Last week has hardly been a peaceful one for Israel. On Tuesday, a group of Palestinians barricaded themselves in al-Aqsa mosque with a stockpile of weapons, disrupting Ramadan prayers and clashing with police. On Friday, a terrorist murdered two sisters, ages fifteen and twenty, and seriously wounded their mother. An Italian tourist was also killed in a separate attack the same day. In addition, rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria over the course of the week, and riots broke out in several places. Jerusalem responded Saturday and Sunday with multiple airstrikes on Syrian territory, some targeting Syrian miliary installations. Unusually, the IDF—which normally neither confirms nor denies such attacks—claimed responsibility in an official statement to the press.
Yoni Ben Menachem explains what links these events, and examines Israel’s reaction:
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards planned the attacks on Israel for a long time in cooperation with its affiliates. The current round of fighting is only the first stage in Iran’s phased plan to destroy Israel, and the next stages will follow. The Axis of Resistance, [as Tehran calls its allies and network of proxy militias], estimates that the wave of Israeli protests against judicial reform and recent crises with the United States have weakened Israel. They believe the IDF cannot fight simultaneously on several fronts and deal with attacks of tens of thousands of rockets, precision missiles, and drones launched from across several borders, accompanied by a wave of terror from the West Bank.
Regarding Iran and Hizballah, [its foremost terror proxy], the strategic situation at the time of the 2006 Second Lebanon War has wholly changed. Hizballah’s power has grown exponentially; today, it has an arsenal of 150,000 rockets and precision missiles. Moreover, Hizballah’s secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah claims he is not afraid of a military confrontation with Israel (while continuing to operate from a bunker deep under Beirut to avoid an Israeli attempt on his life).
Recent disturbances inside al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount were planned and provoked by Hamas, [which has been in close contact with Hizballah]. As expected, Israeli police dispersed rioters by force, and the stark images of the clashes were quickly distributed on Hamas social media and beyond. The social-media posts triggered outrage and a call for revenge across the Muslim world. The Temple Mount violence also sought to ignite Israel’s Arab sector to riot as it did in May 2021 during the “Guardians of the Walls” military operation against Hamas in Gaza.
A senior [Israeli] security official says that the Axis of Resistance led by Iran is utterly wrong in its assessment of the situation regarding Israel’s national strength.
Read more on Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: https://jcpa.org/how-will-israel-confront-the-iranian-regimes-multi-front-assault/