Israeli military forces are preparing for the possibility of a flare-up with fighters from Palestinian resistance groups based in the Gaza Strip following repeated incursions by the regime troops and Israeli settlers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds.
Channel 12 News reported on Saturday that if the Tel Aviv regime’s decision to close its pedestrian crossing with the besieged coastal enclave does not curb rocket attacks, the Israeli military would resume strikes or even begin a wider operation against the sliver.
The unsourced report said the military is preparing for the possibility that the situation could escalate into several days of combat between Israel and Gaza-based resistance fighters.
Tel Aviv launched a brutal bombing campaign against the besieged Gaza Strip on May 10 last year, following Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East al-Quds.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children and 40 women. At least 1,948 others were also wounded.
In response, Palestinian resistance movements, chief among them Hamas, launched Operation al-Quds Sword and fired more than 4,000 rockets and missiles into the occupied territories, killing 12 Israelis.
Apparently caught off guard by the unprecedented barrage of rockets from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance movements accepted with Egyptian mediation.
Report: Israel is facing more threats but is less prepared for them
Meanwhile, the Middle East Monitor media research institution reported that Israeli police and military experts are very concerned that the regime suffers completely from a lack of strategic depth, despite its obvious weaknesses and escalating security threats.
It went on to write that the military weaknesses could manifest themselves against rocket fire by fighters from the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement, as well as popular Ansarullah resistance movement in Yemen.
At the same time, Israel suffers from strategic and tactical dangers and is the only regime that does not have a strategic backbone. This has actually been proven on the border of the Gaza Strip, which lacks any airbases, but has posed a great challenge and threat to Israel.
“Israelis worry about the dangers and shortcomings that their regime is suffering from, despite their alleged achievements in the 1967 war, and in targeting the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors by the Israeli air force. The Israeli air force has been described as one of the best in the world, if not the best. However, it suffers from a state of stammering in some military confrontations and causes disappointment to many who believe that it should be able to provide the state with the strategic depth it is lacking,” Middle East Monitor wrote.
It further noted that Israeli forces do not hesitate to express their inability to face the various security threats, especially on the Palestinian home front, with the increase in retaliatory attacks and the continuous protests at al-Aqsa Mosque.
This has prompted Israeli forces to demand the elimination of the resistance in terms of their military and operational means. However, they ignore the real and core problems threatening the Tel Aviv regime’s security and preparation for the inevitably coming confrontation.
Middle East Monitor highlighted that Israeli calls to deal with the Palestinian resistance using the iron fist are mainly an attempt to respond to the state of panic by the Israelis.
This is expressed by the hysterical discourse on television channels, which does not focus on the roots of the resistance, or on learning lessons from the extended confrontations with the Palestinians throughout a century, it pointed out.