Israel is waging war on multiple fronts, the country's defense minister said yesterday, referring to military operations in the wider Middle East as the war in Gaza shows new signs of dangerous regional escalation.
Joav Galant said in parliament yesterday that Israel is under attack from seven sides: "Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (the Israeli name for the West Bank), Iraq, Yemen and Iran." We have already responded and taken action on six of these stages,” he said in the Knesset, without elaborating.
Iran-linked militias across the Middle East have attacked Israel and US military installations across the region since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing 1.200 people.
Israel's war of revenge in the Gaza Strip has already become one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century. More than 20.600 people are estimated to have been killed, and 85 percent of Gaza's 2,3 million residents have been forced to flee their homes.
Conflicts in the territory 41 km long and 12 km wide have intensified since the ceasefire was broken at the beginning of December. Israel continued to bomb central Gaza yesterday, apparently making good on a promise to expand the offensive.
Galant's comments came as the war shows signs of spreading beyond the Israeli and Palestinian territories. Earlier yesterday, Egypt said a drone had been shot down near the Red Sea resort of Dahab, the second such incident in 30 days. It is not known where the drone came from, but the Yemeni Houthi rebels, who are allied with Iran, have disrupted global trade in the Red Sea by attacking international vessels and launching drones and missiles towards Israel, the "Guardian" reported.
Explosions in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen were also reported yesterday. On Saturday, the US Department of Defense specifically accused Iran of a drone attack on a chemical tanker in the Indian Ocean for the first time since the outbreak of the conflict in Gaza.
Yesterday's explosions occurred a day after an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital Damascus killed a general of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Iran said that Israel "will pay for this crime".
In Iraq, the US bombed three sites linked to Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia it blamed for a drone attack that wounded three US soldiers stationed in the northern city of Erbil. The Iraqi government strongly condemned the airstrikes.
And far from the Middle East, in India, there was an explosion near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday. Indian and Israeli officials are investigating the cause of the explosion, in which no one was injured.
Separately, Israel and the powerful Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah exchange rockets, airstrikes and shelling across the border on an almost daily basis that have killed about 150 people in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, mostly fighters. Behind the scenes, the US is conducting intensive negotiations aimed at de-escalating hostilities on the line that separates the two countries, where there is the greatest risk that a miscalculation could trigger a regional war, writes "The Guardian".
Despite growing international outcry over the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, including growing criticism from Israel's most important ally, the US, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel will continue until it achieves "total victory" over Hamas. During a visit to Israeli troops in Gaza on Monday, he reiterated that the fight is far from over.
Israel says it is doing everything it can to protect civilians and accuses Hamas of using Gaza's population as human shields - a charge the group denies.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said yesterday that Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza is likely to last for many months. "There are no shortcuts in breaking a terrorist organization," Halevi said. "We will get to the leadership of Hamas," he added.
Behind the scenes, the US is conducting intense negotiations to de-escalate hostilities on the line separating Israel and Lebanon, where there is the greatest risk that a misjudgment could spark a regional war.
Yesterday afternoon, the Israeli military issued orders to residents of the Bureij, Nuseirat and Magazi refugee camps in central Gaza to leave, despite earlier designating the camps as "evacuation zones", meaning civilians in the enclave are forced to seek shelter in ever-shrinking areas. .
There are 68 refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, most of which were set up to house Palestinians who fled their homes after the establishment of Israel in 1948. Today, they are overcrowded and impoverished, with few services available.
About a quarter of Gaza's population is starving, according to the latest UN estimate, while only nine of the territory's 36 hospitals are functioning. Doctors, overwhelmed by the injured and without basic medical supplies, say that in many cases they are forced to amputate limbs that could have been saved under different circumstances.
Hamas cells using improvised explosive devices, ambushes and a vast network of tunnels have inflicted significant losses on Israeli forces in recent days, bringing the total number of Israeli soldiers killed to 156.
A ceasefire proposal put forward by Egypt, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas, was rejected by both sides on Monday evening. Qatar-brokered talks, which led to a seven-day ceasefire in late November and the release of 100 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian women and children held in Israeli prisons, also appear to have stalled.
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