The attack Tehran launched on Tel Aviv from yesterday evening, Saturday, until dawn today drew global and local attention, coming in response to the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of an Iranian diplomatic building in Damascus, Syria. Local observers were divided between supporters and opponents of the Iranian attack: some saw it as a pre-arranged, limited strike to save face, while others see it as a qualitative development in relations between Iran and Tel Aviv, since Tehran has for the first time directed strikes at the occupied territories directly from its own territory, rather than through a proxy or in support of the resistance.
It began with the Israeli occupation’s targeting of the Iranian consulate in the capital, Damascus, at the start of this month, killing 11 people, including eight Iranians, two Syrians and one Lebanese. According to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, the attack killed seven military advisers, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi (a commander in the Quds Force, which is in charge of the Revolutionary Guard’s external operations). Iranian statements then asserted that the attack would not go unanswered, as it was the first to target an official diplomatic building, unlike several previous attacks that targeted premises of Iranian proxies or unofficial sites. The day after the attack, the UN Security Council met to discuss the crisis and the attack on Tehran’s consulate, at Russia’s request.
Cairo’s Position
Commenting on the Iranian attack yesterday evening, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed in a statement its “deep concern over the launch of Iranian drones against the Israeli occupation”, which signals unprecedented escalation between Tehran and Tel Aviv, calling for restraint to “spare the region and its peoples further factors of instability”.
Cairo considered that the new escalation is nothing but a direct result of what it had previously warned of regarding the expansion of the conflict after the Zionist aggression on the Strip, stressing that it is in constant contact with all parties to contain the situation. At the same time, security sources told the pro-government “Al-Qahera News” channel that Egyptian air defences were at maximum readiness because of the events in the region. The Israeli attack came in response to Tehran’s role in what is known as the Axis of Resistance, which it leads in the region.
Iran leads the Axis of Resistance, an alliance of groups opposed to the Israeli occupation and US influence in the Middle East. It includes: Hezbollah in Lebanon, founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 1982 to fight the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon; the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in Gaza; armed Shiite militias in Iraq that emerged with Iranian backing after the invasion of Baghdad in 2003; and the Houthi Ansar Allah group in Yemen, which belongs to Zaydi Shiism and has strong ties with Tehran. The axis also cooperates directly with the Syrian regime, which is considered a close ally of Tehran.
The axis has played a prominent role since the war on Gaza began in October 2023. As soon as Hamas launched its strikes on the occupied interior (the Gaza envelope settlements), in what became known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Tel Aviv began a war of genocide against the entire Gaza Strip that continues to this moment, regardless of international or regional efforts aimed at calming the situation. It has left 33,686 dead and 76,309 Gazans injured, in addition to thousands of victims and missing people under the rubble.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah was the first to announce support for the Palestinian resistance, launching limited strikes on disputed border points the day after the Hamas attack. But its position so far has not been what the regional public expected, as they saw the Gaza war as an opportunity for Hezbollah to intervene forcefully and change the course of the war, but that did not happen.
Commenting, researcher and writer Anis Mohsen, a researcher at the Institute for Palestine Studies, says that Hezbollah began from the first moment of the war to carry out some moves, such as moving elite combat forces affiliated with it in Syria, in addition to similar moves by the “Fatemiyoun” brigade, a militia of Afghan fighters trained and funded by Tehran. But he stresses that since the start of the war Hezbollah has engaged in calculated skirmishes in line with the rules of engagement agreed since the “July War / Second Lebanon War” in 2006, under which every action has a balanced and similar reaction, without being drawn into a new war or a major battle.
In a related context, the Houthi group emerged as a major and continuous regional supporter of the Palestinian resistance 12 days after the war began. In November last year, it began entering the battlefield by intensifying its attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea, especially those belonging to the Israeli occupation or the countries supporting it, and also launched some attacks on the city of Eilat (occupied Umm Al-Rashrash). It claimed responsibility for seizing more than one commercial ship passing through the Red Sea near the Bab al-Mandab Strait with direct ties to the Israeli occupation, which led to major changes affecting trade in this important waterway, and to international and regional fears that the Gaza war could be the start of opening a new, continuous front against the Israeli occupation (like Hezbollah in Lebanon).
How Do the Houthis Get Their Weapons?
The Houthi group inherited part of its arsenal from the Yemeni army, while Tehran supported it with another share of advanced weapons. According to circulated information, the Houthi military arsenal includes advanced Iranian ballistic missiles with a range of up to 2,000 kilometres, in addition to Iranian “Toufan”, “Quds-4” and “cruise” missiles, as well as a range of drones, such as “Samad-3”, “Samad-4” and the “Waid” drone, which has a range of 2,500 kilometres and can reach Tel Aviv.
As for its naval arsenal, the Houthi group has an arsenal that includes about ten missile systems (such as anti-ship ballistic missiles with a range of about 500 kilometres and cruise missiles with a range of 800 kilometres; it also has “Nadhir” and “Asef” suicide boats), as well as a number of operational naval units previously used in several attacks on Saudi ships and in seizing Korean, Saudi and Israeli tankers and ships in the Gulf of Aden.
