Several members of the Israeli occupation force were killed in an
ambush in Khan Younis on April 7 [photo credit: Izz ad-Din al-Qassam
Brigades]
The Iranians may choose a cyber attack or use the ‘Axis of
Resistance’ - their proxies in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria – to respond to
the embassy bombing. In a previous response to the killing of a senior advisor
to the IRGC in Damascus, Iran chose to destroy what it claimed was an
Israeli spy centre in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region (see
our 16 February newsletter.)
Crucially the target was not inside Israel. The claim that the home of
one of the three killed, a prominent Kurdish businessman, was a spy base
was strongly denied by Iraq’s federal government and the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG). Still it gave Khamenei a war-avoiding and
face-saving gesture, one that was not a direct hit on Israel.
And while the Ayatollah was still pondering the form retaliation this
time would take the Israelis further upped the ante on Wednesday
morning with a targeted drone attack
that killed three sons and four grandchildren of the Hamas political
leader Ismail Haniyeh in the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza. Haniyeh who
lives in Qatar's capital Doha showed no emotion when he was informed of
the deaths just ahead of a visit to wounded Palestinians being treated
in a hospital there. When asked if he would like to cancel the visit
he replied “No we can continue. May God have mercy on them.” He later
said “I thank God for this honour which he bestowed upon us with the
martyrdom of my three sons and my grandchildren. With this pain and
blood, we create hope, a future, and freedom for our people, our cause,
and our nation.”
The apparent complacency, the implacability, with which he took the
news was both chilling and instructive. Hamas is prepared to sacrifice
everything: its fighters, the families of its fighters, all the
civilians trapped in Gaza to win this war.
And against that is the implacability of the Israelis perfectly
captured by Netanyahu’s political foe and War Cabinet minister Benny
Gantz. Shortly after the killing of Haniyeh’s sons and grandchildren Gantz had this to say:
The war with Hamas will take time. Youth in middle school will
one day fight in the Gaza Strip, as in Judea and Samaria, and against
Lebanon. But the truth must be clear, and the head must be high for our
achievements: military-wise - Hamas is defeated. Its fighters are
eliminated or in hiding. Its abilities are cut off, and we will continue
to hit whatever's left. Victory will come, step by step. We are on our
way to it and we won't stop.
Gantz backs Netanyahu to the full in defying Biden and launching a
full-scale offensive on Rafah, viewed by the Israelis as Hamas’ last
redoubt. In that he is supported by the respected Israeli historian Benny Morris who wrote in Thursday’s New York Times
An Israeli failure to take Rafah and smash Hamas’s last organised
military formations and its governing structures will paint Israel, in
its enemies’ eyes, as a weak, defeated polity, easy prey for the next
potential assailant.
Morris mentioned almost in passing the more than 1 million
non-combatants who will be trapped between two implacable forces, one
prepared to fight to the death whilst using civilians as a shield and
the other armed to the teeth with high tech weaponry and little or no
regard for those civilians.
In such a stark and brutalist scenario lies the catalyst for a larger
war, one that draws in not just Iran’s proxies but Iran itself and
therefore America with consequences that are almost unimaginable.