With 120,000 Israelis evacuated from their homes to flee projectiles and infiltrations, Israel faces its greatest and most diversified challenge since the ’73 war. The fronts in the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen – all supported by Iran – are They are burning with the fuse lit by the massive Israeli military offensive against the fundamentalist group Hamas. This weekend’s attacks and warnings in areas more or less remote from the Jewish State could lead to a regional war as the imminent ground incursion into the Gaza Strip progresses.
The trauma of 7-O 23 in Israel, caused by the largest attack in its history (1,400 dead, 213 kidnapped and 100 missing) is much greater than that of 6-O 73, which explains the unprecedented military retaliation that It has caused more than 4,600 deaths in territory controlled by Hamas and inhabited by more than 2.2 million people.
Today Iran sees its dream of a confrontation closer from its proxies that surround its great enemy without the need for a direct clash and its nightmare of the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia further away.
It is the epicenter of war and suffering. Unlike previous escalations, the Israeli authorities do not intend to “hit Hamas” but rather eliminate it. “The Air Force is hitting many terrorists, but the only way to put an end to Hamas as a regime and with its armed capacity is a ground intervention,” a former senior Israeli Defense official explains to EL MUNDO, adding: “No country that has suffered such carnage can sit idly by. Hamas, which we tried to calm down with money and work permits for Gazans, can no longer be our neighbor.”
But the path to this Israeli goal has become hell for the Palestinians in the Strip, especially in the north, who do not remember such lethal and intense bombings.
While Israel spoke this Sunday of the “death of dozens of terrorists killed” in the latest attacks, as well as of a soldier in a confrontation during a specific raid, the Hamas Government denounced that 55 people died in the bombings of the previous night alone. . The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) indicates that 29 workers in Gaza have died in a war that appears to be long. The Air Force uses more and more force with the stated objective of facilitating the entry of its soldiers. However, Washington prefers to extend the wait for the invasion given the possibility of the release of more kidnapped people.
“I would like to warn the United States and the Israeli puppet regime that if they do not immediately put an end to the crimes against humanity and the genocide in Gaza, anything is possible at any moment and the region would become uncontrollable,” warned the Iranian minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
For the second consecutive day, the Rafah border crossing was opened to receive the humanitarian convoy. The 17 trucks with water, food and medicine entered Gaza territory at dusk hours after some clashes between the military and militiamen in a nearby area in the south of the Strip. Insufficient aid to meet the needs of an enclave that has been under siege and bombs for 16 days.
“During the ongoing clashes in the Gaza Strip, one of the Egyptian border guard towers was accidentally hit by fragments of an Israeli tank shell,” Egyptian military spokesman Gharib Abdelhafez explained of an error admitted by Israel in the area. border of Keren Shalom and which caused nine minor injuries.
For the first time since the Second Intifada 20 years ago, Israel used a fighter jet against militias in the West Bank. The motive, according to Israel, was to destroy an underground complex in the Al Ansar mosque, in the Jenin refugee camp, to dismantle a Hamas and Islamic Jihad commando. According to Channel 12, they were going to carry out a suicide attack or an infiltration.
Before 7-O, the West Bank seemed the most conducive place for a large-scale confrontation after more than a year of attacks, raids and armed clashes, while Gaza remained relatively calm. Hamas preferred to preserve its regime and encourage attacks from Jenin or Nablus. That at least was what Israel believed in an error that has paid lethally.
Hamas’s “success” on 7-O was widely applauded by its supporters in the West Bank under the watchful eye of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Since then, at least 90 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed in clashes, foiled attacks, operations and riots.
If fully activated, the second hottest front will become the largest. The powerful Hezbollah group supported the Hamas attack with words and blows (basically anti-tank guided missiles) with the aim of “distracting” the common enemy in its campaign in Gaza. Israel responded forcefully but in a limited manner in an exchange of blows that at any other time would have provoked a war like the one in 2006. This date was remembered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn the head of the militia, Hassan Nasrallah: ” “I don’t know right now if Hezbollah will decide to fully intervene in the war, but if it does, it will miss the 2006 war. It will be making the mistake of its life.” He also sent a message to the Lebanese people that the intervention of the pro-Iran movement would cause Israel to hit the group in such a way that “the meaning for it and for Lebanon would be devastating.”
Hezbollah has a dilemma. If he intervenes directly, his troops and Lebanon may end up suffering even more than in the 2006 war. If he does not, he will leave his Sunni ally alone in the Iranian axis. The decision is in the hands of Nasrallah and Iran. So far, he has managed to disrupt the lives of 60,000 evacuated Israelis and caused the Israeli armed forces to split into two fronts.
For the second time since the start of the war with Hamas, an airstrike attributed to Israel hit the airports of Aleppo and Damascus, leaving their landing strips out of service. As it has done in recent years after launching missiles against weapons convoys sent from Tehran to its militias in Syria or Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel did not make public comments, but believes Iran wants to take advantage of the crisis to accelerate the supply of military material.
Syria is a fundamental piece in the ring designed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard around Israel, either with missiles fired or as a platform to send sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The twenty missiles and drones fired by the Houthis against Israel and intercepted by the United States have set off alarms in Kyria (Tel Aviv) and the Pentagon (Washington). The pro-Iran militia warned this Sunday that “Zionist ships” will be hit in the Red Sea if the bombings in Gaza continue. Its possible participation in the war conflict is one of the reasons for the US military reinforcement in the region.
Several pro-Iran militias revealed that they are in contact with Hamas and promise not to stand idly by if the war continues. In his telephone conversation with the Islamist leader Ismail Haniyah, the secretary general of the Shiite movement Al Nujaba, Akram Al-Kaabi, promised help. For the moment, the United States has ordered the evacuation of non-essential personnel from its embassy in Baghdad and its consulate in Erbil.