Gaza Series by Zoriah.
The Israeli army had for some time planned a large-scale 30-day long maneuver to rehearse an attack on Hezbullah in Lebanon. Last week Hizbullah reacted to that:
The Lebanon-based Hezbollah terror organization has announced it is on high alert following the IDF’s launching of its largest-ever military exercise.
The IDF launched on Sunday its “Chariots of Fire” month-long exercise simulating war on several fronts, and primarily against Hezbollah in the north, including the massive firing of missiles and rockets from all arenas on the home front.
This is the largest and most comprehensive IDF maneuver in its history...
The maneuver had been announced for some time. Hizbullah has feared that the maneuver was a deception for a planned Israeli assault on Lebanon. It came at an interesting moment.
The International Day of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) was inaugurated by Imam Khomeini in 1979, the year of the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, to revive the Palestinian cause, and is celebrated on the last Friday of the month of Ramadan.
The last Friday of Ramadan was May 7. On May 5 the Secretary General of Hizbullah Hassan Nasrallah gave his yearly Al-Quds day speech:
[O]ur responsibility for Al-Quds Day is to provide all possible help to the Palestinian people, to the Palestinian Resistance; the Axis of Resistance must be even more united and attached to the cause, and it already is, it must increase its readiness (for the final war), it must strengthen itself further, because it is the Axis of Resistance that will shape the future of the Middle East.
If we follow the development of the current phase of the conflict in Palestine those words may getting a deeper meaning:
Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the three holiest sites in Islam, has long been an emblem of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.
Al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary), the complex in Jerusalem’s Old City that houses the mosque - which includes the Dome of the Rock and other Islamic shrines - is arguably the most significant symbol of Palestinian sovereignty.
Jerusalem has been on edge for weeks over Israel's restrictions on Palestinian access to parts of the Old City during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and Israeli authorities' attempted eviction of several Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood to make way for Israeli settlers.
Al-Aqsa found itself at the centre of a long weekend of violence from Friday, that left hundreds of people injured and led to a series of deadly rocket exchanges between the Israel military and Hamas in Gaza.
By Tuesday night, Israeli security forces had raided the holy site four times in five days.
On Friday May 7, Al-Quds day, the first protests at Al-Aqsa against the stealing of the houses in Sheikh Jarrah happened. They were also against the year's 'Death to Arabs' Flag March by ultra-zionist settlers through east Jerusalem which had been planned for Sunday May 9.
The settler march was called off but the protests and the raids on Al-Aqsa continued. By Monday night Israel security forces had stormed Al-Aqsa three times. According to the Palestinian Red Cross 305 Palestinians were injured and 228 others hospitalized including four in a critical condition.
On Monday the Israeli military called off its “Chariots of Fire” exercise in the north to concentrate on a possible escalation of violence in Jerusalem.
That was the point where the resistance in the Gaza strip joined the conflict by launching missiles on Israeli settlements.
The move was not necessary. Gaza voluntarily entered the conflict. Presumably, the resistance leadership in Gaza believes that it has the capabilities and backing to sustain a new round of fighting. Since then some 2,000 missiles were fired against Israeli targets as far away from Gaza as Tel Aviv, some 230 kilometers north of Gaza. This is a much greater range than previous missiles fired from Gaza have had. Only some 10-20% of the missiles fired reach their target. Some are caught by Israel's missile defense but many of the locally produced weapons are not precise enough or simply fail. Still - the psychological effect on the colonial population is severe.
Israel immediately began to wage an air war on Gaza. As in previous rounds of the conflict it targeted the media, the police and civil infrastructure. These strikes are war crimes. They were accompanied by an assassination campaign against presumed resistance leaders.
On Monday May 10 another front opened up as anti-Jewish protests happened in Lod. Shops were damaged and cars set on fire. The next two-night anti-Arab pogroms and anti-Jewish rioting escalated:
Israel on Wednesday experienced its worst night of internal Jewish-Arab chaos for many years, amid the ongoing armed conflict with Gaza, as scenes of unrest, rioting, hate rallies and growing social chaos spread throughout numerous cities, some of which were once seen as symbols of coexistence.
Violent confrontations erupted in Lod, Acre, Jerusalem, Haifa, Bat Yam, Tiberias and many other locations, with people injured, some of them seriously, leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to announce he was looking at deploying the military inside towns to restore order.
...
