Orientul Mijlociu

As the war between Israel and Hamas stretches into its fifth consecutive day, Israel is attempting to keep the conflict contained to prevent further escalation that could bring Hezbollah or Iran into the fight.

Sending a carrier strike group to the Middle East serves as an unequivocal message that the U.S. is firmly behind Israel, yet the so-called “axis of resistance,” led by Iran, responded by issuing its own red lines and threatened to target U.S. interests with missiles and drones if Washington intervenes.

Palestinian Hamas has launched the largest war against Israel in decades, with hundreds already killed. For the first time, militants were able to take control and even hold several Israeli settlements for some time. Previously, only the armies of neighboring states could pose such a serious threat to Israel and only when they acted together. Now, the real war against the Jewish state has been launched not by regular troops from Syria or Egypt, but by militants from the Gaza Strip who have neither aviation nor armored vehicles. How did it happen that Hamas terrorists came to power in the Gaza Strip and the only social ladder for the residents was jihad, and why Israel ignored intelligence warnings about the possibility of a large-scale attack – journalist Yuri Matsarsky understood all this (he previously worked in the Gaza Strip, and now serves in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and his parents, on the contrary, fleeing the war, left Kharkov for Israel and now came under fire from Hamas).

Contrary to popular belief, Hamas is not just flip-flop hijackers with rusty Kalashnikovs and suicide bombers wrapped in cheap explosives. Hamas has been busy for many years with its scientific program, which included developing weapons of mass destruction and electronic intelligence. Iran is actively helping the program, but Gaza already has many of its own engineers, trained at the local university.

The world has looked on with shock and horror at the Jewish bombardment of innocent civilians in Palestine over the last few days. Apparently even Israel thinks their actions are indefensible, since on May 15th, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) destroyed a building housing the Associated Press (AP) and other media outlets in Gaza with the intention of stopping images of Palestinian suffering from reaching the rest of the world. Following the attack on the AP, Israel stepped up its bombing of civilian targets, killing dozens of Palestinians with airstrikes on populated streets.

How the Security Establishment Could Have Underestimated the Hamas Threat

Hamas’s devastating terrorist attack against Israel has unleashed the most violent and serious conflict the country has seen in half a century. Already, at least 1,000 Israelis (and 14 U.S. citizens) have been killed. It is an astronomical number for such a small country—equivalent to 30,000 Americans. About 2,900 more Israelis have been injured and an estimated 150 others, including toddlers, grandmothers, and foreign nationals, have been taken hostage. Meanwhile, at least 900 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and another 4,500 have been injured.

America Must Prevail on Its Ally to Step Back From the Brink

In the early morning of October 13, the Israeli military issued a warning to the 1.2 million Palestinians of northern Gaza: they must evacuate within 24 hours, in advance of a probable ground invasion. Such an Israeli assault would have the avowed goal of ending Hamas as an organization in retaliation for its shocking October 7 surprise attack into southern Israel, where it massacred over 1,000 Israeli citizens and seized over a hundred hostages.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that a ground operation is highly risky and complicated, but might have no other options.

Israel will never be the same after Oct. 7, 2023. The invasion of its territory and slaughter and abduction of its civilians has awakened Israel’s deepest existential fears. Scenes of armed men leading away women, children and the elderly have invariably evoked memories of the Holocaust even among third-generation Israelis who never experienced those horrors.