CrossFireArabia
Despite ongoing Israeli war crimes and deliberate massacres of civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as increasing global solidarity against the Israeli occupation, there remains a lack of genuine pressure on Israel to cease its genocide.
CrossFireArabia
Hezbollah stated that its fighters carried out 3194 military operations against Israel since 8 October, 2023.
In a statement, received by Quds Press, Tuesday, it stated that “our operations led to the evacuation of 1,000 settlements and the displacement of more than 300,000 settlers.”
And since last 23 September, the Israeli forces expanded the scope of the genocide they were committing in Gaza since 7 October, 2023 to include most of Lebanon’s regions, including Beirut, through airstrikes with unprecedented violence and intensity, as well as a land offensive in the south of the country despite international warnings and UN resolutions.
And according to the official figures, 2044 people were martyred and 9,678 injured since the beginning of the aggression on Lebanon on 8 October, 2023.
In return, Hezbollah is responding to the aggression by launching rockets, drones and artillery shells targeting military positions and settlements throughout occupied Palestine.
And the Israeli occupation army, supported by the United States and Europe, has continued its war on Gaza for a whole year, where its planes bombarded the vicinity of hospitals, buildings, towers, and homes of Palestinian civilians and destroy them above the heads of their inhabitants, and have prevented the entry of water, food, medicine, and fuel.
The continuous aggression of the occupation of Gaza led to the martyrdom of more than 41,965 martyrs, and the injury of more than 97,590 others and the displacement of 90% of the population of the Strip, according to the United Nations organization.
CrossFireArabia
The Israeli army deployed a fourth division, Tuesday, for its ongoing ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
A military statement said the army’s 146th Reserve Division began ground operations in the western sector of southern Lebanon according to Anadolu.
Three other divisions – the 98th, 36th, and 91st – are already operating in the central and eastern sectors of southern Lebanon.
Israel has mounted massive airstrikes across Lebanon against what it claims Hezbollah targets since 23 September, killing more than 1,250 people, injuring 3,618 others, and displacing more than 1.2 million people.
The aerial campaign was an escalation in a year-long cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of Tel Aviv’s brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip that has killed nearly 42,000 people, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.
Despite international warnings that the Middle East region was on the brink of a regional war amid Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, Tel Aviv expanded the conflict by launching on Oct. 1 a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.
CrossFireArabia
The amount of military aid America has provided to Israel in the past year makes it undoubtedly complicit in the genocide and slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
The US has spent a record $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the start of the war on Gaza, according to a report by Brown University’s Costs of War project, released on the anniversary of the ongoing Israeli genocide war on Gaza on 7 October 2023.
According to Brown University, an additional $4.86 billion has been allocated to bolster military deployment in the Middle East, including the campaign against Yemen.
Yet, despite all of this, American presidential candidates are proudly pledging to uphold their unconditional and unwavering support for Israel as a way to promote themselves in the upcoming elections.
Dr Khairi Janbek
By Dr Khairi Janbek
In the late 1990s, the grandiose talk of a new order for the Middle East emerged which turned out to be nothing more than a euphemism for Disney Land Arab countries, poverty and conflict-stricken regional reality, with a mixture bordering on more than buffer zones.
Now we have a less ambitious notion and that is a new balance of power in the Middle East, another euphemism for Israel calling the shots and all its neighbors being called on to abide.
But how does this new notion translate in practical terms? Well basically, to all concerned and less concerned waking up every morning asking the question: Will Israel strike Iran or will it not?
Of course, this is a horrific question if indeed Israel does hit Iran as it carries with it many important existential perils for the whole region and beyond.
One believes whatever is on Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind to achieve advantageous results must be carried out before the date of the US elections this November because no matter what he has been told by the US prospective candidates, at the end of the day, a sitting president doesn’t act like a president-elect.
Now what would a direct confrontation and open warfare between Israel and Iran entail? Well primarily, direct confrontation takes precedence over war by proxies, which means Israel will have to go directly into destroying the military capabilities of Iran in a hugely destructive war.
This would ultimately open the possibilities for its own destruction which means dragging the US and western powers into the conflict, no matter how reluctantly they maybe to defend it, and/or basically go into a slippery-slope open warfare reaching Syria and Iraq and Iran and whatever is on its plate regarding Gaza and Lebanon.
The current wisdom dictates a large scale war does not seem to be likely on the agenda, but that does not exclude a cycle of tit-for-tat strikes between Israel and Iran. Clearly Israel knows that for the economy of the west which is seriously preoccupied with prices and inflation, to target the Iranian oil facilities is a red line.
Moreover, to target the Iranian nuclear facilities would open the door for Tehran to retaliate against the Israeli nuclear facilities which will have dire consequences for the whole region and the world.
Therefore, if Israel is seriously thinking of dealing a blow to Iran, it will either resort to targeting personalities from the hierarchy of the country, and/or will be a just a face saving act with superfluous consequences.
Dr Khairi Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris and the above opinion is that of the author and doesn’t reflect crossfirearabia.com.
