Lt Gen Prakash Katoch
The eruption of cross-border violence between Israel and Hamas on May 10 is a follow up of rising tensions in the recent past between Israel and Palestine in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at the Al Aqsa Mosque revered by both Muslims and Jews. Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, began firing rockets after warningIsrael to withdraw from the site, triggering retaliatory air strikes
The casualty figures in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict are mounting every hour. As per current figures at noon IST on May 15, nine Israelis have been killed and at least 150 injured in rocket attacks by Hamas. According to Israeli military sources, Hamas fired at least 140 rockets towards Israel on May 14 alone; over 1000 fired by Hamas since the conflict broke out.
After the first Israeli fatalities caused by Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said, “Hamas will receive blows here that it did not expect,” Israel was initially targeting military facilities of Hamas in Gaza. According to the Israeli internal security agency (ISSA), the brigade commander of Gaza City was among seniormembers of Hamas who have been killed.
However, the subsequent airstrikes by Israel went after Hamas hierarchy and intelligence network. Top Hamas commanders, including the group's engineering chief and the heads of cyber warfare and rocket development are among the 16 military members of Hamas killed in Israeli air attacks, as reported by Israeli government sources. Israeli airstrikes also targeted Hamas rocket launch sites, intelligence offices, homes of Hamas leaders, police and security installations. Some 139 Palestinians are reported killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. Also 11 protestors were reported killed and over 365 injured in the West Bank according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Israel's massing of troops on the Gaza border and threats of ground invasion was a masterstroke. The Gaza strip, 41 km long, 6-12 km wide and totaling 365 sq km territory, houses some 1.85 million Palestinians. Gaza ranks as the third most densely populated polity in the world. Threats of ground invasion sent the Hamas scurrying into the numerous tunnels they have dug, many reaching into Israel underground. Israeli aircraft then targeted these tunnels with rockets and missiles with pinpoint accuracy causing innumerable Hamas casualties.
However, as clashes between Palestinians and Israel in the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem escalated, it has set off a wave of protests by Israeli Arabs in support of the Palestinians resulting in clashes with Jews and destruction of property in several Israeli cities. This is an unprecedented first time occurrence. A state of emergency was declared on May 11 in the central city of Lod, where Jews and Arabs live in a mixed community, after Arab assailants set synagogues, shops and cars on fire following the killing of an Arab resident by a Jewish man amid rioting a day earlier. The communal riots in cities are spreading.
There have been anti-Israel protests on the Lebaon-Israel border which necessitated Israeli security forces to open fire resulting in the killing of at least one protester. Following this, three missiles were fired at Israel from Syria on May 14 after Hezbollah issued a statement that one of its members was killed in a fracas by Israeli fire at the Lebanon-Israel border. Luckily one rocket fell inside Syria itself and the other two landed in open areas of the Golan Heights according to Israeli military sources.
Russia and Egypt have been trying for a Palestine-Israel truce but have not made any headway while US too is chipping in now. On May 13, Arab News reported that an Egyptian delegation is in Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli officials as part of efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the escalating conflict with Gaza and the same delegation had met Hamas officials in Gaza before coming to Israel. The news report went on to say that same evening Egypt's foreign minister Sameh Shukry condemned Israeli air attacks in Palestine in a phone call to his Israeli counterpart. There was no mention of hostile action by Hamas against Israel.
US President Joe Biden has reportedly spoken to the Israeli Prime Minister and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to both the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israel's Prime Minister. Blinken said that the US is “engaged across the board and pushing on de-escalation not only with Israelis and Palestinians but also with other partners who are amplifying our voice.” What effect this US initiative has, only time will show.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that Israel has a right to defend itself, which has been supported by the US. The UNSC is set to hold a virtual public meeting on May 15 to address the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians. The US, which had blocked an originally proposed meeting on May 14, apparently agreed to move the session on May 16 as requested by Tunisia, Norway and China.
Israel has a threat surrounded by Arab countries that host terrorist organizations. Mercifully, the Muslim Brotherhood thrust on Egypt by Washington in 2011-2012 was outlawed. But the Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon are both financed and armed by Iran. There is always possibility of these two joining hands, gain support from Islamist organizations from elsewhere and try exploiting the communal divide within Israel, as already being witnessed in several cities. Pakistani Sunni cleric Ashraf Asif Jalali has appealed to Turkey's President Recp Erdogansaying that the people of Pakistan are ready to send 500,000 soldiers (read jihadis-terrorists) to help Erdogan liberate Jerusalem.
The Arab countries surrounding Israel have comparatively larger population and higher population growth rate than Israel. Israel's own population in July 2020 was about 9,23 million of which 17.8 percent are Muslims. The country's population growth rate in 2019 was 1.9 percent but the Muslim percentage will likely grow at a faster rate as has been the experience world over. This may be exploited by external forces to create instability within Israel, as is happening today albeit at low level.
Demographic invasion amid Muslim-Jew animosity is what Israel will need to bear in mind always. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is running again in the next presidential election in Iran scheduled on June 18, 2021. As the Iranian President (August 2005 to August 2013), he wanted Israel to be obliterated from the face of the earth and had said that the holocaust was a work of fiction. On the other hand, Erdogan dreams of re-establishing the Ottoman Empire with himself as its Caliph. The threat to Israel, therefore, will remain existential.
As to the ongoing conflict, the Hamas, egged on by external forces, is unlikely to honour a ceasefire even if it is somehow brokered. Present statements by Hamas are nowhere near conciliatory. The conflict, therefore, is set to escalate.
