The risk that Hamas’s bloody attack on Israel could spill into a regional war is alive after Iran was all but confirmed as the puppet-master of the invasion.
We face several key moments in the days ahead, which will determine whether this will end up primarily as an Israel-Hamas war fought in Gaza or something far bigger. The first is whether the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah will choose to support its Hamas allies by opening a second military front against Israel from its strongholds in southern Lebanon.
The second is whether Israel will choose to launch a retaliatory military strike directly at Iran, either at its nuclear facilities or even its leadership, in response to its apparent role in co-ordinating the Hamas attack.
The third is whether Israel will mount a full-scale ground invasion of Gaza to seek to destroy Hamas – an act that would be supported by the West but would further galvanise the Arab world against Israel.
The most immediate and critical of these questions is whether Hezbollah, which is armed with more than 100,000 missiles, will join this war.
From the perspective of Iran, there may never be a better time to attack its implacable enemy, while weakened and fighting a war against Hamas in the south.
Such a move would catapult Israel into a crisis of historic proportions, forcing the country to fight on two fronts at once, with Hezbollah able to rain missiles down upon Israel at will.
Since the Hamas attack, there have been skirmishes on Israel’s northern border between Israel and the Shia-Muslim terror group but, critically, Hezbollah has not yet pledged to formally join the attack even if it supports it rhetorically. Any move by Hezbollah to join the fight would see the war spread into southern Lebanon and further enshrine Iran as a global pariah to rival Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Iran has denied it was behind Hamas’s brutal and bloody invasion of southern Israel but few will believe it. There are credible reports that officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions into Israel. Final approval for the attack was said to have been given at a meeting in Beirut last week involving Iranian officials.
This is consistent with Iran’s central role in arming, directing and overseeing both Hezbollah and Hamas.
It has been reported senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis. This could involve military strikes – Israel warplanes took out an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and a Syrian one in 2007 – or targeted assassinations. Such a move would risk a dangerous escalation of the conflict but it is not inconceivable a wounded Israel might lash out at Iran. Since 2010, Israel has allegedly conducted at least two dozen lower-level operations – including assassinations, drone strikes and cyberattacks – against Iran focusing on weakening its nuclear program.
Iranian officials have said if Iran were attacked, it would respond with missile strikes on Israel from Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. It claims it would also send Iranian fighters into Israel from Syria to attack cities in the north and east of Israel.
The other immediate dilemma facing Benjamin Netanyahu – once Israeli forces have cleared all Hamas militants from Israeli territory – is how he will dismantle the Hamas leadership in Gaza.
A ground invasion of Gaza is reportedly being considered in response to the attacks rather than a protracted bombardment.
Since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, successive prime ministers have baulked at ordering a ground assault of Gaza to try to destroy the militant leadership of Hamas. Instead they have, over the years, chosen to bombard Gaza from afar in response to rocket strikes by Hamas into Israeli territory, in a bid to avoid the deaths of troops and civilians.
Israel has not been attacked on this scale for 50 years, however, and Netanyahu may feel he has no political or military choice but to launch a ground invasion of Gaza to try to permanently cripple the leadership of Hamas.
If so, the casualty toll from this war will dwarf those on both sides who have already been killed and wounded.
This is uncharted territory for modern Israel. The impact of this week will be felt across the Middle East for a decade. Let’s just hope that it doesn’t spread further.
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