CrossFireArabia
Hebrew sources reported Friday morning that 1091 rockets were launched from Lebanon towards northern Israel last month alone.
The sources pointed out that this was three times as much as those that landed in Israel at the start of 2024 according to Khabrini.
Hezbollah has joined the fight against Israel ever since the latter launched a war on the Gaza Strip after 7 October, 2023.
CrossFireArabia
Retired Israeli General Yitzhak Brik warned in an article published in the Jewish daily Haaretz that Israel will collapse within a year if the war of attrition against Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah continues.
Brik, nicknamed the “Prophet of Wrath” in Israel because he predicted an attack by thousands of Palestinian militants on the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip similar to the Aqsa Flood Battle added that Defense Minister Yoav Galant is beginning to realize that if a regional war breaks out due to the failure to reach a Gaza agreement, Israel will be in danger.
“I assume Galant now realizes that the war has lost its purpose, we are drowning in the Gaza quagmire and losing our soldiers there without any chance of achieving the main goal of the war, which is to topple Hamas,” said.
He stressed all paths at the political and military levels are leading Israel to the abyss whilst stressing that replacing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist partners could save Israel from an existential spiral that could soon reach the point of no return.
With American support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since7 October, leaving more than 133,000 dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.
In disregard of the international community, Israel continues the war, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution to stop it immediately, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent acts of genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza according to JO.24.
CrossFireArabia
The first suicide bomb exploded in Tel Aviv, Sunday night causing mass damage as revealed by different media sources. This is the first suicide exoplosion in the heart of the Israeli city in 18 years according to one blogger.
Al-Qassam Brigades and Saraya al-Quds, claimed immediate responsibility for what they called a resistance operation that will continue inside Israel as long as the massacres, forced displacement of civilians and assassinations in Gaza persist by the Israeli army.
“The Al-Qassam Brigades, in coordination with Saraya al-Quds, announce the execution of the resistance operation that took place last night, Sunday, in the city of Tel Aviv. The brigades affirm the resistance operations within the occupied territories [meaning Israel] will resurface as long as the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation, the displacement of civilians, and the policy of assassinations continue”, Al-Qassam announced on its official Telegram channel according to the Quds News Network.
The Israeli police confirmed that the Tel Aviv huge explosion was what they termed as a “terrorist attack” according to the Jerusalem Post.
They believe the perpetrator of the operation infiltrated the city from the Nablus area in the occupied West Bank. And thgus the security alert level in the greater Tel Aviv area has been notched up.
The Israeli police described the incident as “serious and dangerous,” with investigations by the domestic security force, Shin Bet and the police ongoing. “The Tel Aviv attack was 99% likely to be a terrorist act,” a police statement read, adding it was a “miracle” the explosion did not result in dozens of deaths.
The explosion on HaLechi Street in southern Tel Aviv, involved a powerful explosive device. The Israeli authorities urged the public to remain vigilant, report suspicious persons or objects, and exercise caution as security forces conduct extensive search operations across the city.
According to Israeli media, an Israeli was killed in the explosion, his identity remains unknown due to the severe condition of his body. Another passerby sustained moderate injuries from shrapnel caused by the blast.
Israeli Channel 13 reported have since stated that the police have officially recognized the explosion as a resistance operation.
Footage of the incident circulating on social media shows the significant damage caused by the explosion, with security forces and emergency responders on high alert in the aftermath of the attack.
CrossFireArabia
Israel is escalating its fighting in the Gaza Strip to improve its position in the Gaza ceasefire and hostage swap talks, it was stated Sunday.
“The Israeli security cabinet recently instructed the military to intensify its operations in Gaza to strengthen Israel’s position in the negotiations,” Walla reported, citing unnamed political sources.
The move coincides with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Israel, where Israeli security officials expect him to put significant pressure on Tel Aviv to reach an agreement with Hamas, according to Walla.
There has been no official Israeli statement on the matter according to the Anadolu news agency.
Ceasefire talks in the Qatari capital of Doha concluded Friday by presenting “a proposal that narrows the gaps” between Israel and Hamas that is consistent with the principles set out by US President Joe Biden on May 31.
