IDF: Ramadan flare-up could lead to multi-front or even regional war

IDF: Ramadan flare-up could lead to multi-front or even regional war

JNS

Palestinian terrorist groups could exploit the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to provoke a multi-front war against Israel, Channel 12 News reported on Thursday, citing military intelligence that reached the desk of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Religious triggers, primarily the Temple Mount, during the month of Ramadan, may lead to a flare-up and escalation on multiple fronts or even regional, while turning the war into a religious war,” IDF Military Intelligence Directorate head Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva warned.

According to IDF intelligence, Ramadan, which begins this year on the evening of March 10, give or take a day, could bring about the realization of “heightened and unusual threats from all arenas and all dimensions, possibly while attempting to create Palestinian, ‘axial’ and multi-arena coordination to renew and intensify the attack on Israel.”

The Jewish state should prepare for “unusual” terrorist activity involving “areas that have not been part of the campaign so far,” added Haliva.

Late last month, Ismail Haniyeh, the Doha-based leader of Hamas’s political bureau, urged the Iran-led “axis of resistance” to step up attacks on Israel during Ramadan, calling for a “broad and international movement to break the siege on Al-Aqsa mosque.”

The “axis” includes Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis and other Iranian-backed terrorist groups in the Middle East.

In his speech, the terrorist leader called on Palestinians in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to storm the Temple Mount on the first day of Ramadan.

Haniyeh’s comments came a day after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that terrorist groups are plotting to step up violent attacks on the Jewish state during Ramadan.

“The main goal of Hamas is to take Ramadan, with an emphasis on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem, and turn it into the second phase of their plan that began on October 7,” Gallant told troops at the headquarters in Jerusalem of the IDF Central Command, which is responsible for Judea and Samaria. “This is the main goal of Hamas, and it is being amplified by Iran and Hezbollah.

“We must not give Hamas what it failed to achieve during the beginning of the war and [let it achieve] ‘unity of the battlefields,’” he added, in reference to the terrorist group’s attempts to spark a multi-front war.

More...