Far-right Ministers Strain Israel-U.S. Ties as Biden Seeks Deescalation With Hezbollah
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will arrive in Israel on Monday as part of his Middle East trip. Alongside discussions with the government and the defense establishment about what's next in the war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Blinken has another urgent mission: trying to cool the situation on the Lebanese border, which has been heating up.
The barrages of rockets and antitank missiles that Hezbollah launched on Saturday at an airbase on Mount Meron, in response to the assassination of senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri in Beirut last week, intensified the militant mood.
Senior Israeli officials have recently been threatening an even broader conflict with Hezbollah if no compromise is reached that will distance the organization from the northern border.
- Israel is at war, and Netanyahu just launched his re-election campaign
- What you need to know about Netanyahu's radical new government
- Arab Israelis fear Hezbollah's rockets: 'If there's a disaster, we can only pray to God'
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that U.S. President Joe Biden tasked his staff with preventing all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Abu Dhabi during his Mideast trip on Sunday.Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/AP
The paper said American officials fear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will see intensified fighting in Lebanon as the key to his political survival, given the public's criticism of his government's performance during Hamas' terror attack on southern Israel on October 7. The administration has warned Netanyahu against a major war with Hezbollah.
The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency's assessment is that the Israel Defense Forces would have trouble coping with such a war, due to the need to split its forces between Lebanon and Gaza.
But the fact that the report containing this assessment was leaked to the media looks like a deliberate move by the administration, and its conclusion should therefore be treated with a degree of skepticism.
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 18, 2023.Credit: Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters
American intelligence also predicted an immediate Ukrainian defeat when Russia invaded that country two years ago.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this weekend that Israel's preferred way of ending the fighting with Hezbollah is through diplomacy that would resolve the border disputes, allowing displaced residents of northern Israel to return to their homes.
Nevertheless, Gallant added, Israel is approaching the moment when the hourglass for solving the problem "will be turned over."
Minister Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party, a member of the war cabinet, said Sunday that "the situation in which residents of the northern border can't go home requires an urgent solution."
"The one who began the escalation is the terrorist organization Hezbollah," said Gantz. "Israel is interested in a diplomatic solution. But if this doesn't happen, Israel and the IDF will remove the threat. All the war cabinet members share this position."
The problem, as usual, is that Gantz's statesmanlike approach is dependent on his unwilling partner, Netanyahu.
Granted, the decisions on managing the war are being made in the war cabinet, insofar as decisions are being made. But National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whom Netanyahu left out of this forum, are still managing to influence the course of events.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich last month.Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
These two far-right cabinet members are constantly fueling disputes between Israel and America and fanning the flames of polarization in Israel. At the same time, they and other ministers are spewing venom at the IDF. And Netanyahu appears to be their captive.
The prime minister has a clear interest in making the war in Gaza drag on throughout the next year. And it's hard to refute the American fear that this time, with his back to the wall, Netanyahu might also consider further escalation on the northern front.
PA arresting Hamas and Islamic Jihad men
There has also been a rise in the intensity of the fighting in the West Bank in recent weeks.
In yet another army operation in the Jenin refugee camp on Sunday, a Border Policewoman was killed by a bomb and six Palestinians were killed in a drone strike after throwing bombs at Israeli forces, the IDF said.
North of Ramallah, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem was killed in a shooting attackon Sunday and an Israeli Arab woman from Jaffa was seriously wounded. The terrorists apparently mistook them for Jews.
The site of the drone attack in Jenin, on Sunday.Credit: Raneem Sawafta / Reuters
The IDF's offensive in the West Bank is focused on the northern section, the Jenin, Nablus and Tul Karm areas, and is employing more firepower that was customary before the war in Gaza erupted.
The drone used in Jenin on Sunday is a tool Israel almost never employed in the West Bank before October 7.
Almost no regular IDF forces are left in the West Bank, since most of them are fighting in Gaza. Even arrest operations, some of which involve massive fire, are being carried out by reservists alongside Border Police officers and IDF undercover units.
This escalation has put the Palestinian Authority in a bind. It fears that if the public in the West Bank gets swept up in a conflict with Israel, this will disrupt its effort to improve its diplomatic position through the plans for postwar Gaza.
Despite Netanyahu's public opposition, Ramallah is still pinning its hopes on arrangements that would give the PA a foothold in Gaza.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.Credit: AP
And despite its fear of Hamas, the PA's leadership believes that joining forces with the countries that will rebuild Gaza after the war, first and foremost Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will enable the PA to be seen as a kind of Santa Claus – an institution capable of funneling in money to improve the situation in Gaza.
Despite the war, Israel and the PA security forces have maintained their security coordination, though it's being kept low-profile. The PA security services are even arresting Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives, on top of the widespread arrests carried out by the IDF and the Shin Bet security service.
The main security concern right now is Iran's continued effort to smuggle lethal arms into the West Bank. Shortly before the war began, an Iranian smuggling route through Syria and Jordan into the West Bank was uncovered. Powerful explosives and handguns were brought in through this route.
Israel's fear is that Iran is continuing these efforts even now, in an attempt to accelerate terror attacks and also to shake the PA's already shaky government.
Problem of the tunnels
The IDF has begun the wrapping-up phase of the war against Hamas in northern Gaza. On Sunday, it released details about the fighting in the organization's last bastion in that area, the Daraj-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.
And on Saturday, IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari gave the public a long, detailed survey of the three months of fighting in northern Gaza, including more than two months of ground maneuvers.
According to Hagari, the army has dismantled two Hamas brigades and 12 battalions in that region. In central and southern Gaza, it is still fighting two brigades and eight battalions, while the four battalions in the Rafah district have been attacked only from the air.
This is a credible description of the situation, but we should be cautious about the tendency to view Hamas as an army in every respect.
Israeli troops in Gaza on Sunday.Credit: IDF Spokesman's Office
The organization did maintain an orderly military hierarchy, pay salaries to its soldiers, train them and conduct exercises. But the fighting itself isn't generally being waged in the format of an army.
Only during the initial phases of an Israeli assault on a particular area has Hamas deployed in units in an attempt to delay it. Later, usually within a few days, the brigades and battalions dispersed into small cells whose goal was to attack the front lines – especially when they become static – and attempt to cause as many losses as possible.
And even now, after its chain of command in northern Gaza has been severed and most of its commanders have been killed or fled, Hamas is making tangible efforts to organize renewed resistance in small, dispersed cells.
Dismantling most of Hamas' military formations in northern Gaza enabled the IDF to thin out its forces in the area and send thousands of reservists home.
The next step in the north is supposed to involve redeploying to defend the security perimeter, maintaining a buffer zone on the Gazan side of the fence and (presumably) leaving forces in the corridor along the Gaza River that bisects the territory.
Israeli soldiers stand near the opening to a tunnel at Al Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City.Credit: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters
The operation in Khan Yunis, where seven brigade-level combat task forces are operating, is expected to continue at least through the end of January. It is focused on locating the underground command posts where senior Hamas officials are thought to be hiding.
The IDF's Southern Command conducted a seminar for reserve officers last week at which initial operational lessons from the fighting to date were presented. One key issue that arose related to the army's destruction of tunnels and tunnel entrances.
Even though the tunnel problem was discovered during the 2014 war in Gaza, when 32 openings to tunnels leading into Israel were located, destroying them still takes time.
The IDF did prepare for ground maneuvers against Hamas in Gaza, but it didn't develop suitably serious operational plans for occupying so much of the territory.
The process of developing technological tools to destroy the tunnels has also been slow. Evidently, the necessary effort and resources weren't devoted to this job, though some improvements in the modus operandi have been made in recent weeks.