What Are the Repercussions of the Israeli Military Escalation Again on the Gaza Strip?

Murad Jandali | 2 years ago

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In conjunction with the continuation of the relative calm in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Occupation surprised the Palestinian resistance and carried out the assassination of one of the most prominent leaders of the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which led to the killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Occupation army announced, in a statement on August 5, 2022, the start of a military operation Breaking Dawn in the Gaza Strip, in which it targeted leading figures and dozens of sites affiliated with the PIJ in the Strip.

The Walla news website cited Israeli sources as saying that Tel Aviv targets the PIJ group only in Gaza to avoid Hamas' interference in the conflict, pointing out that the military operation will not end within hours.

More than two million people live in the Gaza Strip amid an air, land, and sea blockade imposed by "Israel" in 2007. Critics say this policy amounts to collective punishment, given that more than two-thirds of the Gaza Strip's population suffers from poverty, and the unemployment rate exceeds 43%.

 

Surprise Israeli Attack

 In the afternoon of August 5, 2022, the Israeli Occupation forces bombed a residential tower in the al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza, which led to the killing of the senior leader of the al-Quds Brigades, Taysir al-Jabari, and 11 others, including a girl under five years old, while more than 60 others were wounded, some of them seriously.

Hours after the assassination, al-Quds Brigades fired about 100 rockets at the cities and settlements of the Occupation adjacent to the Gaza Strip as a preliminary response to the Israeli aggression and the assassination operation.

On the morning of August 6, 2022, the Israeli army said: "We intercepted about 40 of the 100 rockets launched by the PIJ from Gaza towards the areas adjacent to the Strip," announcing the deployment of Iron Dome batteries in the central region.

The Israeli army spokesman, Richard Hecht, had announced the start of air strikes in the Gaza Strip and the declaration of special status on the Israeli home front.

"According to our estimation, 15 people were killed in the operation, and we are not finished yet," Hecht told the media, describing the operation as a pre-emptive attack on a senior leader of the PIJ.

Israeli warplanes also launched dozens of air raids on several areas in the Gaza Strip on the evening of August 5, 2022, and Israeli special forces and artillery then attacked several military points of the PIJ in the vicinity of the Strip.

The IDF spokesman, Avichai Adraee, said that the Chief of Staff instructed the army to move to a state of emergency and open the higher operations room of the Chief of Staff, while the Israeli police announced the recruitment of 10 reserve teams in case the situation deteriorated.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz also approved an exceptional military order calling up 25,000 reservists.

In the context of the ongoing Israeli escalation, the Israeli forces announced on August 6, 2022, that it had arrested 19 members of the PIJ in raids throughout the occupied West Bank.

Following the assassination, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that "the military operation in Gaza was accurate and targeted only the PIJ."

He added that "Israel" would not stand idly by in the event of an attack, noting that it was not interested in launching a large-scale military operation in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli Occupation often promotes the names of some Palestinian resistance leaders in order to justify their assassination and targeting, which has been repeated more than once during the last decade in particular, which caused rounds of escalation and open confrontations between the Israeli Occupation and the Palestinian factions.

Since 2012, the Occupation has assassinated a number of prominent leaders of the Gaza military factions, including the leaders of the al-Qassam Brigades Ahmed al-Jabari, Raed al-Attar, and Mohammed Abu Shamala, in addition to leaders in al-Quds Brigades such as Baha Abu al-Ata and Taysir al-Jabari, and a number of others were targeted during the confrontations.

It is noteworthy that the Israeli Occupation and the Gaza factions had fought four wars and several smaller battles during the past 15 years; the most recent was the 11-day war in May 2021, which led to the deaths of more than 200 Palestinians and dozens of Israelis before a ceasefire was agreed.

 

Bombing Without Red Lines

The current tensions had begun after the Israeli forces arrested a prominent leader of the PIJ, Bassam al-Saadi, during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin on August 1, 2022.

On its part, the PIJ pledged to respond to this, which led to the Israeli army raising the state of alert in the south of the Israeli Occupation along the border with Gaza and the closure of all crossings and some adjacent roads.

