An evacuation order was issued this morning through the IDF's Arab media spokesman, Avihai Adrai to all residents of the city of Baalbek. They were instructed to leave their homes immediately!
Baalbek is a city of about 100,000 people. Until now, such evacuation orders have only been given to individual neighborhoods or villages, but not to an entire city.
Baalbek, it should be noted, is considered Hizbullah's strategic rear: it is home to its important headquarters, missile depots, rocket launchers, large weapons depots, as well as logistics centers, a major hospital working for Hizbullah, and probably the infrastructure for the development and production of weapons — missiles, drones and other weapons...
During the Second Lebanon War, a General Staff Special Forces unit (and other elite forces) conducted a major operation on the grounds of a hospital in Baalbek — deep behind the Lebanese lines. The operation resulted in the seizure of much valuable information from the hospital, as well as the detention of important Hizbullah operatives who were taken to Israel. About 40 militants were also eliminated or wounded during the operation. The Israeli officer who led the operation, Lt. Col. Emmanuel Moreno, was killed in action, may his memory be blessed.
All of the above shows how important Baalbek is to Hizbullah. On top of that, it is also one of the Lebanese centers of the Shiite population, which is the base of forces of this terrorist organization.
In my estimation, Baalbek is also home to drone infrastructure, command and control centers, and, in addition, probably systems related to Hizbullah's air defenses. Recall that prior to the ground entry into Lebanon, the IDF conducted numerous Baalbek air attacks, which were usually in response to Hizbullah attempts to shoot down our aircraft, strike our drones, or launch rockets deep into northern Israel. The IDF then responded by attacking the Baalbek area and sometimes reported that these were strikes against Hizbullah air defense facilities.
This evacuation order is truly a turning point: at last we began to speak to the enemy in a language he could understand!
Lebanon was in a real panic. After the IDF demanded the evacuation of an entire city, the IDF seemed to realize that it could also demand the evacuation of other central cities like Tyre (Tsor) or Sidon (Saida).
The shock in Lebanon is affecting the rest of the Arab world, which has finally seen a completely new Israeli policy in recent months: Israel is hitting snakes directly in the head — Nasrallah, may his name be erased, Sinuar, may his name be erased, and even striking Iran.
It is only a pity that we suffered so many painful losses before we waited for this.
As the holy Torah says, “Whoever comes to kill you, kill him first”!
Hizbullah, Hamas and other evil-doers should, of course, have been punished a long time ago - and blessed be G-d for the fact that we are finally "waking up" and doing what needs to be done.
We hope that the ceasefire negotiations in Lebanon will not bring this holy work of destroying Israel's enemies to a halt, which is now in full swing. Until we destroy them, this process must never stop.