Jewish mobs were seen roaming the streets of Tiberias and Haifa looking for Arabs to assault.In Jerusalem, an Arab was stabbed by Jews and seriously injured at the Mahane Yehuda market.
“Death to Arabs” was heard in many locations of Jewish rallies.
Meanwhile, in Acre, a Jewish man was assaulted by Arab rioters and hit with rocks and iron bars, and was hospitalized in critical condition.
Arab rioting was reported in Jerusalem, Lod, Haifa, Tamra and elsewhere.
The Israeli military has called up reserves and moved forces down south to the border with Gaza. Today the Gaza resistance used for the first time suicide drones against Israeli missile defenses. Israeli troop concentrations around Gaza will have to fear that new weapon.
The Israeli government under still Prime Minister Netanyahoo is now threatening a ground invasion of Gaza. But ground assaults always cause casualties within the attacking forces, something the Israelis are usually keen to avoid. It will take more missiles fired from Gaza to goad Netanyahoo into launching such an attack.
Despite the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Gaza strip the resistance forces there seems to be well supplied. They may well have more capabilities than is currently assumed.
The Israelis as usual have shown no compunction in using terror bombing.
With unrest in Jerusalem, pogroms in Israeli cities, a potential third intifada in the occupied West Bank and a ground invasion of Gaza the Israeli army will be very busy. If it comes to that during the next few days the time could be right for Hizbullah, already on full alarm, to step in and to attack the occupation on the grounds that it is holding.
Nasrallah's speech last week can be understood as an announcement of such a step:
My last message will be for the Israelis themselves. I tell them this: you know well, in your heart of hearts, whether it is based on your religious texts or doctrines, on your books or your prophecies, and also based on what some of your leaders and experts say, and also some of your religious authorities, you know (very well) that this entity (Israel) has no future, that it is on the verge of extinction and that it has little time left to live, very little time. Therefore, in this battle you are wasting your energy, and your young people are wasting their youth and their blood, in vain and to no avail.
...
We believe in this near future (where Israel won’t exist anymore), we believe in it very firmly, and this faith is not based only on religious and ideological bases, but is based (above all) on the data, on the events which occur, especially on those of the last decades, the last years and on what will happen (soon) in this region.
It is possible that Netanyahoo had planned the original escalation in Jerusalem to stay in office:
After four elections Israel still has no new government. Prime Minister Netanyahoo is on trial for corruption. A larger war that can be spun into a victory could help him to avoid a judgment and gain votes for the likely soon coming next election.
It that was his plan he has achieved a first step towards it:
Yamina party leader Naftali Bennett has taken “off the table” the option of forming a government without Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, due to the ongoing military conflict with Gaza terrorists, a political source says.
Bennett has renewed his negotiations with Likud due to the emergency situation, and teams from both parties met today, the source says on condition of anonymity.
But it is not Netanyahoo who can decide when the missiles from Gaza will stop flying. It is not Netanyahoo who can control the Palestinian youth. The escalation dominance is not in his hands but in the hands of the resistance. It is the resistance that decides when the conflict ends.
Ali @allushiii_new - 18:19 UTC · May 13, 2021
Bismillahhhh
3 rockets fired from Lebanon into Palestine
The Daily Star in Lebanon confirmed tonight's rocket strike. If Israel reacts to that provocation as it usually does a war in its north could soon become reality. It would not be a small one.
Ansar Allah, the Houthi led movement in Yemen, has offered to join the fight against the colonists. It is well known for its long-range surprise capabilities and these may at one point be used in the fight.
While I am still not sure that all of this is part of a plan - from Hizbullah's speech, over unrest in Jerusalem, Gaza missiles, pogroms, to now missiles from Lebanon - it surely looks like a well rehearsed and coordinated (re-)action of the resistance front.
General Qasem Soleimani's plans are coming to fruition.
Posted by b on May 13, 2021 at 19:03 UTC | Permalink
Meanwhile the repugnant hypocrisy of the West that knows no bounds marches on. China should simply tell these Washington vassals to fuck off.
In the same week the US is calling for access to Xinjiang, it blocked a statement of a UN Security Council meeting on #Gaza. It takes an exceptional level of ignorance to still think the US' obsession with Xinjiang is about defending the rights of Muslims.https://t.co/d73ZSeKqJs
— Ovigwe Eguegu (@OvigweEguegu) May 14, 2021
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