Palestinians: Down But By No Means Beaten!

Palestinian analysts confirm the military operation launched by the Israeli occupation on the camps in the northern occupied West Bank – “Summer Camps” – aim to eradicate the resistance through excess force and the destruction of their popular base and is considered more dangerous than the “Defensive Shield” operation it carried out in the occupied West Bank in 2002.

Palestinian political analyst Ismat Mansour stressed the most dangerous thing about the last Israeli military operation emanates from what Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said about evacuating the residents of the camps to humanitarian places to carry out cleansing operations,” a sentence also made by the army spokesman when the operation was launched.

“The goal of these military operations are clear, and represented in destroying the Palestinian infrastructure and turning the camps into uninhabitable places with creeping and gradual ethnic cleansing,” Mansour told Quds Press.

Mansour attributed these plans to the declared programs of the Israeli occupation government and “its structure, ideology, and agenda – highlighted by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to resolve the conflict,” in reference to the aim to annex the West Bank to the occupation state.

Therefore Mansour called for “the necessity of working to find a unified collective plan that mobilizes all [Palestinian] energies to confront this criminal mentality.”

Expert Azzam Abu Al-Adas considers the current Israeli military operation in the West Bank is far “more dangerous than that of the Operation Defensive Shield carried by the Jewish army in 2002.”

He pointed out “when Operation Defensive Shield was executed, the Palestinian factions were present in the West Bank and existed in terms of infrastructure, finance, and military, and had the ability to rebuild their forces and compensate for losses. Now, the factions have been dismantled financially, militarily, and socially.”

“Operation Defensive Shield was carried out at a time when the number of settlers in the West Bank was barely 70,000, and now it is 800,000, which means that eliminating the resistance will increase the encroachment of the army and settlers,” according to his thinking.

Abu Al-Adas pointed out head of the Israeli government of occupation Benjamin Netanyahu, “is in dire need of a victory, and since he failed to achieve it in Gaza, he will claim this such an image in the West Bank raise his popularity, especially among the settlers and will increase his chances in the upcoming elections, which he intends to run for.”

“In 2002, the occupation was still living under the shock of the then prime minister Ariel Sharon who entered Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2000, and Al-Aqsa Mosque was out of the game, but now if Israel succeeds in eliminating the resistance act it means the building of the synagogue which Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir talked about and displacing the people of Jerusalem” becomes more real.

The occupation forces began a large-scale military operation targeting resistance fighters in Jenin, Tulkarm and Tubas in the northern West Bank at dawn Wednesday, where large Israeli forces invaded all areas, cities and camps in the northern West Bank from several axes, calling it operation “Summer Camps”.

The Israeli media reported the military operation is the largest since Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, and carried out with the Israeli warplanes, army, Israeli Internal Security Service (Shabak) and other undercover forces with the use of helicopters and fighter jets extensively.

Operation Defensive Shield was a military operation carried out by Israel to occupy and attack areas of the Palestinian Authority, after the Palestinian soldier Abdul Basit Odeh carried out the Park Hotel operation, which is considered one of the largest suicide operations in the history of the Palestinian resistance.

For Israel the main goal of the operation was to eliminate the second Palestinian Intifada which began in 2000 after Sharon, as prime minister, stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“Operation Defensive Shield” was launched on 29 March, 2002 and ended on 10 May.

CrossFireArabia

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

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Reshuffling Cards: Trump and Netanyahu’s Nightmare

(Crossfirearabia.com) – Benjamin Netanyahu hadn’t finished patting himself on the back for destroying the Sanaa International Airport – after all Israeli warplanes hit the country twice in less than 24 hours – before US President Donald Trump dramatically announced he had just reached a deal with the Houthis to stop striking Yemen. Shock, surprise, horror!

Trump added the Houthis promised in turn they would halt targeting all ships, including US vassals and tankers entering the world-trade-crucial Bab El Mandeb Straits, the Red Sea and presumably the Arabian Sea, just off the tip of the country in the south.

Thus, in one full swoop and at a strike of a pen, the war between the US and the Houthis, started in earnest since 15 March had come to an end in a mesmerizing fashion. During this time, the Americans had made at least a total of 1300 air-raids on Yemen in a bid to end the Houthis who had been striking Israel with ballistic missiles on a regular basis since 7 October, 2023 when Israel started bombarding Gaza.

The country that was behind the deal was Oman who had indeed announced, Tuesday, that an agreement between the United States and the Houthis, the effective but not internationally recognized government in Yemen, was reached to stop the war.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said in a statement on X that: “Following recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a, in the Republic of Yemen, with the aim of de-escalation, efforts have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides,” as carried by Anadolu.

Analysts since suggested that the deal was reached because the two sides had wanted to end the open-ended escalation that was proving very costly not least of all to the United States which hiked the US treasury bill to about $1 billion dollars since its campaign, mostly to support Israel, in less than one month of military action.

