As the 50th anniversary of the infamous Yom Kippur war dawned, the Hamas militants had planned to break the siege of Gaza and enter the settlements and attack the military and civilian installations in Israel through a multi-pronged strategy by undertaking ground, aerial and naval operations simultaneously.
They called this operation the 'Aqsa Typhoon/Flood’ entering at least 22 locations across the Israeli borders. Thousands of rockets were fired. Hundreds of civilians killed or captured and wounded as the final details emerge including several Israeli military personnel, women and children.
The name of the operation was carefully chosen to legitimise and rally large numbers of Islamists and Palestinians as repeated desecration of the third holiest mosque “Al Aqsa’ became routine and humiliation of the Ummah by the ultra-right government of PM Netanyahu a daily recurrence, apart from invoking the historical injustices done to them for nearly a century. No wonder, Hamas Military Commander Mohammed Deif claimed that the operation was launched to “deter the Israeli violations against Al Aqsa Mosque and to force Israel to respect international law.”
It has been a known fact that Hamas backed by common Palestinians is ever so ready to eke out revenge and demolish the Jewish State of Israel for decades now and has had four large scale skirmishes and wars with greater vengeance each time. 2021 is barely two years ago when thousands of rockets and projectiles hit and even crossed the ‘Iron dome’ and killed many including an Indian nurse.
This time it was far worse and the fact that the meticulous planning by the Hamas went unnoticed by the ever so vigilant Mossad and other security centric Israeli outfits, smacks of some complacency and will become a point of introspection once this is over.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu, heading a divided polity and society has launched a retaliatory war — “Operation Iron sword’ — with the instructions to decimate Hamas and its capabilities for good. Our enemy will pay a price the type of which it has never seen and Israel will win this war, he added. No one can doubt the exceptional superiority of Israeli Defence Forces and their lethal fire power and that they will overpower their enemy.
But initial shocks have their limiting impact. While the army is marshalling its resources and deploying them, Netanyahu’s biggest task of uniting opposition for National Unity may have become easier because for Israelis and Jews their country comes first. It is reported that former PM Naftali Bennet has already signed up as a reservist. Apart from his external enemies Bibi and his team have to somehow see to it that the domestic socio-political discord especially among the Israeli Arabs is addressed.
International Response
International condemnation or approbation of the Hamas attacks has been on expected lines. President Biden condemned the terrorist attacks and extended fullest support to Israel justifying their response, even as his hands are tied given a dysfunctional Congress. Likewise, European leaders expressed their solidarity with Israel. The Indian Prime Minister expressed his deep shock at the terrorist attacks on civilians and casualties and expressed solidarity with the Israeli people. India also issued an advisory to Indian citizens there while Air India cancelled its flights in view of the ongoing war.
President Mahmoud Abbas of the PLA, being in a difficult situation and ‘Trishanku’ position, justified the rights of Palestinians to defend themselves against the terror of settlers and occupation troops. Iran supported the Hamas attacks. Hamas is said to be a part of the 3 H Iranian toolkit with Hezbollah and Houthis. Hezbollah leaders based out of Lebanon extended full support to Hamas while Hamas had made a call for all groups to join and fight the occupying state in this fight to finish.
Palestinian Islamic Jihadi groups joined the Al Qassem brigades. The Houthis in Yemen also supported the Hamas offensive. Turkish President Erdogan also spoke of the sanctity of the Al Aqsa mosque. Jordan, Qatar, Algeria and Iraq held Israel accountable for this situation. Arab countries especially those part of Abraham Accords or about to normalise have been caught in a bind as overt support of the Jewish state will provoke their own populations. Hence calibrated statements for de-escalation and talks and settlement of the Palestinian issues have been reiterated.
The immediate trigger seems to be the Rapprochement vs Rapprochement matrix whose dynamic on both poles is quite contradictory in strategy, approach, intent and content. On the one hand China brokered a peace deal between Riyadh and Tehran that is holding out despite the trust deficit and appears to be yielding some dividends which was much to the dislike of Americans and the Israelis.
Hence, the US efforts to wean away and bring the Saudis closer to Tel Aviv essentially to counter the increasing Iranian influence in the region had a contradictory objective. This has irked Tehran even more which has become one of the keen vocal supporters of Palestinian cause witnessing the Arabian fatigue.
Hence stoking the cinders of Palestinian resistance, helped by the recent excesses of the ultra-right Netanyahu government against the Palestinians, provided a convenient time and perfect alibi to launch this massive operation.
This would obviously accentuate the fault lines and red lines for the Arab countries in so far as their eagerness to normalise ties with Tel Aviv is concerned. This might even impact the recently launched India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) which was predicated on normalisation of ties between Riyadh and Tel Aviv to a large extent.
The outcome of the ongoing war will be bloody and revengeful and worse for the civilians on both sides while countries like Qatar, Egypt and Turkey may be harnessed to intervene to bring about de-escalation, especially early release of the captured Israelis. But this unprecedented escalation also has the potential of spiralling out of control if Hezbollah and others join in. However, this will happen again until and unless a legitimate solution of the underlying causes are duly and honourably addressed including a ‘Two State’ Solution. Alas! no one is ready for it.
—The author, Amb. Anil Trigunayat, is a former Indian Ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta, and currently heads the West Asia Experts Group at Vivekananda International Foundation. Views expressed are personal.
Read his previous articles here (Edited by : C H Unnikrishnan)
First Published: Oct 9, 2023 7:38 AM IST
