Over the course of these hours, the IDF has reconquered the territories lost by Israel in the first hours of the operation Al-Aqsa Flood launched by Hamas on the evening of Saturday 7 October.
While Tel Aviv forces fought in Re'im, Kfar Aza and Ofakim, artillery fire was exchanged on the northern border with Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen. At the same time, Israel's first air raids on Gaza began.
General Yoav Galant, former Minister of Defense and currently head of the Southern Command of the Tsahal (the armed forces of the State of Israel, ed.), ordered the total blockade of Gaza: "No power, no food, no water, no gas; everything closed". This is to carry forward a total war against the "human beasts" of Hamas.
The attack conducted by Palestinian militias across the border showed not only the increased conventional capacity of Hamas, but also how wrong was the consolidated idea in Israeli intelligence that the "Gaza problem" could be managed by adopting a security-segregationist line made of barriers, work permits, humanitarian aid and, when necessary, military actions similar to those formerly defined as "colonial police" beyond the Strip.
The impressive figures of the victims, more than 700 dead and over 2.500 injured and 100 hostages, including civilians and soldiers, show not only the enormous flaw in the security apparatus with the Star of David but also the careful preparation - with the complicity not confirmed but quite predictable of Iran - of the action by Hamas.
An operation of this kind, which saw Israeli territory violated, with the occupation of the border kibbutzim and the town of Sderot, turned the hands of time back to the Yom Kippur War (6-25 October 1973).
Calls for a particularly harsh reaction from Tel Aviv are becoming increasingly widespread. That's why the response of Tsahal it will not limit itself to pushing back the Hamas militiamen beyond the Gaza Strip but will have to go further, to the point of undermining the terrorists' power system in a confusing urban agglomeration, with a population density of 6.000 people per square kilometre, the majority of whom are potentially hostile.
Conduct a exhausting urban battle is not a "calculable risk" but a certainty. However, the columns of infantry and armor bearing the Star of David would be supported by massive "carpet" aerial and artillery bombardments, such as to reduce the city to rubble. This is an operation whose political repercussions should be evaluated. There is a possibility, not too remote, that Hamas knowingly wanted to push the Israelis into an "unmeasured" reaction to favor the consolidation of the hostile front in Tel Aviv, which ranges from Hezbollah to Iran, but which has the possibility of sabotage them from the foundations Agreements of Abraham wanted by the United States for peace in the Middle East.
The alternatives for Israel are a conventional action, based on the disruptive effectiveness of a combined arms maneuver, or an incursion by special forces, with direct intelligence support, which would be equivalent to giving an "asymmetric" response to Hamas, but until too similar to those of previous years.
The temptation to put an end to - or at least try to - once and for all with Hamas and Palestinian extremism in the Gaza Strip is strong, also because this time, as already mentioned, the operation Al-Aqsa Flood presented significant new elements, including the successful saturation of the system Iron Dome through the launch of more than 2.000 rockets (the statistics that gave the interception capacity of 8 missiles out of 10 have dropped to 6 out of 10).
The operation Al-Aqsa Flood it not only has military consequences and reactions, but also noteworthy political ones, capable of influencing the regional geostrategic structure.
- United States demonstrated their unparalleled rapid naval projection capability by deploying the aircraft carrier USS off the Lebanese coast. Gerald Ford and its battle group, with a move that confirms the desire to support Israel but also to prevent the conflict from spreading and involving actors other than Tel Aviv and Gaza, such as Lebanon or Syria.
Likewise, the declared pro-Israeli position of theIndia, a state with which Tel Aviv did not have diplomatic relations until 1992. 2017 was the turning point for Indo-Israeli bilateral relations, and today the two nations collaborate, among others, on the front of technologies for defense and India has become a fundamental partner for Washington in its anti-Chinese function, as well as being the majority shareholder of "Cotton Street", which also involves the Gulf powers, an alternative to Belt and Road Initiative of Beijing.
The link between support for Tel Aviv, which arrived among the first, and the strengthening of the alliance with the United States are strictly linked for Narendra Modi's India.
Israel's rival power,Iran, immediately showed support for Hamas and there is a well-founded suspicion that there are advisors, weapons and funds coming from Tehran behind the preparation of the Palestinian attack. Moreover, fueling a "proxy war" against the Jewish State, using both Hamas and Hezbollah, is one of the alternatives seriously taken into consideration by the Iranians and in particular by the milieu of Force Quds of General Esmail Qaani.
It is well known that Iran looks with apprehension at Israel's proactive policy, aimed at building a "cordon sanitaire" around the Islamic Republic that could frustrate its ambitions and, at the same time, expose it to the danger of an attack coming from all directions.
In this context, Tel Aviv's historic and equally dangerous rapprochement with the Sunni powers, above allSaudi Arabia, on the wave of Agreements of Abraham of Trumpian memory and which the Biden administration has continued to sponsor, represent a dynamic for Iran's national security to keep an eye on and, possibly, to avoid, encouraging Muslim unity in the face of the Jewish "little Satan". .
The support - albeit veiled - expressed for the Palestinian cause by Saudi Arabia and Qatar suggests that, at least from a tactical point of view, Iran has understood the weak point of an agreement perceived as anti-historical and "imposed". However, it is necessary to highlight how, on the contrary, the normalization of relations between Israelis and the Gulf powers is considered strategic by both sides, such that support for the demands of Palestine appears more as the result of an ideological "substrate" than of a real political will.
Last but not least, Israel's involvement in the Nagorno Karabakh war in support ofAzerbaijan, with the consequent opening of the "Zangezur corridor" on Iran's northern border, shook Tehran.
The support of Western European nations for Israel was taken for granted, while it deserves a separate chapter Russia. Already in the first hours of the operation launched by Hamas, Moscow had invited the parties to find an agreement, trying to avoid an escalation, placing itself, however, in an ambiguous position.
Russia's ties with Iran, already strong, were consolidated at the time of the Russian military supply crisis, with the transformation of the Ukrainian conflict into a war of attrition, such that Moscow cannot afford to enter a collision course with Tehran, but not to indulge its anti-Israeli impulses too much. If Russia, like all the great powers interested in Middle Eastern dynamics, has conducted a destabilizing policy over the years, today, with the ongoing Ukrainian war, it cannot still rely on this card.
The pieces on the chessboard are moving and a lot will depend on how Israel will choose to react to the operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Photo: US Navy
