A Coordinated Terrorist Campaign against Israel Is Being Planned for Ramadan

March 17 2023

Over the weekend, a person snuck into northern Israel from Lebanon and planted an unusually sophisticated bomb, which was detonated on Monday morning and wounded one person. Israeli officials kept most of these details under wraps until Wednesday. Yoni Ben Menachem sees the attack as a precursor to a major escalation planned by Iran in concert with its proxy force, Hizballah, and its allies Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad:

According to intelligence data from various sources, Israeli security officials assess that with the approach of the month of Ramadan [March 22–April 20] there will be an unprecedented conflict with the Palestinian terrorist factions on several fronts that may deteriorate into a military conflict more acute than that in the Gaza Strip in May 2021.

The accumulation of [threatening] statements by the heads of the terrorist organizations in the media, and intelligence information, indicate an impending escalation. . . . It is very doubtful whether Israel will be able to stop the approaching tsunami of terrorism since this is a strategic decision by the terrorist organizations in coordination with Iran.

According to officials in the military wing of Hamas, the attack on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv on March 9, 2023, marks the organization’s decision to resume attacks within the Green Line. . . . . According to security officials in Israel, behind all this malevolent activity is Iran, which in the past year has smuggled arms and funds through Jordan to the northern West Bank into the hands of the terrorist organizations.

Read more at Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

More about: Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, Israeli Security, Palestinian terror, Ramadan

Oil Is Iran’s Weak Spot. Israel Should Exploit It

Israel will likely respond directly against Iran after yesterday’s attack, and has made known that it will calibrate its retaliation based not on the extent of the damage, but on the scale of the attack. The specifics are anyone’s guess, but Edward Luttwak has a suggestion, put forth in an article published just hours before the missile barrage: cut off Tehran’s ability to send money and arms to Shiite Arab militias.

In practice, most of this cash comes from a single source: oil. . . . In other words, the flow of dollars that sustains Israel’s enemies, and which has caused so much trouble to Western interests from the Syrian desert to the Red Sea, emanates almost entirely from the oil loaded onto tankers at the export terminal on Khark Island, a speck of land about 25 kilometers off Iran’s southern coast. Benjamin Netanyahu warned in his recent speech to the UN General Assembly that Israel’s “long arm” can reach them too. Indeed, Khark’s location in the Persian Gulf is relatively close. At 1,516 kilometers from Israel’s main airbase, it’s far closer than the Houthis’ main oil import terminal at Hodeida in Yemen—a place that was destroyed by Israeli jets in July, and attacked again [on Sunday].

Read more at UnHerd

More about: Iran, Israeli Security, Oil