Biden said in May that Israel presented a three-phase deal that would end hostilities in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held in the coastal enclave. The plan includes a ceasefire, a hostage-prisoner exchange and the reconstruction of Gaza.
For months, the US, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to ensure a prisoner exchange and ceasefire and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.
But mediation efforts have been stalled due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to meet Hamas’s demands to stop the war.
Saleem Ayoub Quna
By Saleem Ayoub Quna
CROSSFIREARABIA – Whatever our political affiliations might be, there is no denying that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been trying to navigate his way through the worst crisis that hit Israel since 1948.
As this crisis gathered momentum, Netanyahu became more and more inclined to think that he was “chosen” for this once in a life-time moment! In this regard, he likes to liken himself to Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt and likens the 7th Oct., – Hamas audacious full scale attack on Israeli settlements encircling the Gaza Strip – to that of America’s Pearl Harbor of 1941.
Before this devastating development, Netanyahu was busy with couple of matters. For instance, he considered Iran’s nuclear ambitions a life-threatening element to Israel. He would not waste any chance to emphasize that. In all of his speeches on international platforms, his picture holding the diagram showing Iran’s progress in making its own nuclear weapon, became familiar to the eyes of the world.
At the same time, he was engaged in disputes with critics and allies over the future of the Arab occupied territories since 1967 war, primarily the West Bank, which he and his like-minded Israeli politicians, are relentlessly trying to annex to “little Israel”!
De facto factor
Netanyahu and his clique, shared the impression that while the international public opinion in the late 1940s tolerated Israel’s de facto encroachment on territories that were originally allocated to the Palestinians according to the UN partition plan (181). Today he hopes that Israeli continuous attempts to acquire additional Palestinian territories will be, as well, tolerated and eventually neglected and forgotten!
To turn this plan into reality, he followed the example of Israeli successive governments since 1967 war when they embarked on building settlements for immigrant Jews brought in from all over the world. Today, there are more than half a million settlers in the West Bank against 3 million Palestinians, plus the 220,000 Israelis in East Jerusalem, against 372,000 Palestinians.
Dawn of 7th Oct.
Then rises the dawn of 7 Oct., 2023 to dynamite all the above mentioned plans and dreams of Netanyahu and his likeminded right-wing allies!
The surprise full scale attack by Hamas shocked the world and humiliated Netanyahu, for he was the man behind the strategy to strengthen and enrich the Hamas movement in Gaza, while undermining the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah to widen the gap between the two competing representatives of the Palestinian people.
Netanyahu cannot pardon himself as he was the man who had in 2011, sanctioned the release of the now Hamas leader Yehya Sinwar, along other 1000 Palestinian prisoners, in exchange for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was abducted by the Islamic movement back in 2006.
By deepening the wedge between the two Palestinian rival groups, Netanyahu’s plan was to tell the world that there was no reliable Palestinian partner to make peace with. According to his logic, the Palestinian Authority is corrupt, weak and unpopular, and Hamas is a “terrorist” organization with whom Israel, by law, cannot talk with!
Such an argument would leave the fate of the West Bank, solely and helplessly, in the hands of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and the other extreme right-wing parties, whose main reason d’etre, is the annexation of the West Bank, while at the same time continually applying different tactics to expel, as many Palestinians as possible from beyond the green line of 1948, or what the world concurs as calling “ethnic cleansing”!
The year after!
In years to come, Israeli school children, if we could dig into Netanyahu’s mind, will be taught that Theodor Herzl was the founder of Zionism in 1889, David Ben Gurion, the founder of “little Israel” in 1948 and Netanyahu was the man who tried to outmaneuver the waves of the storm!
Who can resist such a toxic temptation? A war criminal, as some Israeli liberals call him, Netanyahu seems to care less what others think or say of him!
This opinion was especially written for Crossfire Arabia by Saleem Ayoub Quna who is a Jordanian author writing on local, regional and international affairs and has two books published. He has a BA in English Literature from Jordan University, a diploma from Paris and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He also has working knowledge of French and German.