The Role of Armed Militias in Iraq and Syria
According to Agence France-Presse last December, 103 attacks were recorded on US targets and international coalition forces in Iraq and Syria between October and December, as the armed militias of the Tehran-backed Axis of Resistance began carrying out limited operations to ease pressure on the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
According to the Washington Institute, armed groups in Iraq have claimed responsibility for 40 attacks on the occupied territories since the strike they launched last November against an unspecified target “in the Dead Sea”. In one of the most recent attacks, on 1 April, a “cruise” missile was launched from Iraq towards a naval base in Eilat where Tel Aviv keeps its nuclear submarines. The attacks claimed by the resistance groups covered 16 sites, with a number of sites targeted repeatedly: Eilat (nine attacks), the Golan (seven attacks), Haifa (six attacks) and Ben Gurion Airport (two attacks).
The resistance in Iraq and Syria announced its use of special weapons such as short-range “Al-Aqsa 1” ballistic missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, “cruise” missiles from the “Quds” series, unmanned aircraft, and a number of one-way attack drones, “Shahed-101” and “X-Tail”.
Despite US interventions in the region, the factions and groups of the Axis of Resistance in the four countries (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen) are still carrying out a number of operations against Israeli and US targets, despite continuous threats.
Developments in Gaza and the Occupied Territories
On 10 April, coinciding with the first day of Eid al-Fitr, Israeli occupation aircraft launched an air strike targeting three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza, Hazem, Amir and Mohammed, along with their children, near Al-Shati refugee camp in the west of the Gaza Strip, destroying their vehicle and killing them all. Haniyeh had lost 60 members of his family since the start of the war, according to local Palestinian newspapers.
Analysts point out that the assassination came as an attempt to restore the image of the Israeli occupation army after the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, announced killing a number of occupation soldiers and officers in the Al-Zanna ambush (a town east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip), which resulted in the deaths of 14 Israeli soldiers.
Despite the Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional release of all hostages in the Strip by Hamas and the Palestinian resistance factions, the pace of Israeli bombardment has not eased, increasing the displacement of Gazans to the south of the Strip and the destruction of entire neighbourhoods in Gaza.
According to a policy paper published by researcher Rula Shahwan, Israeli air strikes destroyed or severely damaged more than 200 historical sites in the Strip, including historic buildings, mosques, churches, cultural institutions, universities and libraries, and museums housing historical archives and heritage documents, such as the “Central Municipal Archive”, which contains more than 110,000 files, including official correspondence, contracts and financial transactions, architectural maps, photographic documents of the city, building permit files, all water subscription files, citizens’ ownership contracts, professional licence files and lease contracts.
According to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, obtaining an accurate estimate of those forcibly displaced by the occupation’s operations remains a challenge. But estimates indicate that 85%, about 1,930,000 Gazans, have been forcibly displaced from their areas, most of them heading to the south of the Strip in Palestinian Rafah (about 1,500,000 citizens). Palestinian Health Ministry data indicate that since 22 February, 12 hospitals have been partially functioning in Gaza, and according to the UN refugee agency UNRWA, only seven of its 23 health centres are now operating in Gaza. Sewage treatment plants are no longer working, nor are 83% of groundwater wells. 500,000 cases of acute respiratory diseases and watery diarrhoea have been reported, half of them among children.
Estimates by the Palestinian Health Ministry point to worsening catastrophic levels of food insecurity, especially among children and pregnant women in the north of the Strip, as 15.6% of children under two suffer from severe malnutrition, while 3% suffer from severe wasting, especially after the occupation blocked 51% of humanitarian missions from reaching the north of the Strip up to last February.
The Negotiations
A number of international and regional parties are seeking to stop the war on Gaza after conditions inside it worsened, as negotiations resumed in Cairo last week to study a US proposal submitted by CIA Director William Burns, who was on a brief visit to Cairo last week, for a ceasefire and the completion of a prisoner exchange deal.
It provides for the release of 900 Palestinians detained in occupation prisons, 100 of them serving life sentences, in exchange for 40 Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip, in addition to allowing between 400 and 500 aid trucks to enter daily, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the “Netzarim” axis that separates northern Gaza from its south, and a “temporary ceasefire” for six weeks. But Hamas is negotiating over the names that should be released in the prisoner exchange deal, which annoys Tel Aviv and makes the failure of the talks once again more likely, especially since the latter is not satisfied with the proposal for Palestinian residents to return to the north of the Strip. According to Palestinian sources, however, there is a proposal involving an Egyptian force guaranteeing the return of Palestinians to the north, acting as a security force to search Gazans and ensure they carry no weapons, while Tel Aviv hinted at the possibility of making a concession allowing 150,000 Palestinians to return to northern Gaza without security checks. But the assassination of the Hamas leader’s sons confused the latest negotiations.
Although the war has entered its seventh month, all international and regional negotiations aimed at a ceasefire and the return of Gazans to their destroyed neighbourhoods are failing because of the Israeli side’s intransigence and its continued attacks on the besieged Strip, disregarding all the decisions of the International Court and the appeals of the United Nations. So when will the war stop?
