Operation Roaring Lion Day 13: Hezbollah Chooses Martyrdom
Also, Qatar stands at a crossroads, and more.
Anti-missile batteries fire interception missiles toward incoming ballistic missiles launched from Iran over Jerusalem last night. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
It’s Thursday, March 12, and the thirteenth day of Operation Roaring Lion. Here are the latest developments while you were asleep:
Hezbollah refuses to go quietly into the night. Last night the terror group launched its largest barrage since the November 2024 ceasefire, sending 200 missiles toward Israel—80 of which never made it across the border. The attack was less an act of aggression than a statement: a declaration that Hezbollah intends to fight to the end.
Operation Roaring Lion has now officially surpassed Rising Lion in both length and destruction. With four times the firepower Israel and the United States have struck more than eight times as many targets in the same twelve-day period. I’m not sure about dogs, but i think this confirms a lion’s roar is worse than its rise.
Iranian opposition sources report that Israeli and American drones flew over Tehran last night, striking checkpoints set up by Basij personnel and killing ten member in the process. The checkpoints were recently established to control the population and suppress the possibility of protests. According to one state media outlet, “the enemy is trying to open a new internal front.” They are likely correct.
The intelligence branch of the IRGC reportedly threatened members of the Assembly of Experts—the body responsible for selecting the Supreme Leader—as well as their family members, in order to force them to choose Mojtaba Khamenei as the next leader. Today marks the third day since the election of the IRGC’s candidate and there has still been no contact.
This morning, satellite imagery revealed three large craters at an Iranian nuclear site, following strikes that most likely occurred on March 9–10. The facility, used for experiments related to nuclear weapons development, had recently been reinforced with a layer of concrete and earth. That did not appear to be enough to stop a Massive Ordnance Penetrator, likely dropped by American B-2 bombers, though that remains unconfirmed. If anyone was wondering what became of the remains of Iran’s nuclear program, this may serve as an answer.
Now, on to the details.
People stand at the scene where a house was hit by a Hezbollah missile in Moshav Hani’el last night. (Chen Leopold/Flash90)
“On my own behalf, and on behalf of my brothers in the Hezbollah Shura Council, the leadership, and the mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, we renew our pledge to you.” That was the message Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem sent yesterday to Iran’s still–missing-in-action Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Qassem wasn’t satisfied with paper. He decided to publish his declaration in Israel’s skies last night. Hezbollah launched its largest barrage since the 2024 ceasefire. Scraping together the remnants of its rocket arsenal south of the Litani River, the terror group managed to lob around 200 rockets at the north over the course of several hours—around 80 of which did not even cross into Israeli territory. The attack was meant to coincide with renewed long-range Iranian missile fire toward Tel Aviv, as a reminder that there is still life left in the smoldering ruins of the Iranian axis.
The worst damage Hezbollah’s rockets inflicted last night was to northern residents’ evening plans. In the three-hour attack, aside from some property damage, the rockets amounted to little.
Hezbollah wasn’t expecting mass destruction—they were hoping for something more than impotence, still that wasn’t the barrage’s primary purpose. The attack was a statement, one that Israel didn’t expect: We are more loyal to Iran than we are afraid of Israel.
This declaration can be interpreted in one of two ways: a zealous loyalty to Shiite resistance or a pragmatic realization that if Iran is toppled, Hezbollah is in for a slow and painful death.
Either way, Hezbollah has committed to Israel-assisted suicide, and Israel should adopt the Canadian approach and help it reach a dignified end.
To complete the procedure, Israel’s leadership will have to pop its head up from the security bunker beneath IDF headquarters. At the moment they have one location on their mind: Tehran. They do not seem to understand how much the events in Lebanon are eroding public perception—and how they may also erode, in the eyes of the axis of resistance, the remarkable achievements of Roaring Lion.
Most of the resources are being invested in Iran—and that is perfectly reasonable. But if this war comes to an end and Hezbollah is sitting on the northern border, the victory 2,000 kilometers east of Tel Aviv may be eclipsed by the new Hezbollah rocket zone 100 killometers north.
