an effective answer to the rockets that Hezbollah rained down on Israel’s northern cities throughout the war.
The war also damaged the professional standing of then-defense minister Amir Peretz, then-IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, and then prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel’s military shortcomings as well as those of its key decision-makers at the time were listed in detail in the conclusions of the Winograd Commission.
The Times of Israel Community.