Shelling, missiles and martyrs, and targeting everyone without exception. This is what happens every time Israel announces a new wave of military escalation towards the Gaza Strip, which it has besieged for years and has targeted time and time again. The argument before the world is the targeting of “terrorist” groups working to threaten the security and safety of citizens. The Israelis, in reference to the Palestinian resistance factions.

However, the Israeli occupation state is clearly aware that its recent battles with the resistance did not end in its favour. Rather, it is almost the opposite, as it is unable, despite its destructive arsenal, to achieve the crushing victory it seeks every time, so the matter ends with the mediation of one of the countries in the region for a ceasefire until a while, However, this result (which was also repeated this time), does not discourage Israel from attempts to crush the Gaza Strip, and for many reasons;

Some of them are new, and some are old, as old as their occupation of Palestine.

Aggression is a means of defence

In early August, the occupying power arrested "Bassam al-Saadi", a leader of the Islamic Jihad movement, in the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank.

The Jihad movement denounced this step, which some of its leaders described as "humiliating", vowing to avenge its new prisoner in the prisons of the Hebrew state.

"Bassam Al-Saadi", leader of the Islamic Jihad Movement (communication sites)

After the arrest of "Al-Saadi", Israel took several steps in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip, fearing the responses of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, as the occupation army reported in a statement closing areas and roads close to the security fence with the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Zikim Beach was also closed, and train traffic between Ashkelon and Sderot was suspended, in addition to the closure of the Ezi and Kerem Shalom crossings.

In the same context, a statement from the Israeli government indicated that Prime Minister Yair Lapid held a security assessment session with the aim of preparing for the challenges that the occupied territories might face.

The second episode of the series of escalation was not delayed, not by the Islamic Jihad movement, but by the occupying state, after an Israeli raid targeted the Gaza Strip and managed to assassinate the leader "Taysir al-Jabari", the commander of the northern Gaza Strip regions in the Islamic Jihad movement. The raid also resulted in The martyrdom of 15 other Palestinians in the framework of the operation announced by the occupation army under the name "Al-Fajr Al-Sadiq".

After its success in assassinating "Al-Jabari", which it failed to reach over and over again, "Israel" continued its military operations on Gaza, killing dozens of martyrs and hundreds of wounded, amid Israeli celebrations for the neutralization of the leaders of the first row of the military wing of the Jihad Movement. Soon, the occupation state's fire reached "Khaled Mansour", the commander of the areas in the southern Gaza Strip, and I killed him as a martyr as well.

The occupying power justified its military operation by targeting what it describes as “terrorist elements” who oversee operations targeting Israeli soldiers and citizens, a narrative that seeks to market the image of the country that is defending itself from external danger.

However, it is a narrative that clearly contradicts the facts on the ground. During the first operation, death was not the fate of Al-Jabari alone, but the five-year-old Alaa Qaddoum, whose photos spread in the media and social networking sites after the Israeli bombing ended her life, rose with him. She plays in front of her house in the Shejaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

News from Palestine indicates that "Alaa" is not the only girl who has been martyred in the ongoing operations so far, as the number of children who have met the same fate has reached 6 as of the time of writing this report.

The five-year-old girl, Alaa Qaddoum

electoral death card

Israel took advantage of the period after the arrest of "Al-Saadi" to prepare for this new round of confrontation with the resistance. Immediately after this escalation, the occupation army began preparing the Iron Dome for a possible missile attack on the occupied territories, in addition to collecting accurate intelligence information about a number of required targets, and from Including information about the leaders that she assassinated at a later time.

Tel Aviv has also prepared itself for all possible scenarios, including scenarios it tries to avoid, such as prolonging this tour or the Lebanese Hezbollah's intervention in favor of the resistance by bombing the occupied territories from southern Lebanon.

We cannot read this almost sudden Israeli escalation away from the internal conditions in the occupying country itself. Analysts considered that the moral victory in this war would help the acting Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, to win new electoral papers before the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for next November. .

Lapid, who did not come from a security background, wants to appear as a person who is no less qualified or firm in dealing with the "enemies of Israel" than the heads of previous governments, which explains his proactive decision to war.

Yair Lapid, Israeli Prime Minister

The Israeli Prime Minister is betting that the assassination of jihadi leaders will raise his electoral shares, but at the same time he does not have sufficient guarantees that the armed confrontation will stop at this point, and that the resistance will not respond to its usual painful responses in a way that negatively affects his electoral image, which explains his haste to accept cease-fire.

For his part, Ariel Schmidberg, director of Israel 24 news channel, believes that it is difficult to consider the move by Lapid and his Defense Minister Benny Gantz as motivated by electoral goals only, because the risk is very high in this type of operation that remains to be achieved. A clear victory in it is not at all guaranteed. This process, according to Schmidberg, comes within the framework of a comprehensive Israeli security policy that has been repeated in many wars on the besieged sector, and did not win a decisive victory.

In any case, this escalation round will be very important for Lapid, who has been in the prime ministership for only five weeks, and it is the first time that the Israeli prime minister will be in a position to take a decision on an important and fateful issue such as declaring war on Gaza. The current aggression will be perhaps the last for Aviv Kohavi, the chief of staff of the Israeli army, whose term is about to expire, and then he is also looking to exit his position with an important victory in his career, or at worst, leave without a painful defeat.

For their part, the competing Israeli parties did not miss the opportunity to move in support of the military confrontation before the elections. They unanimously supported the government in its war on Gaza, which was expressed by “Benjamin Netanyahu,” the former Israeli Prime Minister, in a tweet in which he said that he supports the Israeli army, and prays. in order to succeed in his mission.

Bezalel Smotrich, a deputy from the Religious Zionism Party, said in a letter he addressed to the Israeli prime minister that he supports all moves aimed at eliminating the threats of the enemy despite the political difference.

Lapid also enjoyed the support of other parties, such as his predecessor, "Naftali Bennett" and "Merav Michaeli" deputy of the left-wing Labor Party, while the Arab List condemned the bombing of Gaza, considering it a crime that demanded its immediate halt.

Yes to battle.. No to war

In 2019, the Israeli occupation state entered into a confrontation with the Islamic Jihad, and during the battle the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” did not interfere and remained somewhat away from the scene, which is what the occupation leaders were keen to ensure in this confrontation as well by avoiding bombing any Hamas targets .

The entry of the movement that has ruled Gaza for nearly 15 years into this round was a major player, meaning two things that Tel Aviv did not like: first, prolonging the battle that the Israelis wanted to end in a matter of days, and second, avoiding targeting vital centers inside Israel through Hamas' missile arsenal, Which will not find much difficulty in causing complete paralysis of a number of vital institutions inside the occupied country.

Perhaps these calculations are what prompted the occupying state to end its war relatively early, before the confrontations got out of hand, responding quickly to mediation efforts, perhaps more than the Palestinians themselves, who are usually more responsive to these efforts due to the huge human and material losses caused by the Israeli brutal machine .

In the end, the cease-fire came into effect, Gaza avoided another large-scale war, and the occupying government came out to claim its alleged victory.

However, the besieged sector remains the focus of a renewed conflict between the occupation and the resistance, a conflict that Israel fears that its next round will not be limited to Gaza only, but its flames will extend to the West Bank and perhaps to the 48 areas, as happened to a limited extent in the confrontation last year.