Iranian attacks could dampen efforts to restrain Israel in Gaza: Analyst
Amid the media hype over the Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel that concluded with little or no impact, experts fear that Tehran's ‘military (mis)adventure’ could ‘backfire’ on effort to restrain the Zionist genocidal run in Gaza.
[Video clips show Israeli air defence system intercepting Iranian missiles over the Al Aqsa Compound in the Occupied Jerusalem.]
Washington: Amid the media hype over the Iranian missile and drone attacks on Israel that concluded with little or no impact, experts fear that Tehran's ‘military (mis)adventure’ could ‘backfire’ on efforts to restrain the Zionist genocidal run in Gaza.
Iranian attack on Israel
The Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) late in the night Saturday launched hundreds of missiles and drones towards Israel in what it said retaliation to the Israeli attack on its Consulate in Damascus, Syria.
The Israeli military officials and US President Joe Biden said almost all the missiles and drones were successfully intercepted and shot down.
The latest ‘escalation’ between Iran and Israel comes in the midst of the Israel and Palestine war started on Oct 07, 2023.
In the war that entered in its 7th month in April, the Israeli occupied forces have killed more than 33,000 civilians – majority of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry of Palestine.
More than six months of Israeli military campaign has also levelled to the ground over 40% of Gaza Strip. Besides, the Israeli blockade has left close to 1.4 million Palestinian in the besieged enclave to starvation.
Worried by the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza, first the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and later International Court of Justice (ICJ) and UN Security Council (UNSC) have called for immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
These efforts however are at the risk of being derailed because of the Iranian attack on Israel, the analysts feel.
Talking to Doha based broadcaster Al Jazeera, David Des Roches, an Associate Professor at the National Defense University in Washington DC, said he was surprised that Iran used a direct attack on Israeli territory.
“What the Iranian attack indicates to me is that there are considerations of pride and prestige that are divorced from strategy and tactical utility that may indicate a more dangerous era than we thought,” Des Roches, who is also a former US army officer and official, said.
He added that Iran may not have “really counted” the possibility its attack on Israel could “take the focus” off Gaza, saying that “the pressure that had been building on Israel to restrain from further actions in Gaza, that may have been lifted as a result of this attack”.
“Israel could potentially gain leverage with the US by offering to avoid “an expanded regional conflict” in return for achieving its “strategic goals in Gaza”, he added.
Two options for US
Mouin Rabbani, co-editor of the online publication Jadaliyya, said that the US can either push to de-escalate tensions in the region or continue to give Israel a “free hand” to do whatever it wants.
“This is all tied directly to the Israel’s genocidal onslaught in the Gaza Strip,” Rabbani told Al Jazeera.
“And so long as the United States refuses to say ‘don’t’ to Israel and end that, the possibility of further regional escalation – which the US consistently says it is trying to prevent – becomes very real.”
New test for Israel
Al Jazeera correspondent, Rory Challands, reporting from Occupied East Jerusalem, said analysts over the last couple of hours have been saying that Iran’s attack appears carefully calibrated, to make a point but not to cause so much damage that it escalates the situation into a wider conflict.
“What we have seen in Israel is that the damage has been relatively minor. So far, damage has been reported to an air base in the south and only a couple of casualties and no confirmed fatalities”, he said.
“What this means is there is another test for Israel. That test is – what is its response going to be?” he asked.
“The Israeli war cabinet has been authorised to respond in some way to Iran. But is that retaliation going to be carefully calibrated too? And what is the US going to say to Israel? Is it going to say, dial down that response, and say to everyone involved, ‘That’s enough, let’s calm things down’?” he opined.
Some analysts are also of the view that the way Hamas and other Palestinian Resistance Groups fought with the Israeli occupation forces in the last more than six months have made Iran and its proxy Hezbollah irrelevant.
The latest escalation between Iran and Israel is hence also seen as an attempt to scale Iranian stakes in the region.
Another group of experts, who are aware of the Iranian-Israeli nexus in the Middle East, are of the view that except killing civilians, Netanyahu has failed to achieve any of his target in Gaza. Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate and the IRGC retaliation Saturday is a plot to bail out the Israeli Prime Minister who is facing imminent defeat at the hands of the Palestinian Resistance Fighters and anger from his own people back home.
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