Sara Gomez Arms |
Jerusalem (EFE).- Increasingly isolated in the face of the new alliances in the Middle East, Israel sees open security fronts multiply, from the northern border to Gaza or the interior of the occupied West Bank, under the shadow of Iran , an “existential threat” that is already within its territory.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant openly acknowledged this yesterday, warning that “Israel will face a multi-front escalation in the near future” indirectly driven by Iran.
“Iran is the driving force. It transfers resources, ideology, knowledge and training to its proxies,” Gallant said, referring to the Palestinian militias of Hamas or Islamic Jihad or the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah.
Wrapped in its biggest peak of violence with the Palestinians in the West Bank since the Second Intifada (2000-05), Israel saw two weeks ago as new outbreaks opened after the launch of rockets by police charges at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, not only from Gaza, but also about thirty from Lebanon – the largest exchange of fire on that border since the 2006 war – and six from Syria, the first shots of this type since 2019.
multifront conflict
Israel, which responded with targeted bombardments in all three locations, was quick to blame Hamas for the multiple attack, while gauging the degree of involvement of the Quds Force, the elite paramilitary arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that operates specialized abroad. in military intelligence and unconventional warfare.
“For years, Iran’s objective is to corner Israel militarily, surrounding it from several fronts,” Joe Truzman, an expert on Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups from the US Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, told EFE.
“This multi-front conflict is already here, it is a reality,” he adds.
According to Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer and expert on Arab affairs, Iran’s “master plan” is to be the ruling power in the Middle East by establishing “proxies” or groups that it arms and finances, and “is trying to set the old Palestinian conflict on fire.” Israeli to present itself as the true defender of the Palestinians and Jerusalem.
Official Israeli sources told EFE that the commander of the Quds Force, Esmaill Ghaani, met in Beirut with the leaders of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, as well as those of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad – all proxies of Iran in the eyes of Israel. – on April 6, the same day the rockets were launched from Lebanon.
An investigation published over the weekend by “The Wall Street Journal” revealed that Ghaani is recruiting militant groups in the region to launch attacks against Israel and on Monday the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) arrested two Palestinians in the West Bank who were operating to the Quds Force recruiting Palestinians to attack Israeli targets, bringing the Iranian threat inside Israel’s borders.
The next day, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi threatened the “total destruction of Haifa and Tel Aviv” if the “Zionist regime makes any mistake.”
daily attacks
“This is the first time that Palestinians operating directly for Iran have been arrested,” said Truzman, who clearly sees Iranian tentacles – often with Hamas as an intermediary – in the rise of new Palestinian armed groups in the occupied West Bank, which has resulted in in an “exponential increase in attacks that now occur almost daily.”
According to data from the Shin Bet, since the beginning of the year more than 220 attacks have been thwarted, most of them shootings, but also bombings or suicide attacks. And the Israeli Police say they have inhibited at least eight attempted “terrorist attacks” in Jerusalem during Ramadan, which ended last night.
These days, a report from the Army’s military intelligence division has been leaked to the Hebrew media, in which it warns that Israel is “closer to war than to calm” and that a conflagration with pro-Palestinian militias, supported by Iran, it is likely before a year.
For Melamed, “a large-scale war is unlikely in the immediate future,” but he does believe that the Iranian threat will continue to grow as it equips its proxies with increasingly sophisticated weapons, and that the underground war that Israel will intensify The US and Iran have been fighting for years in Syria, with the Jewish troops systematically bombing the military capabilities that the Islamist regime is building there.
“From a tactical point of view, Iran does not want to sacrifice itself in a war against Israel. They will sacrifice their proxies, especially the Palestinians. He does not want to get directly involved in a conflagration ”, he adds.
“We are not yet on the brink of a war, but it is not ruled out either. The breeding ground is there and any small incident can make it explode. It is the Middle East, anything can happen”, Truzman clarifies.
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is experiencing one of its deadliest years. So far in 2023, 98 Palestinians have been killed, most of them militants in frequent and violent raids by Israeli troops, but also civilians including 18 children. On the Israeli side, 19 civilian victims of attacks have died, most of them settlers.