The Houthis on the other hand didn’t want to fight on two fronts, the Americans and the Israelis. For them ending one front was perfectly logical to focus on strikes against Israel in a bid to end the latter’s war on Gaza, and which Israel has promised to step up soon and added to the misery and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

In agreeing to stop attacking shipping in the area they were of the firm belief that Trump had not meant that no firing against Israel as part of the deal which meant they would continue to strike Jewish cities, airports areas and military installations, more than 2000 kilometers away, until Israel ends its war on Gaza.

It is still too early to read into how things will unfold, especially since Trump is coming to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in mid-May, but everyone is seeing the deal as creating a wedge between the US-Israeli alliance on matters relating to US security in the region and especially on the Iran nuclear file, where incessant negotiations – now in their third and fourth rounds -are taking place for the first time between Washington and Tehran in Muscat and through an Omani team lead by their formidable Omani Foreign Minister Albusaidi as mediator.

These are developments that are clearly upsetting Netanyahu who is dead against any nuclear deal that may be reached between the White House and Tehran and wants to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities regardless of the dangerous consequences. But this is seen as a critical line between Trump and Netanyahu while the former is determined to initial a new nuclear deal which he would see as a great US success and for his diplomacy in checking Iran’s nuclear weapon.

International issues as they stand are still fluid for Trump is looking for certain objectives most of all includes his slogan of “Make America Great Again”, focusing on his domestic scene, and not getting involved in unnecessary war around the globe, hence his wish to end the Ukraine War, the war on Gaza and achieve a new nuclear deal with Iran; these are objectives, especially they last two, are not at all in line with the Netanyahu who is attacking Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and occasionally Yemen.

Thus the last deal between Trump and the Houthis, regardless of whether it would stick in the end, is surely likely to be a “splitting headache” for Netanyahu, from a man who was once seen as great friend to Israel.

But the Israeli Prime Minister must not forget that Trump is no pushover, he is a broker who likes to do things his own way.

This analysis is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website. 

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Analysts: US Fails on Houthis After Six Weeks of Bombing

After nearly six weeks of intensive US airstrikes on different areas and cities of Yemen the Houthi Ansar Allah continues to assert that its military operations in the Red Sea and against Israeli targets will not stop until the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip ends.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, Saturday, announced the targeting of the Israeli Nevatim Air Base in the Negev with a ballistic missile, as well as two other sites in the Tel Aviv and Ashkelon areas and the targeting of warships on the US aircraft carrier SS Harry Truman in the northern Red Sea are just part of the continuing ongoing military strikes.

However in response to these attacks the US aircraft launched two airstrikes last Friday night on the Ras Isa oil port in the coastal province of Al Hudaydah, which Washington considers a major source of fuel used to finance the Ansar Allah group’s activities.

According to Dr Liqaa Makki, senior researcher at the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, the USA has failed miserably in its strikes against the Houthis because of its inability to move to the second phase. He said that as a result they are  discussing an alternative scenario for this military campaign against the Houthis.

Makki believes that US President Donald Trump has reached a dead end, and that the ceiling he set regarding the Houthis is proven unrealistic, pointing out the United States, despite its military strength, is failing in Yemen because it is fighting a group, not a state.

On the other hand, military and strategic expert Brigadier-General Elias Hanna, believes that both sides are losing, whilst the image of the United States is being damaged, given the scale of the US military campaign and Trump’s engagement with the Houthis, who previously declared that  “we [US] will withdraw from all the world’s wars.”

Reports estimate the cost of the airstrikes carried out by the US military on Houthi positions amounted to approximately $1 billion in the first three weeks of the military campaign alone.

The Associated Press reported the value of the seven downed American drones made by the Houthis exceed $200 million, and the continued loss of American drones makes it difficult for the US leadership to accurately determine the extent of the damage to the Houthis’ weapons stockpiles.

Brigadier-General Hanna said that Washington lacks a comprehensive strategy in its dealings with the Houthis, and that the political goal it announced—restoring deterrence and opening shipping lanes—has not been achieved.

He also pointed out the US military is targeting the centers of gravity within the Houthi military system to disrupt it, a strategy Israel has used with the Palestinian resistance but has failed to achieve.

Appeasing the Houthis

In light of Washington’s inability to achieve its goals against the Houthis, Brigadier-General Hanna believes the pressure being exerted on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip is part of an effort to appease the Houthis so that they will halt their operations in the Red Sea and against Israeli targets.

Trump’s upcoming visit to the region also requires a de-escalation. According to the military and strategic expert, the US president cannot arrive while the Houthis are launching missiles.

In the same context, the senior Al Jazeera’s Makki expects  that a Gaza ceasefire will soon be reached before Trump’s visit, allowing the Houthis to halt their operations as they have initially linked the cessation of their operations to an end to the war on Gaza and to the cessation of US strikes against them.

American officials have previously revealed to CNN that the US military has struck more than 700 Houthi targets and carried out 300 airstrikes since the campaign began in mid-March, “forcing them underground and creating confusion and chaos within their ranks.”

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