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Gaza: A Proving Ground for the Next Israel-Hizbullah War

(Times of Israel) Haviv Rettig Gur - Hamas has already achieved its main strategic goal from the fighting - to sideline Fatah and become the preeminent power within the Palestinian national movement. On Tuesday, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh declared "victory" in the fighting. Yet with each building demolished in Gaza, Hamas becomes more vulnerable to the accusation leveled by Palestinians in previous rounds of fighting that it had dragged Gaza into yet another military adventure in the service of its own narrow interests. Hamas believed it had prepared well for the new round of fighting, constructing vast underground tunnels and facilities to protect its forces and other military assets from airstrikes, and developing the ability to fire massive barrages of over 100 rockets at a time to overwhelm Iron Dome. Yet the IDF's massive bombardment of that underground infrastructure on Thursday showed Hamas that instead of creating a safe space for its forces, it may have instead created a convenient way to target them without endangering Gaza's civilians. The Middle East is watching closely as events unfold in Gaza. Some of the keenest of those observers, Israel knows, are enemies far more dangerous than Hamas. On Israel's northern border, Iran-armed Hizbullah sits on a stockpile of rockets buried in South Lebanon's towns that dwarfs Hamas' arsenal by an order of magnitude. Hamas miscalculated the Israeli response because it did not realize that response would be geared to ensuring Hizbullah doesn't make the same miscalculation.
2021-05-16 00:00:00
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