Spillover a source of growing concern
Western officials in ME to prevent wider war
Fears of the spread of the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip into the entire Middle East region, especially an escalation between Israel and Lebanon, have once again drawn US and European officials to the region.
Since Israel began its onslaught on the Palestinian territory on October 8, resistance movements including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Ansarullah in Yemen, Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and many other groups have been targeting Israel’s positions in response to its crimes in the Gaza Strip.
In the latest such attacks, the Hezbollah movement fired more than 60 rockets at an Israeli military base to take revenge on Israel’s assassination of the deputy chief of the Hamas resistance movement Saleh al-Arouri and six others in Lebanon’s capital on January 2.
Israel’s military said it responded with artillery after munitions were fired from Lebanon. Warplanes also hit Hezbollah targets, the military said.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged near-daily fire over the border since October 8, but the Arouri killing led to fears of a wider conflict.
Nearly three months of cross-border fire have killed 175 people in Lebanon, including 129 Hezbollah fighters, but also more than 20 civilians including three journalists, according to an AFP tally.
In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has already arrived in the region and discussed the issue with Turkish and Jordanian officials.
Blinken’s spokesman, Matt Miller, said the US top diplomat is set to arrive in Israel on Monday where he will discuss specific steps to “avoid escalation”.
Netanyahu’s political objectives
US officials are concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may see an expanded fight in Lebanon as key to his political survival amid domestic criticism of his cabinet’s failure to prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which killed an estimated 1,200 people and resulted in some 240 captives being taken to Gaza.
Israel has made clear that it views as untenable the regular exchange of fire between its forces and Hezbollah along the border and may soon launch a major military operation in Lebanon.
On the other side, Hezbollah’s chief has warned that, “Whoever considers going into war against us, will simply regret it.”
“If the enemy thinks of waging a war on Lebanon, we will fight without restraint, without rules, without limits and without restrictions,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.
In private conversations, the US administration has warned Israel against a significant escalation in Lebanon. If it were to do so, a new secret assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) found that it will be difficult for Israel’s military to succeed because its military assets and resources would be spread too thin given the conflict in Gaza, according to two people familiar with those findings.
New fronts against Israel
Iran’s officials have also repeatedly warned Israel about the continuation of its crimes in the Palestinian territory.
Days after the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that fighting against the Israeli regime, which has brought the Gaza Strip under a deadly and destructive war, may expand to new fronts.
“Continuation of these war crimes will be followed by other reactions on other axes, for which the Zionist regime and its supporters would be responsible,” he added.
The escalation also forced the European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to visit Lebanon on Saturday.
“It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to avoid Lebanon being dragged into a regional conflict,” Borrell said during a press conference in Beirut with Lebanon’s foreign minister.
“I am sending this message to Israel, too: Nobody will win from a regional conflict,” he added.
His visit was part of a diplomatic push to avoid further regional escalation and call for a solution to the Gaza war which has claimed the lives of at least 22,800 Palestinians so far.
The Health Ministry in Gaza said Sunday that at least 22,835 people have been killed in the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7.
The ministry said in a statement that it had recorded 113 deaths in 24 hours, while a total of 58,416 people had been wounded in the Gaza Strip during the three months of fighting.
West Bank tensions
Meanwhile, nine people were killed Sunday in the occupied West Bank, including seven Palestinians who were targeted in an air strike by the Israeli army, sources on both sides said.
Violence in the West Bank has surged to levels unseen in nearly two decades. Israeli forces carry out regular raids in the occupied territory, especially in the city of Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp.
“An Israeli occupation bombardment on a group of citizens killed seven people in Jenin,” said the Palestinian Authority-run Ministry of Health, which is based in Ramallah.
Israeli police said an Israeli police officer was killed during an operation at the refugee camp.
“She (officer) was in an operational vehicle that was hit by an explosive device,” the force said, adding three other officers were also wounded.
In another incident north of Ramallah, an Israeli civilian was shot dead, the army said.
Since October 7, at least 328 people in the West Bank have been killed by either soldiers or Israeli settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.