Regional tensions related to the war between Israel and Hamas increased this Sunday (15). It was the day of greatest violence between the Lebanese Hezbollah faction and the Israelis, prompting an exchange of warnings between the United States, Tel Aviv’s guarantor, and Iran, which backs the Lebanese and Palestinian terror groups.
Iran has issued its most serious warning yet to Israel even as the country has denied involvement in the Palestinian group’s attacks against the Jewish state. “If the Zionist aggression does not stop, the hands of all those involved will be on the trigger,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said, according to Iranian state media.
He was referring to the Jewish state’s retaliation against Gaza, which has been dominated by Hamas since 2007. He later told the Qatari network Al Jazeera that his country “cannot just be an observer”: “If the scale of the war expands, significant damage will be inflicted on the United States.”
The answer came in the opposite direction. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US had reached out to Iran through informal channels to warn the Persian country not to become involved in the Israel crisis. “There is a risk of escalation with the opening of a second front in the north and of course the involvement of Iran,” he told CBS.
Iran’s president, the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, received a call from his colleague Emmanuel Macron, whose country was a colonial power in Lebanon, in which the Frenchman warned him not to allow the escalation.
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The situation on the ground is deteriorating as Israel prepares the ground offensive against Gaza. A Hezbollah attack left one person dead in the northern Israeli town of Shtula. Antitank missiles and rockets were fired throughout the day, and in the early evening Israeli warplanes bombed the group’s positions in southern Lebanon as soldiers from both sides exchanged fire.
Incidents continue to slowly escalate since Hamas carried out the largest terrorist attack in Israel’s history last Saturday, killing more than 1,300 people (7). The Jewish state’s retaliatory strike has so far killed 2,600 Palestinians in the terroristcontrolled Gaza Strip.
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It all started this Sunday morning when a Hezbollah antitank missile was fired from the area of Ayta aShaab, a town bordering Shtula on the socalled Blue Line, a border established by the United Nations since 2000.
One person died and three others were injured. The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) then established a buffer area of 4 km from the socalled Blue Line, isolated the border and drove out civilians. He then began bombing Hezbollah positions.
In total, the IDF counted five attacks with antitank missiles, nine with rockets and several mortar and small arms fire. Actions continued throughout the night, with the Israeli Air Force also brought into the equation.
In addition, the IDF warned that it was blocking the GPS signal throughout Israel’s northern region and that therefore cell phone applications were likely to cause problems. The mechanism disrupts the accuracy of missiles and communications with intruders in the area.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video on Sunday that his country had no interest in a new conflict with Hezbollah, but that the group should be aware of the consequences if it did. The Lebanese group had previously issued a similar warning, but in the opposite direction.
The usual exchange of fire in the region had already taken place this week to show both sides preparedness in times of war. Iran uses the groups as proxies to avoid direct confrontation with the nucleararmed state of Israel.
This Sunday’s escalation comes a day after the Iranian foreign minister met with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniye in Qatar. He also met with representatives of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, another antiIsrael group that, along with Syria and its allies, forms what Tehran calls the Axis of Resistance.
In this case, resistance to the existence of Israel and the normalization of Tel Aviv’s relations with Arab neighbors, such as the Emirates. The most important USbrokered negotiation is a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, now ravaged by a new war exactly what Hamas wanted.
This Sunday, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Crown Prince and Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. The host stated: “It is necessary to stop the current escalation, respect international law and lift the siege on Gaza.”
The US has acted in this way since it supported peace agreements between the Palestinians and Israel in 1993. Joe Biden’s administration announced the deployment of a second group of aircraft carriers to join the USS Gerald Ford, the world’s largest warship, on the Israeli coast.
The reason, embraced with abandon, is to warn Israel’s regional rivals about what could happen if they get involved in the war against Hamas. The Defense Department also bolstered bases in the region with F15 fighters, F16 fighters and, not so subtly, A10 “aircraft tanks” specialized in attacking armored vehicles.
For the Israelis, the eventual entry of Hezbollah, which has an impressive arsenal of rockets and missiles and drew a draw in the 2006 war with Tel Aviv, would be a major military problem. Hence Minister Gallant’s statement.
In the east it is also about Syria, which has already been attacked twice by allegedly Israeli aircraft since the beginning of the crisis. The IDF never commented on these actions, which were also confirmed by Russia, an ally of the antiIsrael axis but which maintains close ties to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
President Vladimir Putin, like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, criticizes the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This seems to be about warnings to the Syrians not to send their own or Iranian weapons to reinforce Hezbollah or Hamas from now on there are reports that elite units from Tehran are moving through the region. It is not without reason that the targets of the attacks were runways at two airports.