It is noteworthy that "Israel" has never resorted to this kind of sanctions against the Palestinians or precautionary measures in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip without there being any shooting from the Gaza Strip.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that the military operations that have been approved will mainly target the PIJ sites and elements after the failure of attempts to reach a truce with the group through Egyptian mediation, against the background of the arrest of al-Saadi this week, according to the allegations of the Occupation army.

On his part, the Secretary-General of the PIJ, Ziad al-Nakhalah, stressed that "there are no red lines for Islamic Jihad's response to the Israeli aggression. Tel Aviv will be one of the targets of the resistance's rockets."

"The Israeli aggression is a stab in the back of the Egyptian mediation because the Occupation started the bombing during contacts made by Egypt to mediate," he added.

In turn, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "The resistance, with all its military arms and factions, is united in this battle, and it will say its word with full force."

On his part, Fatah spokesman Munther al-Hayek said, "Bombing Gaza and targeting and intimidation defenseless civilians is a new crime added to the crimes committed by the Israeli Occupation forces against our people."

 

Meditation for Calm

After the renewed Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, mediators began to intervene in an attempt to return to calm and not to degenerate into a vast war.

The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed that he had received contacts at the international and regional levels to discuss how to deal with the Israeli aggression.

The Palestinian Authority condemned the Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip, demanded their immediate cessation, and held the Occupation forces responsible for what it described as a dangerous escalation.

The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, in a statement on August 5, 2022, that Egypt is conducting intensive contacts in order to contain the situation in Gaza and work towards calm.

The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, cited an unidentified Egyptian official as saying that "mediation between Israel and Gaza is still ongoing, with the focus now on preventing the escalation of violence," adding that "the reaction of the factions in Gaza to the number of dead and wounded will determine the pace of other Israeli reactions."

The Arab League condemned the Israeli raids, which it said came in the context of the ongoing official war of the Israeli Occupation against the Palestinian people.

Turkiye, Qatar, Tunisia, Jordan, and Algeria also condemned the renewed Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which caused the death of 12 citizens and the wounding of dozens.

In turn, the UN envoy to the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, said in a statement on August 5, 2022, that "the UN is working with all concerned parties in an effort to avoid further conflict that may have serious consequences, especially on civilians in Gaza," describing the ongoing escalation as very dangerous, and calling on both sides to stop the mutual bombing immediately.

On his part, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, said that "Washington is monitoring developments and urging all parties to calm down," but added: "We firmly believe that Israel has the right to protect itself."

US-based pro-Palestinian groups have criticized the violence in Gaza and called on the Biden administration to end what they described as a policy of impunity for Israeli crimes.

American Muslims for Palestine, a grassroots organization based in the US, called for an immediate halt to the Israeli attack and the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

 

Dangerous Escalation

Regarding Israel's motives for launching this military campaign on Gaza, political analysts believe that Israel's internal problems are pushing its leaders to export their crises toward Gaza and use Palestinian blood in the early Israeli elections that will take place on October 1; as Lapid and Gantz want to achieve a political achievement before the elections.

"Bombing Gaza has become a way for Israeli politicians to show their strength in advance of elections," said Gideon Levy, an Israeli commentator, and writer for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

In turn, the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), a US-based non-profit organization, indicated that the goal of the Israeli attack on Gaza was to bolster political support for Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid before the upcoming elections.

Meanwhile, other analysts expected that the round of fighting between the resistance and the Occupation would be long while excluding the success of regional mediation and interventions in the coming hours to stop the aggression.

Haaretz's defense analyst, Amos Harel, had expected either that the PIJ would attempt to launch an anti-tank missile or a rocket-propelled grenade toward "Israel" and that "Israel" would respond strongly to that or that a pre-emptive Israeli attack occurs before the group attempts to carry out any operation, which is what actually happened.

Despite the estimates that the electoral competition was behind such a military operation against Gaza, the results of the military campaign will have the most significant impact on determining the results of the Knesset elections and determining the features of the next Israeli government coalition.

Aside from the political problems in "Israel" and heading to a fifth election in less than 4 years, Eyal Alima, an analyst for military and security affairs at KAN, a state-owned Israeli channel, believes that "the security services planned in advance for such an operation, whether in order to assassinate military leaders in the al-Quds Brigades or with the aim of nullifying the immediate threats from the Strip and preventing the resistance factions from imposing a new equation on the Gaza front."