Salt Emergui Jerusalem
Jerusalem
Updated Thursday, April 4, 2024-20:39
Escalation of Iran and Israel: an increasingly direct duel
Analysis Three scenarios for Iran's response to the attack on its Revolutionary Guard in Damascus
At 6:29 on October 7, 2023, Israel went into a state of
shock
. The largest attack in its 76-year history was of such magnitude (1,200 dead, more than 240 kidnapped, rapes, 2,000 projectiles...) that it put aside its enormous internal fracture and created an exceptionally widespread consensus in favor of an offensive with double objective of ending the Islamist militia Hamas in the
Gaza Strip
and freeing those kidnapped.
Six months later, and while the possibilities of a war with the Lebanese group Hezbollah and even with Iran, which it blames for the "ring of fire" around it and activated since 7-O, Israel is stuck in the labyrinth of Gaza, are growing. . Especially since you can't decide which exit to take. On the right, he could complete the first objective that passes - as he maintains - through
Rafah
to dismantle the four Hamas battalions in that area of the Palestinian enclave. On the left, the
kidnapped
could be reunited
in exchange for a ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
The first option also depends on US President
Joe Biden
, who opposes large-scale military action in Rafah where 1.4 million inhabitants are located, including more than a million displaced and overcrowded near the border with Egypt. The evacuation plans for civilians from Rafah presented this week by Israel do not convince the White House. The second option, the negotiator, depends on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under political pressure and at the head of a divided Government, and the leader of Hamas, Yahia Sinwar, who seems to prefer to wait for growing global pressure to stop the attacks. From Israel. From his tunnel somewhere in Gaza, Sinwar isn't really aware of or cares about the hell Gazans suffer above ground. Hamas' greatest success, taking advantage of the most unexpected failure of its enemy's Intelligence, gave way to the
most devastating Israeli offensive
in the Gaza Strip, causing the greatest catastrophe its inhabitants remember.
If half a year ago Israel had the support or at least the understanding of a large part of the international community to respond to the Hamas terrorist attack, today it finds itself
more isolated than ever
. The tension with the US is critical because it needs the military (weapons) and diplomatic shield (veto in the UN) of its great ally in the Gaza labyrinth and even more so if this turns into a regional war. The number of deaths (33,000 according to the Ministry of Health controlled by Hamas) and the
humanitarian drama
have led Biden, a president who presumes to be a Zionist, to harshly criticize Netanyahu, whom he previously could not stand, for not reaching an agreement for months the "day after" in Gaza and its Army for not doing enough to protect the lives of civilians and avoid the humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu spoke this Thursday with a Biden full of anger following the death last Monday of seven World Central Kitchen volunteers, victims of an Israeli drone, which he defined as a "tragic mistake" that is being investigated. Expressing his frustration, the US president told his interlocutor that what happened is "unacceptable" and that future US support "will be determined" by how Israel treats civilians in Gaza. According to the
Washington Post
, on the same day of the attack the US approved
the supply of thousands more bombs
.
Their conversation coincided with the tense wait for the retaliation announced by Iran for the death of the person responsible for the
Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria and Lebanon, Mohamed Reza Zahedi, in an Israeli attack in Damascus. Israel has reinforced its air defense unit and the security of its embassies. According to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, "the Zionist entity carried out the attack because of its defeats in Gaza."
There are those in Israel who also believe that their country is failing. In 182 days, the powerful
Tsahal
has not yet defeated an armed group while in six days in the '67 war it defeated the armies of several Arab countries.
But there are also those who speak of success given the adverse conditions in a war that, by not starting, did not have the surprise factor of the selective operation against ringleaders. They point out that Israel
dismantled 18 of 24 Hamas battalions and killed "more than 13,000 terrorists"
- according to Army data from a month ago - against an enemy that relies on an impressive network of tunnels and acts among civilians.
"Almost every house we entered had Hamas weapons," denounces Captain Shai. "Next to a class at a UNRWA school in Beit Janun, we saw a command room with
Kalashnikov
rifles , grenades, mortars and maps," says this Israeli who left New York to do reservist service. "The school was apparently empty but suddenly they shot at us from the building in front. A soldier died from a Palestinian sniper's shot," he explains to EL MUNDO about one of the
256 soldiers killed in the ground incursion
since the end of October. As he remembers, "in most combats, the terrorists came out of the tunnel, shot and disappeared."
What has also disappeared is international support for Israel. The war in which he had the most support has become the source of a
tsunami
of criticism in the diplomatic arena. Its two main allies, the US and Germany, continue to support ending the control and armed wing of Hamas in Gaza but criticize the high human toll (deaths, destruction, etc.) that the enclave is paying.
Israel, which in some ways remains at 7-0 due to the captivity of the kidnapped people, is no longer in
shock
but feels misunderstood in the world, harassed on multiple fronts (Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis from Yemen and other pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq) and, again, with internal tension.