The world seems resigned to carnage in the Gaza Strip, but not to a large-scale regional conflict that spills over Israel’s borders. The hypothesis has a scenario and contenders: the ongoing clashes between Hizbullah – a terrorist group infinitely more powerful than Hamas – and Israeli troops on the border with Lebanon, which yesterday forced the evacuation of the 20,000 inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona, something more than a minor Israeli settlement.
The Israeli Ministry of Defense announced the displacement of the twenty thousand inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona after a nightly round of missiles and stronger than usual skirmishes on the border with Lebanon since October 7. “In this way, we allow the Israeli defense forces to expand their operational freedom to act against the terrorist organization Hizbullah,” the Netanyahu government argued.
Israel’s Defense Minister anticipates a war in Gaza that will not last for weeks
Compared to the magnitude of the war in Gaza – 3,700 deaths, mostly civilians, due to Israeli bombings – the figures for this potential second war front are ridiculous, just dozens of deaths. The invisible “drama” is that Hizbullah, a Shiite terrorist militia, constitutes Iran’s armed extension in the region and has very powerful human resources, military equipment, organization and discipline, more powerful than those of Hamas in Gaza.
The leader of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasralah, has remained silent since the fateful October 7, when Hamas launched a terrorist incursion into Israel that, due to its magnitude and atrocities, could only provoke an extraordinary response and inexorably abort the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Sunni Saudi Arabia, a cataclysm for the old balances of the Middle East, in accordance with the Abraham Accords.
Had this tactical alliance been consummated between Tehran’s two great enemies in the region, the Palestinians would be left more alone than ever – which is saying something – and the Islamic Republic of Iran, more “fenced” than ever.
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“We will demolish the Hamas organization. We will destroy their military and government infrastructure. “It is a phase that will not be easy and will have a price,” he stated. Later, he clarified that “it is not about a day, it is not about a week and, unfortunately, it is not about a month.”
Israeli troops abandoned the strip in 2005. When Hamas took control of the territory and evicted the Palestinian National Authority in 2007, Israel imposed a blockade that it now appears to deny, in view of the plans outlined by the minister defense.
“The terrorists have managed to close all political disputes. We are one hundred percent behind this Government. No matter the time and what the cost, we cannot live thinking that the attack could be repeated,” says Igor, an Israeli of Russian origin.