Hezbollah is lucid about its strategy but delusional about the world it operates in. It isn’t fighting to destroy Israel; it’s fighting to restore the old rules—where it sits on the border and decides when to jab Israel without paying a price. The delusion is believing those rules survived October 7.
So what must Israel do?
In simple terms: Move the border.
Advance 18 miles north into Lebanon to the Litani River, find a loudspeaker, aim it at Beirut, and announce: We will not leave until Hezbollah is disarmed. Meanwhile, reduce Hezbollah infrastructure north of the river to ash and dust.
But here is the twist that makes it different from Israel’s last Lebanese security zone: not a single resident returns until the demands are met.
At the peak of Israel’s adventure in Lebanese security in the 1980s and 1990s, 180,000 to 200,000 Lebanese lived south of the river, about half of them Shiites. That population birthed Hezbollah and sustained its guerrilla campaign against Israeli forces. Had the area been empty, I imagine Israel would still be there today.
Also unlike the 1980s, Israel is making demands of a Lebanon theoretically capable of ensuring security.
Today, Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, called for direct negotiations with Israel to settle the matter. Aoun criticized Hezbollah for giving “no weight to Lebanon’s interests or to the lives of its people” and warned it was pushing the country toward “the collapse of the Lebanese state under aggression and chaos.”
In Lebanon it takes bravery to criticize the terror group, but the bravery needed is less verbal and more military. Short of occupying the entire country, dismantling Hezbollah cannot be done by the IDF alone. Lebanon will need to step up. I imagine having 300,000 angry displaced citizens and IDF soldiers waving at President Aoun from the other bank of the Litani will provide a strong incentive to stop procrastinating.
If Hezbollah learns anything from last night’s attack, it should be this: They read the wrong testament. When slapped, Israel does not turn the other cheek.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meeting with Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in September 2025. (Iran Foreign Ministry)
Shortly after the war broke out, Qatar announced the shutdown of its natural gas liquefaction facility due to an Iranian strike. The consequences were immediate: the global gas surplus vanished and energy prices surged.
The United States is extremely sensitive to energy prices, especially this president, who returned to power on the shockwaves of runaway inflation.
But then someone briefed the president that it might be part of a broader scheme: coordination between Iran and Qatar to close the facility in order to pressure an end to the war. According to the claim, Trump was furious and made clear it would not continue.
The plight of the Qataris is touching: without Iran there is no need for a forward American base in Doha, and without such a base the influence of the gas emirate evaporates. Perhaps that is why, since the start of the war, the Qataris have sent several unusually conciliatory messages to Israel. Suddenly Israeli bombings are no longer described on Al Jazeera as genocide.
At this rate, even Tucker Carlson—lubricated by vast Qatari funding—may rediscover the wonders of the Jewish people.
They may deserve it. But even some of our great friends, like the UAE, are on the receiving end of this war. For their sake and ours, the war should end with a decisive outcome.
Unlike us, they did not build their state under fire. If they become the frontline in the coming years, we will be crowned as the ones responsible, with all the problematic consequences.
Out of desperation, Qatar’s leaders may expel Hamas from their territory. The pretext is Hamas’s failure to condemn the Iranian attacks. The real reason is a desire to move closer to the West.
The possible end of the ayatollahs’ regime also signals the end of the era of mediation. If there is no Shiite terror empire, there are no hostages to return, no wars to end, and no money to lubricate.
Hamas leaders are not having an easy time either. Turkey is unlikely to welcome them—especially now that Erdoğan has discovered that Trump, whom he believed was in his pocket, has been conducting a long and secret affair with the Kurds he despises.
After all, what is Hamas to do when dad bombs mom?
This week Iran’s embassy in Doha opened a condolence book for the death of Khamenei. The Iranians expected that after so many years of cooperation, Hamas leaders would come to pay their respects. On the other hand, that is not a message that would be received well by the Qataris these days, while they are being hit by ballistic missiles.
So they hesitated, and hesitated—and the condolence book, for now, remains empty.
This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Israel Hayom
To read on my website click here
English Editor: Ari Tatarka
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Make Southern Lebanon Northern Israel.
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