Israel responds to Arab rocket attacks with air strikes on Gaza and Lebanon

On the night of April 7, 2023, Israel launched a military air operation to retaliate for shelling with unguided rockets from the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon. The missile attack from Lebanon was the most powerful since 2006: 34 missiles were fired (25 were intercepted by Israeli air defenses).

The shelling, in turn, came after the last April 5 and 6 dispersals of Palestinians who barricaded themselves in the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The purpose of the action was not to allow radical Jewish fundamentalists to carry out the sacrifice.

The Arab-Israeli conflict during the holy month of Ramadan (March 23 to April 21) and the Jewish holiday of Passover (April 5-13) threatens to escalate to at least a scale comparable to the events of May 2021, which led to an 11-day operation by the Israeli Air Force “Guardian of the Walls” against the group “Hamas” in the Gaza Strip.

The decision on retaliatory strikes was made around 23:00 Moscow time on April 6 following a meeting of the Israeli security cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They discussed retaliatory actions against Gaza and southern Lebanon. “In recent days, I have made it clear that our enemies will not mislead us. The internal debate in Israel (an internal political crisis due to plans for judicial reform. – Vedomosti) will not prevent us from acting against them, wherever and whenever it is required. We are all, without exception, united in this,” Netanyahu said.

Around midnight Moscow time, the Israeli Air Force began a series of airstrikes on targets in Gaza. 10 objects were attacked, 50 tons of ammunition were used to strike Hamas production facilities and tunnels. The group itself has not acknowledged responsibility for the rocket attacks, although the deputy head of Hamas, Saleh al-Auri, threatened the day before that “an attack on Islamic shrines would be expensive,” and the head of the political bureau of the group, Ismail Haniya, has been visiting Lebanon since April 5.

An hour after the strikes, the IDF press service reported air defense sirens in Israeli Ashkelon, located near Gaza, due to a missile attack. In total, 44 rockets were fired from the Palestinian enclave in two days. Around 4:00 Moscow time on April 7, the IDF reported on strikes in the southern regions of Lebanon. As the press service of the Israeli army explained, the strikes were carried out on “Hamas facilities.” “The Israel Defense Forces will not allow Hamas to operate from Lebanon,” the Israeli military said. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah, based in southern Lebanon, has not been blamed by the Israeli military for the attacks, nor has it claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Turkey, which has been building ties with Israel over the past year, took a negative view of the air strikes on Gaza. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar condemned the “disproportionate” actions of the IDF. “An aggressive attitude that ignores human rights and universal values ​​will increase tension in the region. It is clear that these attacks harm the peace in the region,” he said. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a press conference during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov that the Israeli airstrikes must stop and he will hold telephone conversations with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen.

The commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said he was in contact with Lebanon and Israel, and both sides told the peacekeepers that they did not seek war. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati stressed that Beirut rejects any military escalation emanating from its territory. Al Jazeera reports that Israel has carried out strikes only in the area of ​​the Palestinian camp “Ar-Rashidia” near the city of Tire (Sur). IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari explained at a briefing that the strikes were directed at three Hamas infrastructure facilities near the camp, from which, he said, rocket attacks were fired on Thursday.

And on the morning of April 7, as a result of the shelling of a car from firearms by unknown persons at the Hamra crossroads in the Jordan Valley (the West Bank of the Jordan River, occupied by Israel), two Israeli citizens were killed, the IDF press service reported on Twitter. Soldiers are searching for suspects in the attack, for which no Palestinian group has yet claimed responsibility.

At the same time, at the end of February, the heads of intelligence of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (the Hamas group is not subordinate to it) held the first talks in many years in order to defuse and prevent an escalation of tension on the eve of sacred periods for Muslims and Jews. Israel then promised to refrain from plans to expand existing and build new Jewish settlements in the West Bank for six months.

Events are developing in line with the events of May 2021 and August 2022, and in both cases there were high-intensity Israeli Air Force operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, says Kirill Semenov, an expert at the Russian International Affairs Council. But so far, no events suggesting that the current escalation will go beyond the previous ones and lead to a larger-scale intervention of the Israeli military in Gaza, and even more so on the ground, in particular, in Lebanon, as in 2006, cannot be said, Semyonov believes.

The pro-Iranian and conditionally anti-Israeli Hezbollah does not want even a hint of involvement in the current Israeli attacks, it publicly denies it, so as not to be accused of drawing Lebanon into another war or even provoking a series of devastating Israeli bombings, the expert says. And the situation in Lebanon, both economic and domestic political, is already difficult. “But, on the other hand, it is obvious that without the permission of Hezbollah, no one, including Hamas, in the southern part of the country could arrange positions for rockets,” Semyonov notes.

There are definitely similarities with the situation in 2021, when clashes around Al-Aqsa and in Jerusalem as a whole provoked rocket attacks and an air operation, Lyudmila Samarskaya, junior researcher at IMEMO RAS, notes. But in reality, neither Hamas, nor the Israeli government, nor Hezbollah want further escalation due to an accidental conflict and, rather, are forced to each in turn resort to demonstrative forceful steps, although they in themselves can lead to deepening the conflict, she says. Moreover, not only Hezbollah does not want a clash now, but Tel Aviv itself is not eager to involve military measures in the situation already in Lebanon.

The Lebanese army itself is conducting raids in the south of the country to prevent an escalation. In addition, a tough reaction to the rocket attacks is unlikely to strengthen Netanyahu’s internal positions: the conflict over judicial reform has not gone away, the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) will return to work after Pesach, Samarskaya explains.