Orientul Mijlociu

A brief look back at 2023: From normalization to escalation in the Middle East

A ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels slammed into a cargo ship Friday in the Red Sea near the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, following another attack only hours earlier that struck a separate vessel, authorities said.

The missile attack on the MSC Palatium III and the earlier assault on the Al Jasrah escalate a maritime campaign by the Iranian-backed Houthis. The attacks also endanger ships traveling through a vital corridor for cargo and energy shipments for both Europe and Asia from the Suez Canal out to the Indian Ocean.

The Houthis have been fortunate to have, as a powerful patron and sponsor, Iran. Their backers in Tehran will not let them run out of ammunition and the Biden administration will not let the Iranian regime run out of funds.

Hamas is nearing its breaking point in northern Gaza as Israeli forces surround its last two strongholds there and takes out local commanders, Israel said Monday.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that Israel Defense Forces were “on the verge of dismantling” the remaining Palestinian terror strongholds in Jabalya and Shejaiya after mass surrenders in the area, CNN reports.

Following the October 7 Hamas attacks, residents along Israel’s northern border grow increasingly anxious over the possibility of a similar assault by Hezbollah.

Gil Sagi is an Israeli dairy farmer living on a kibbutz in northern Israel. Since the beginning of Israel’s war with Hamas, his community, along with others, has been under fire from the Hezbollah terrorist organization. His wife is with him, among the few who stayed on the kibbutz, as many thousands of residents from the area have been evacuated. His three children and two grandchildren left the area a few days after the war began, scattering across Israel to wait for quieter times.

The Strategy That Led to the War—and What It Means for the Future

Among the many striking aspects of Hamas’s October 7 attack against Israel, one that has received relatively little scrutiny is the location. For much of the past decade, the Gaza Strip no longer appeared to be a major battleground for the Palestinian resistance. Recurring incursions by the Israeli army into Gaza, including the nearly two-month Operation “Protective Edge” in 2014, had locked Hamas into a defensive posture. Meanwhile, Israel’s increasingly sophisticated missile defenses had rendered Hamas’s rocket attacks from the strip largely ineffective, and the blockade of Gaza had cut off the territory from the rest of the world.

The Gaza war has pushed together powerful Iran-backed Shia Muslim paramilitaries with militant Sunni factions in what appears to be closer cooperation between groups that differ in religious ideology but are united by opposition to Israel and the United States.

“We built the tunnels to protect ourselves from airplanes … the refugees, the UN is responsible for protecting them.” The now infamous statement by Musa Abu Marzuk of Hamas, in a television interview of October 2023, illustrates a severe problem that has developed in the interplay between humanitarian aid and militant groups in the Middle East. In even the best cases, the aid allows these groups to evade responsibility for civil affairs while pursuing their agenda of mayhem—but in fact, the terrorist groups often go much farther than this, and actually rely on aid streams to fund and equip the gunmen that commit their atrocities. Humanitarian aid has become a lifeline for these groups, enabling their deadly attacks.

AI is a broad term that refers to the ability of machines or software to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence such as perception, reasoning, learning, decision making and problem solving. AI has many applications and implications for modern warfare, both on and off the battlefield. Here, we will explore how AI helps Israel army select bombing targets in Gaza, and the implications and challenges of using AI in warfare.