Six months into the war, Gaza could become secondary arena

Six months into the war, Gaza could become secondary arena

Yaakov Lappin

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza Strip and its accompanying medium-intensity conflict with Hezbollah carries the risk of becoming a regional war involving Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor, according to a former head of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate.

“I think by now everybody understands the problem is not Gaza. The problem is Iran. Iran is behind all of this,” said Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin last week.

“Iran is enjoying the fact that Israel was diverted toward a front in Gaza. Most of the world is ignoring the fact that Iran continues to advance to a nuclear weapon,” said Yadlin, also a former deputy commander of the Israel Air Force and currently president and founder of MIND Israel, a nonprofit consulting team.

Speaking during an April 4 event organized by Media Central, a media liaison center based in Jerusalem, Yadlin said that Israel currently stands at a critical juncture.

“I want to go to the strategic level and to speak about the fact that today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, we can go to two different, different directions of this war,” he said.

One of these scenarios is the escalation of the conflict to a regional war “because of Iran, because of Hezbollah,” he continued. “It will move from Gaza to the north, from a limited war in Gaza to a regional war.”

Alternatively, the conflict could head “toward a process that will fix, [that] will de-escalate the war and will fix some of the problems. And we really are facing crucial days, maybe a week,” said Yadlin.

“Iran is threatening to attack Israel. Everyone in their leadership vowed revenge” for the killing on April 1 of Brig. Gen. Mohammad Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force responsible for Syria and Lebanon, in a strike on a building adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

“The alleged [Israeli] strike in Damascus—Israel never took responsibility, but the Iranians blame Israel for the killing of [Mohammad Reza] Zahevi,” said Yadlin.

“If you’re listening to the Iranian music, they are looking for a more impressive attack,” he said. “And anyway, dealing with embassies [all] over the globe requires time,” he said. An additional complication is that if they carry out such an attack, “They will be violating the sovereignty of a third country. So the chances that this will be the Iranian move is not so high,” he said.

Iran could seek retaliation via Hezbollah, but that scenario too, he said. was not likely.

Yadlin estimated that the most likely scenario is a direct Iranian attack on Israel, which carries the risk of escalation. He noted Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Pakistan and Islamic State in recent months, saying, “So if they can attack Pakistan with ballistic missiles, why not Israel? But not only ballistic missiles. In the Saudi case, they use cruise missiles and drones, the same drones that are attacking Ukraine in the last year.”

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