As Israeli soldiers prepare for combat by watching airstrikes and artillery attacks in Gaza, and checking their personal weapons, communications, and gear, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t secretly question if this is a trap.
Hamas, with support from Tehran, would have likely prepared for a strong Israeli attack on the ground after their frightening infiltration into Israel.
It is likely that Hamas wanted to make sure that Israel would react strongly, even if it meant hurting many innocent people in Gaza.
What Israel does next will decide what happens in the future, maybe for a long time. It all boils down to Gaza.
Hamas has built many tunnels in the Strip. It will have placed traps in the land above the surface, and it will have strategies to confront the IDF with different tactics like suicide bombers and capturing soldiers.
US military leaders and other government officials have been telling Israel about their experiences with big battles fought in cities.
In 2017, Iraq’s military, helped by American, British, and other special forces, and with constant air attacks, took nine months to remove ISIS from Mosul.
Almost all the people in the northern Iraqi city left, but the fighting was happening in each individual house. ISIS used hidden tunnels to surprise and attack the soldiers fighting to capture Mosul, which was a difficult and violent battle.
The bomb-making abilities of Hezbollah, a militant group from Lebanon that is closely connected to Hamas, have spread widely throughout the Middle East. They will find out that Hezbollah has improved their ability to destroy armored vehicles since Israel last fought in Lebanon in 2006. Israel was surprised by how advanced the militia’s tactics were back then.
Hamas now has weapons that can shoot down airplanes – Israel’s Apache helicopters, which help soldiers on the ground, could be easily targeted by one person using a surface to air missile.
Hamas probably has some people who are ready to film and promote videos of their attacks on Israeli soldiers. Films that show violence and bravery can make angry young men even more upset and extreme in their ideas. ISIS showed us that.
It’s likely that Hamas would have intended for a lot of destruction to happen in Gaza. That might be the goal of the second phase following the October 7 attacks.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that if there are any mistakes in carrying out genocide and forced displacement, it could have serious and bad effects in the region and for the people causing the conflict.
He is not trying to analyze, he is threatening.
The White House is aware of this. A plan to harm Israel could have serious and harmful effects, potentially leading to a conflict between different cultures, similar to what happened after 9/11.
President Joe Biden will be worried about the safety and well-being of American hostages in Gaza, as well as the more than 200 other people who are being held captive by Hamas and other groups in that area.
Since the weekend, CNN’s sources in Washington have been worried about the possibility of a big Israeli ground operation that could cause a major fire that spreads uncontrollably, similar to what happened in Iraq after the US-led invasion to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the prime minister of Israel, has been connecting Hamas and the Islamic State for a long time. He thinks that the Israel-Hamas conflict is a fight between different civilizations.
Hamas are being compared to the Nazis. He said that we need to fight against them just like how the world fought against the Nazis and ISIS together.
Hamas recently committed horrible acts of violence, but they are not the same as ISIS. Hamas has forcefully and actively tried to eliminate ISIS members in Gaza who followed a type of political Islam that Hamas strongly disagreed with.
Hamas wants to create a Palestinian country that follows the teachings of Islam. However, it does not claim or want to be a caliphate. Most importantly, it has never carried out any attacks in countries other than Israel and the Palestinian territories. Additionally, it has not used the internet to spread radical beliefs internationally.
Hamas wants to completely destroy the Jewish state.
“The fight against terror groups should be relentless,” said French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday in Israel.
However, he mentioned a warning that is based on both practical politics and morals: We should try to prevent the West from being dragged into a war that may be considered as a battle against Islam once again.
He said that the “struggle” should be tough, but fair.
This is a picture taken by a satellite and owned by Maxar Technologies in the year 2023.
Around 1,400 people died in the attacks carried out by Hamas inside Israel. More than 5,700 people have died in Gaza, as reported by Palestinian health officials. The Israel military is trying to reduce the number of innocent people getting hurt or killed.
The government has put a lot of restrictions on the 2. 3According to the UN, around 1. 4 million people have been forced to leave their homes within a small area of land.
If Israel starts a ground operation, the number of casualties will definitely increase. On each side.
People in many countries have been protesting against Israel because they think that Israel has caused a lot of damage to Gaza. If soldiers invade the land, it will be much worse – and the protests will be louder.
At the same time as Israel, the countries who want to destroy Israel have gathered in Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had a meeting with Hamas deputy head Saleh Al-Arouri and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s secretary-general Ziad Al-Nakhla on Wednesday.
Hezbollah said in a statement that they assessed what the parties in the resistance axis need to do to achieve a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine and to stop the cruel aggression against their people.
We can be certain that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Brigade, which is Tehran’s main international military and intelligence group, were present. The Quds brigade has been teaching, giving money to, and showing the way to all three groups for a long time.
They will be trying to take advantage of Israel’s next actions in Gaza as their own second part of the October 7 attacks.
Hezbollah has been causing conflicts with Israel along the border of southern Lebanon. This is diverting the attention of Israeli forces away from just focusing on Gaza. The US has accused Iran of using Iraqi groups to attack American logistic bases in Baghdad. The situation in Yemen has been tense because the Houthis, who are supported by Iran, tried to launch missiles at Israel. However, the United States successfully stopped these missile attacks.
Many Americans, Europeans, and Australians are being told to leave Middle Eastern countries near Israel.
John Kirby, the person who speaks for the US National Security Council, said on Monday that the government is carefully monitoring any indications that groups supported by Iran might be increasing their attacks on US military forces in the Middle East.
Iran could be attempting to divert the attention of the United States from Israel, but it could also be provoking the US to engage in more disagreement.
The US is working to prevent that conflict. CNN reported that Biden is urging people to be careful when talking to Israel’s Prime Minister. He has made the private discussions stronger by seeking advice from the public.
He said that when you see what has happened to mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters, children, and even babies, it’s natural to demand justice. But he warned that while you feel angry, don’t let it take over you completely. After the 9/11 attacks, we were very angry in the United States. We saw fairness and received fairness, but we also made errors.
The mistakes caused the US-led invasion of Iraq, which made many people think that Islam was being attacked by the Western countries. This led to chaos in the Middle East and the creation of the Islamic State or Caliphate, along with terror attacks happening all over the world.
When President Biden tells the Israeli government not to make the same mistakes as it did in Afghanistan, he knows what he’s talking about because he has been through it himself. Karin von Hippel, who used to give advice to the US military on fighting terrorism, said that after 9/11, the US reacted too strongly and lost a lot of the goodwill that was initially there. This happened because of decisions like going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That is what most people believe.
Martin Sherman, who leads the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies and has always supported a stricter approach towards neighboring countries that pose a threat to Israel, holds a different opinion.
He thinks Israel should enter Gaza forcefully.
“He said that he doesn’t believe Arabs will ever fully accept Israel. He thinks Israel should aim to be feared and perhaps reluctantly accepted. ”
The soldiers of the IDF are getting ready at their meeting points, preparing for a possibly big fight in Gaza. They might also think about whether their sons might have to go back there in the future and become tough warriors.