The power of one man has ruined all predictions. Hamas – the Palestinian Islamist movement where radicalism has been winning over pragmatism in its permanent internal tug-of-war – announced on Tuesday the election of Yahia Sinwar as its top political leader. He succeeds Ismail Haniya, assassinated last week in Tehran, presumably by the Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence service. The decision is as symbolic as it is unexpected. The leader until now in Gaza (where he has presumably been hiding for 10 months) represents the hardest and most violent line. Israel has made him the personification of evil and the most wanted man, for his role as the mastermind of the massive surprise attack on October 7, 2023, which left almost 1,200 dead. He has spent 23 of his 61 years in Israeli prisons, from which he was released in 2011 thanks to being one of more than 1,000 prisoners exchanged for a captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Like the hostages that Sinwar, a former military commander, planned to capture on October 7 to force new mass releases.
The names of more pragmatic representatives were being considered, such as Khaled Meshal, Jalil Al Hayya or Musa Abu Marzouk, who are in exile. Like Haniya, who lived between Qatar and Turkey. This is what those who occupy his position, which has an element of external representation, usually do. As venerated by some as he is feared by others, Sinwar was already, in practice, the one who had been in charge of Hamas, above Haniya. Now, on paper too, and from some hiding place.
The election, which was followed by the launching of a salvo of rockets against Israel from Gaza, was announced late on Tuesday, shortly after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah ended a speech with the phrase: “Our response will come, God willing, and it will be strong.” He was referring to the announced reaction to Israel’s assassination last week of its number two, Fuad Shukr. A day later, in another operation attributed to the Mossad, the same fate befell Hamas leader Ismail Haniya. The first was in Dahiye, a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut; the second, in the heart of Iran’s capital, Tehran, igniting the Middle East and adding two heavy scores to settle in just 48 hours. A “victory” for Israel, Nasrallah admitted, before clarifying that, in his opinion, “it changes nothing.”
Nasrallah has given several adjectives to the retaliation “that will come.” He said it will be “strong and effective,” but not “emotional.” “The essential thing is that the determination, the decision and the capabilities are there,” he added.
Psychological warfare
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The tense wait in Israel for the attack, Nasrallah admitted, “is part of the punishment and the response.” The psychological war is working in two directions these days and has produced an episode unprecedented in years: just before Nasrallah began his televised speech, Israeli fighter jets caused a huge roar in Beirut, flying over it breaking the sound barrier. It is a show of force aimed at frightening the civilian population just when many airlines have stopped flying to Lebanon, have cut frequencies or avoid flying over it. Some nationals (the wealthiest) are choosing to leave by boat. Others, with fewer means, by bus, to Jordan, through Syria, to fly from there.
The leader of the Shiite party-militia has indicated that they will carry out the retaliation “on their own or within the framework of a collective response from the entire front.” That is, a coordinated attack – as predicted by the US intelligence services – by the so-called Axis of Resistance: different groups in the Middle East, from Syria to Iraq, passing through Yemen, united by their enmity towards Israel and with Iran at the forefront.
“Hezbollah will respond, Iran will respond… after the attack on Hodeida, [la milicia hutí en] “Yemen will respond. And the enemy is waiting, watching and calculating,” Nasrallah said in his second speech in just five days. On Tuesday, authorities in several Israeli towns near the Lebanese border urged residents to stay close to shelters. These are municipal orders, not from the Israeli Rear Command, which has not yet changed its rules of conduct for the population.
The two assassinations, supported by a social majority in Israel, have restored pride to the intelligence services in the country, after 10 months of internal questioning for, with all their technological and human resources, not having learned for years that Hamas was preparing a massive surprise attack like the one on October 7, 2023.
But the double tactical blow also has an element of humiliation that has brought the region closer in just a few days to its most dangerous moment and to an escalation of “unknown proportions,” in the words of the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell. Nasrallah said in his speech: “We have not sought an escalation until now, we have been fighting in support of Gaza, but with the Lebanese national interest in mind. Every time one of our commanders was killed, our response was always restrained. But the assassination of a prominent leader in Dahiye must be treated differently.” Al Akhbara newspaper close to Hezbollah, illustrated its print edition on Tuesday with a photo of Tel Aviv and the phrase: “Sooner or later, punishment will come, make no mistake.”
The day has already been tense. Earlier in the day, the Israeli army killed four Hezbollah members in a bombing raid in Mayfadun, some 30 kilometres from the border. And Hezbollah has launched several waves of rockets against military positions across the border and in the Golan Heights, the Syrian territory held by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967. First, about 20; then another 10; and a final wave of 30. One of the Israeli defence system’s interceptor rockets fell by mistake inside the country and wounded seven civilians south of Nahariya, one of them seriously, according to the army’s initial findings.
Not only on the Lebanese-Israeli border, which is the focus of attention. Also on other fronts, which are soaked in tension. One is the West Bank, where Israeli forces have left 11 dead, a number above the usual, even in these bloody months. Another is Gaza, with dozens of dead in bombings in different parts. And, in an example of the risks of the regionalisation of the conflict, also in Iraq. A militia close to Tehran launched two rockets at the Ain al Asad air base in the early hours of the morning, where US military advisers are staying, which has reinforced its military presence in the region in support of Israel and with a view to Iranian retaliation.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant spoke again on Tuesday with his American counterpart, Lloyd Austin. The carousel of calls is very much geared toward forging a coalition that will help (either actively, by providing intelligence information or allowing the use of its territory) to shoot down the drones and missiles that Iran and its allies are expected to launch soon, in the style of the one that stopped the one launched by Tehran in April, with some precautions to restore the deterrence equation without generating an open war.
Now, the feeling is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is particularly interested in escalating the situation and changing the so-called “security equation” in the Middle East, taking advantage of the fact that his armed forces need fewer troops present in Gaza, that the United States is focused on its hectic electoral cycle and that President Joe Biden is too politically weak to do anything other than continue providing arms, diplomatic and economic support in the few months he has left in the White House.
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