The indications of the ongoing organization behind the surprise attack on the communities near the Gaza Strip are becoming clearer as time passes. Understanding the lateral picture, even if it is late, should not discourage statesmen and military personnel and fighters, but on the contrary: provide a clearer picture of the situation that will enable Israel to move from defense to offense and prevent paying a price in human lives in other arenas. There is no room to maintain the old concepts, our enemies on the borders are not deterred, and a Hamas attack carried out under Iranian guidance is necessarily part of a broader plan.
Iran gave the order. This fact is already known to all, and it is behind more than a thousand dead and thousands of wounded. According to intelligence sources, Israel already knows that the signal for Saturday morning's attack was given secretly to maintain the effect of surprise, but the planning took place for about ten long months in tripartite meetings in Beirut between members of Hamas, Hezbollah and senior Iranian officials. Some of these meetings were even reported in the international media and in Israel, but received no special attention.
Anti-tank fire was fired from Lebanon at a military post
The last reported meetings were held in Beirut on October 1, just six days before the deadly attack and in early April. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Lebanon on Friday for key meetings with Nasrallah and met with Hamas and Jihad, according to local reports. In that closed meeting, it was reported that he affirmed Tehran's "adherence to the strategy of support and resistance to the Palestinian people and to the issue of the liberation of the land (Israel)." Another meeting took place in early April, when it was reported that the leaders of the armed movements Hezbollah and Hamas had met in Beirut to discuss the "readiness of the resistance axis" against Israel.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abdollahian, photo: EPA
Still, Israel erred in thinking that Hezbollah was still deterred and that Hamas wanted to function as a legitimate government and not as the terrorist organization it is. What did they know here? In Israel, since the beginning of the year, intelligence and military officials have spoken of a scenario of "convergence of arenas" in which a combined attack would be carried out against Israel from Gaza, Judea and Samaria and Lebanon, and Israeli Arabs might join forces in such an event. The scenario of the convergence of the arenas made headlines at its peak in April-May, when the main concern was hostile activity against Israel and a combined attack during the month of Ramadan and around Jerusalem Day events. During these months, many terrorist attacks were carried out against Israelis, but the scenario of the convergence of the intelligence arenas was missed.
Despite cabinet decisions regarding the collapse of Hamas' capabilities, so far the IDF has been engaged in aerial crushing operations, while Hamas' military capabilities are deep underground. The political threats against Netanyahu if he does not implement the cabinet decisions are on the table from his political partners, but it seems that the political arena is now concerned with the composition of the war cabinet and the emergency government rather than the methods of action required to remove the threat from the Gaza border. As long as the capabilities of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip are not eliminated, it does not appear that the residents there will be able to return to live in the area safely.
The Israeli flag on a tank in a convoy in the north on the Lebanese border, photo: AFP
Now all eyes are on Lebanon. It is not the missile threat to northern territory that is now keeping the fighters deployed on Israel's northern border asleep, but Hezbollah's elite unit, the Radwan Force. The force, whose organization Israel is closely monitoring, is intended to invade Israel on the day of order and occupy territories in the Galilee. The Hamas "occupation plan," which was intended to reach Ashdod and was implemented last Saturday, is a complementary picture to Hezbollah's plans from the north. Israel will have to destroy this force, not allow it to continue to organize on our border. We saw how it ended in the south.
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us