“influencers”, the only open front between Israel and Hezbollah

This journalist from Al Mayadeen, a media outlet affiliated with the Shiite militia party that fights Israel from Lebanon’s southern border, has already found someone to confront directly. Since Israel intensified its offensive in the country last September, Mortada has engaged in a real dialectical war with the Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, Avichay Adraee.

“They hit Netanyahu’s house and now the prime minister of your entity – this is how he refers to the Zionist state – has nowhere to sleep tonight,” Mortada boasted to ‘Adraee in a video this Saturday from the hotel in Tire where he also makes direct connections to television. The journalist accompanies his provocative tone with a cigar, sunglasses, AirPods and arms with many hours spent at the gym. “Fool, clown!”attacked Adraee the same day a Hezbollah rocket hit the Israeli president’s house.

For her part, Adraee, descendant of Iraqi and Syrian Jewshas been the image of Israel for the Arab world since October 2023. Including Gaza and Lebanon. In recent months, it was he who, through social networks, warned the inhabitants of Khan Yunis, Nabatiye and Beirut that the IDF was going to bomb. Almost always with a few minutes’ notice. Sometimes at four in the morning. And this, at the moment he warned. “Fijo”, which the Arabs have already nicknamed, is the personification of the enemy. The one who announces death and the one who tries to justify it in the language of the victims.

Sunday evening, it was Adraee who was responsible for anticipating the attack on different branches of Al-Qard Al-Hassan, Hezbollah’s financial operations institutes equivalent to banks. “Residents of Lebanon, the IDF will begin attacking infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah’s Al-Qard Al-Hassan association: stay away immediately,” Avichay Adraee said on his X account.

The fact that the man who “plays” to confront Mortada is the same one who announced the attacks which have already killed nearly 2,500 Lebanese has sparked more than one criticism. “I’m sorry to be an idiot, but the fight between Ali Mortada and Avichay is not funny at all. people diea little common sense! [Adraee] He’s an enemy, not a friend to play with. It was fun at first, but now it’s unbearable,” Ahmad writes. Others find it fascinating: “The sexual tension between Avichay and Ali Mortada is astonishing,” Hasán says in X.

Mortada and Adraee They are the influencers of this war. For the moment, their rivalry constitutes the only open front between Israel and Lebanon while the government of Benjamin Netanyahu hesitates on whether or not to continue the ground invasion that it promised at the end of September. “You’re still stuck at the border!”Mortada attacks Adraee in a video, referring to the advance of Israeli troops of less than two kilometers in a month of military operation.

Although the battle front is cold, Israeli drones and bombs continue to fall in all corners of Lebanon. It is unclear whether this war of words will soften or inflame public opinion in these two countries. THE battle between Mortada and Adraee is of course the showcase of Lebanon in Israel and Israel in Lebanon. Without a clear precedent, we can only hope that the transfer of war to social networks remains an interesting curiosity to tell in a press article.