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Analysis | Diverting All-out War, Israel Must Now Contend With a Simmering West Bank

The good news is that the latest round of strikes between Israel and Hamas, in the Gaza Strip and in southern Lebanon, is over for now. Israel responded with restraint to the (not very exceptional) massive rocket fire from the Strip and the (very exceptional) fire from Lebanon Thursday. It appears that neither Hamas nor Hezbollah has an immediate interest in a wider war involving both these fronts.

The bad news is that everything else is pretty much continuing as usual, only at greater intensity. The Palestinian terror offensive, most of which is coming from the West Bank, is fierce, and the concurrence of it and Ramadan lends it a more overt religious tone. The success of the latest attacks leads to a greater number of copycat attempts. Iran promotes attacks from the West Bank, with directives and funding, as do Hezbollah and Hamas. The young Palestinian generation is joining, in increasing numbers, the frontlines of the conflict. And the Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah looks on with a mixture of indifference and helplessness.

All of these trends seem set to continue in the near future. The overlap of Ramadan, Passover and Easter heighten sensitivities. The Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif will remain at the center of tensions, ahead of Sunday’s traditional birkat kohanim (priestly blessing) at the Western Wall. The police have received intelligence suggesting that hundreds of young Palestinians plan to barricade themselves into Al-Aqsa Mosque again. A police raid under similar circumstances Tuesday night served as a major catalyst for the current escalation – and led, almost directly, to the rocket launches into Israel from Lebanon and Gaza.

The next several days, then, are expected to be particularly sensitive. The army and the police have bolstered force numbers in Jerusalem and on both sides of the Green Line, and a small number of reservists in the air defense and offense units (intelligence, air force and force headquarters) were called up. For now, at least, Israel is focusing on defensive measures rather than taking significant offensive actions.

There were two fatal terror attacks Friday. In the afternoon, Palestinian gunmen shot at an Israeli car near Hamra Junction in the Jordan Valley, in the West Bank, and fled the scene. Two sisters, aged 16 and 20, from the settlement of Efrat, near Jerusalem were killed, while their mother was hospitalized in critical condition.

Several hours later a man from the Israeli Arab town of Kafr Qasem rammed his car into several people at the Tel Aviv boardwalk, slightly north of Jaffa. An Italian tourist was killed and six others suffered minor injuries. The assailant was shot dead by a police officer and municipal security officers. The Shin Bet security service has intelligence about plans in the near future for a large number of additional attacks in the West Bank and in Israel proper.

Choice of targets tells it all

Israel is signaling to Hamas and to Hezbollah that it wants to end the current round of fighting. This is the obvious conclusion to draw from the Israel Air Force strikes Thursday night in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon in response to the firing of rockets into the Negev and the Galilee earlier that day.

There’s no need to blindly believe the government’s hawkish rhetoric, the beating of the war drums by the usual mouthpieces or the learned explanations of military officers. Everything can be deduced from the choice of targets and the amount of firepower used on them.

Israel’s military response was restrained; it was careful not to cause casualties and, in particular, not to get into a confrontation with Hezbollah. Israel, for its own reasons, chose to focus only on the group that fired the rockets, Hamas, and kept quiet about Hezbollah, the most powerful organization in Lebanon, especially southern Lebanon. Surprisingly, the security cabinet was told that Hezbollah did not know about the rocket attack in advance.

The response included an attack on Gaza that was harsher than usual, and a symbolic attack on Hamas targets in Lebanon south of Tyre. Also blamed was the Lebanese government, which is in charge of a bankrupt country.

Meanwhile, there was feverish communication with the Lebanese government and army, through the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. Through this channel, Beirut said it opposed the rocket attack, did not want any further escalation and would act to prevent it.

In the short term, it seems that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – make no mistake, he’s still the decider – was right to take the IDF’s advice. After all, at the moment, Israel won’t profit from a multi-front war, and Netanyahu has remained faithful to his cautious line over the years regarding the use of force. It seems he chose the best of the bad choices available.

But in the longer term, Israel faces a worsening problem. The confidence and coordination of its enemies is growing, as Israel’s deterrence erodes.

The opposition in the Knesset will be making a mistake if it goads the government to opt for an excessive response now, even though there is an undeniable irony in the fact that all of this is happening to such an extremist government, whose members disseminate threats against the entire Middle East every day.

In its distress, the governing coalition is making foolish excuses like “PR problems” and is trying to blame the Supreme Court and the previous government, as if everything now is happening because of the maritime border agreement with Lebanon last October.

Israel faces growing problems on both the Palestinian and Lebanese fronts, and cooperation between the two is tightening. Signs of this could be seen back during the fighting with Gaza in May 2021 during the last days of Netanyahu’s previous government.

The main problem concerns Hezbollah. For more than 16 years, Israel has said the organization – which has become very strong militarily – is still deterred by the IDF despite the mixed results of the Second Lebanon War. Lebanon’s dire economy also doesn’t encourage risk-taking.

But Hezbollah now seems willing to gamble more, as the March 13 roadside bomb attack in Megiddo proved.

Then there’s Hamas in Gaza. Since the fighting with the Strip in May 2021, all Israeli governments have opted for restraint there, believing that an improved economy would encourage the Hamas regime to keep the enclave quiet. But in Lebanon, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Arab communities in Israel, Hamas is working as hard as it can to heat things up.

Article link: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-04-08/ty-article/.premium/despite-harsh-rhetoric-israel-signals-to-hamas-and-hezbollah-its-ready-for-calm/00000187-5c63-dcdb-a9af-dc6b63780000
Article source: Haaretz | Amos Harel | Apr 8, 2023

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