AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The 11-day Gaza war in May last year opened a new chapter in Hamas and Islamic Jihad's defense and rocket power both in Israeli and world eyes. In this war, Hamas departed from years-long defensive doctrine in the face of the Israeli crimes and decided to adopt an offensive stance. Actually, the increase in Gaza-based resistance forces, increase in the range of rockets, wide-ranging popular Palestinian support across the occupied territories, and also the surge in Israeli citizens' discontentment with destabilizing actions of their government, and identity crisis engulfing the Israeli society make any future war raise serious questions and doubt about the Israeli existence and internal convergence.
Future war; grave scenarios for Israel
Domestic, regional, and international support for the Palestinian resistance in May war, along with the doctrine of "regional war for Al-Quds (Jerusalem) attack" introduced by Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, formed a warning to Tel Aviv leaders. This means that any Israeli provocative action against Al-Quds or the Palestinians will be a prelude to the entry and presence of the entire Axis of Resistance, a bloc including Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine, in the war and possible future tensions, and thus the Israeli security and existence from different fronts in the north (Lebanon), south (Gaza Strip), the center (West Bank) and the inside (all Palestinians in the occupied territories) will be threatened.
Understanding these circumstances, Major General Yitzhak Brik, the commander of Israeli reserve forces, admits that the Israeli army is not ready for a multiform war.
"The home front and vital facilities will be attacked from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza during the next war with thousands of precision missiles," he said, adding this is "not a prophecy of anger, this is the truth."
He continued talking about "terrifying" scenario, saying, "pro-Iran groups in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, as well as Hamas in the Gaza Strip, will launch missiles and drones at Israel, so that the average number of missiles fired at the Israeli occupation state will be 3,000 a day…. A new war will take us back to many years ago. The difficulties that we went through throughout previous wars will be nothing in comparison with the fallout of the future confrontation."
The Israeli army held 80 military drills on Gaza borders over the past 6 months to build readiness for possible war or attacks.
Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-born Israeli journalist, author, and researcher, in an article published by Maariv said the previous equation that the Israeli regime would fight on the enemy's battlefields has changed, and according to security assessments, the next war will take place in the heart of Israel, with 250,000 missiles of various types commanded by Iran and Palestinian groups targeting the Israeli cities.
"The thorough war is certain but its timing is unclear and we have to be clear; it would destroy Israel, like the destructions in past decade that took place in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen," he went on.
In fact, the increase in the range of the missiles, along with their firing rate, has put the regime's sensitive areas, such as the Dimona nuclear site, Ben Gurion Airport, and Haifa petrochemical plant under serious threat. So, the Resistance forces' encirclment of Israel and access to its sensitive sites make any Israeli action risky and full of ambiguity, especially that Tel Aviv approach seeks gains in any military action.
The shadow of collapse from within
In addition to the threats against the regime's cities and infrastructure, the sense of the capability of the Axis of Resistance to respond to any Israeli hostilities and Tel Aviv’s retreat in confrontation of Hamas shape a sense of internal insecurity among the Israeli citizens. The Institute for National Security Studies launched a research after 11-day war. It suggested that 53 percent of the settlers lost their feeling of security after Hamas's Operation Sword of Al-Quds in 11-day war. Also, Maariv newspaper in a report published on January 8 held that Israel's critical point is its internal front, and it has been proven that in the event that the internal front collapses, the Israeli army and security forces will also collapse, and this issue becomes even more important when in Operation Sword of Al-Quds we saw that the motivation of the Palestinians living in the 1948 areas to confront Israel increased and will probably further increase in the coming war.
Yuval Diskin, the former director of Israeli internal security service Shabak, in an article published by the Yedioth Ahronoth on February 2021 pointed to the internal threat the Israeli regime is facing, saying that "the danger to Israel is not Iran nuclear case or the Lebanese Hezbollah or radical Islam, rather the internal approaches and structural problems that constitute a real threat."
So, this important point should be taken into account that the existing threats and crises inside the Israeli society which include identity crisis and gaps among the rightists, leftists, Ashkenazis, and Mizrahi in addition to the sense of insecurity as potential threats bring Israel to a risk of collapse. Also, the essential challenge is the fall in the population of moderate Jews and increase in the radical Jews population, known as Haredim, that gives bigger chances for the latter to hold the power in the future and thus play a bigger role in the future Israeli policies.
/129