Israel Is Dangerously Close to a Three-front War: Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank - Israel News - Haaretz.com
The series of leaks and statements in the past few days reflect the steady escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese front. To a great extent, the reciprocal threats are intended to deter the opposing side from launching a full-scale war, but it is not certain that they will achieve their goal. What is achieved are intensifying acts and warnings that are liable to deteriorate into a major escalation.
Last week, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi met their counterparts in the Biden administration in Washington. After the meeting, CNN quoted senior American administration officials as saying that the U.S. promised Israel that in the event of a war in Lebanon, it will quickly supply all the munitions it needs.
Meanwhile, Arab media reports that the Pentagon assesses that Israel is considering a ground operation in southern Lebanon in mid-July, in about three weeks, and that the administration is trying to prevent the conflict on the northern front from escalating.
Smoke billows over the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon, following an Israeli attack, on Sunday.Credit: AFP
On Saturday night, Hezbollah released a new video in which its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to strike strategic sites in Israel, after photographing Haifa Bay, Ashdod Port and the Dimona nuclear facility. One of the risks of such aggressiveness is that one of the parties may be persuaded that its opponent is planning to launch an attack soon, and then will have to decide whether to launch a surprise attack that will result in an all-out war.
In the background is the question of American defense aid to Israel. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the extraordinary step of releasing a video attacking U.S. President Joe Biden and the administration of delaying deliveries of 3,500 precision bombs to the Air Force. The shipment has been delayed for two months, because of American reservations about the IDF operation in Rafah, but the IDF urgently needs the bombs if war breaks out with Lebanon in the north.
The administration responded with astonishment, as if it did not know what Netanyahu was talking about, and then with anger, canceling a strategic meeting that had been scheduled in Washington to discuss, among other things, the developing Iranian nuclear threat. Now, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will make an effort to solve the crisis over the deliveries during his visit to Washington, which began Sunday evening.
On the agenda of Gallant's talks with administration officials is also Israel's other requests for expedited defense aid, with the impression created in Israel being that some of the American deals have resumed their usual slow bureaucratic handling, despite the IDF's urgent needs. Israeli defense sources criticized Netanyahu's release of the video for damaging sensitive relations with the U.S. at a time when the IDF badly needs munitions, armaments and spare parts.
Netanyahu again raised his accusations against the Americans at the opening of Sunday's cabinet meeting. "Four months ago, there was a dramatic decrease in the munitions coming to Israel from the U.S. For weeks, we contacted our American friends and requested that the shipments be expedited," he said, "We received all sorts of explanations, but we didn't receive one thing; the basic situation did not change. Certain items arrived in trickles, but the munitions at large remained behind."
It's hard to believe that Gallant, en route to the U.S., was pleased by the nature and timing of the remarks. It seems we are repeating the known pattern of the failed hostage deal negotiations: Netanyahu makes sure to increase the tension between the parties every time there appears to be an attempt to successfully make progress in the contacts.
Sunday's reason is apparently related to his seeking an alibi: shifting the blame for the inability to defeat Hamas in Gaza onto the American administration, to justify himself in the eyes of his right-wing base. And again, domestic political considerations trumps security considerations and Israel's foreign relations; in other words, the good of the country.
West Bank near explosion
Gallant's success in breaking the bottleneck in deliveries also depends on the American administration's impression that Israel is responding to the president's requests regarding the Gaza war. Biden is trying to reduce the number of Palestinian civilian dead in the fighting, avoid harming humanitarian shelters where people are staying, make sure that food and medical aid convoys are not hit and not raise difficulties to the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Israeli defense establishment discussions in the past two weeks emphasized the need to deal with these demands. In the background is another threat as far as Israel is concerned: the proceedings at the international courts in The Hague. The International Court of Justice is due to decide soon on whether there are grounds for the claim that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza. At the International Criminal Court, prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.
Meanwhile, the IDF is not exactly adjusting to the demands. There have been a series of strikes in the past few days, in which Palestinians sources say more than 100 civilians have been killed in Gaza City and Rafah. One incident involves the mistaken firing at a Red Cross facility at a beach near Rafah. Other incidents, in Gaza City, were attempts to assassinate senior Hamas officers. It is still not clear whether the attacks hit their targets.
Palestinians search for casualties at the site of Israeli strikes, at Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, on Saturday.Credit: Ayman Al Hassi/Reuters
Maj.-Gen. Ghassan Alian, coordinator of government activities in the territories, left on Sunday for talks at the UN in New York and with the administration in Washington on Gaza and the West Bank. Alian will try to persuade his interlocutors that Israel is complying with the demands of the international community, in particular American expectations.
The Israeli defense establishment complains about ineffective cooperation by the UN over the entry of aid trucks into Gaza. Given the series of Israeli strikes on convoys in the past, workers with UN-affiliated organizations fear being hit during the trucks' transit. Conversely, when private security organizations were used, the trucks passed more easily. Israeli defense sources say more than 1,000 trucks are now waiting to enter Gaza, but are delayed by difficulties in UN operations.
The UN and U.S. are particularly worried about Israeli actions in the West Bank, where the situation is close to exploding. After eight and a half months of war in Gaza, it seems the Palestinian Authority is struggling to control its own turf. Israel's freeze in the flow of funds, along with the restrictions on West Bank workers entering Israel, are adding to the PA's economic problems and leaving many employees, including those of the various security agencies, in severe financial distress.
IDF forces in Qalqilya, in the West Bank, on Saturday.Credit: AFP
But Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich is determined to increase the pressure and does not conceal his wish for the PA's collapse. Smotrich is even urging a series of cabinet decisions to penalize the PA for its part in the claims filed against Israel in The Hague. He wants the government to legitimize the status of four illegal outposts. The agreement Smotrich signed with Netanyahu to give him more powers in the West Bank as an auxiliary defense minister tighten his control on developments there, despite criticism by the IDF.
The Israeli media barely deals with developments in the West Bank, which is perceived as a secondary front to Gaza and Lebanon. But in practice, the situation there is dangerously close to disintegrating, which would merge the West Bank with the hostile fronts in Gaza and Lebanon.