The question for European and American society is not whether Gaza-related violence will spill into the streets of their cities, but when it will happen, Modern Diplomacy reports.
The assassination of Hamas leader Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut this week has greatly increased the threat posed by Hamas, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah and jihadists.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s second warning in a week that Hezbollah would retaliate increased the threat of Gaza-related violence spreading to other parts of the Middle East or beyond. Mr. Nasrallah said in his second response to the Al-Arouri killing in Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut in as many days:
“We’ll choose the right place and the right time, but the field will respond.”
Hezbollah has vowed to avenge the killing in Lebanon of any member of the Iranian-backed “resistance axis,” which includes Hamas, Yemeni Houthis and Iraqi militias along with Lebanese Shiite militias and the Islamic Republic. Hezbollah could choose to retaliate away from the Israel-Lebanon border, constrained by a reluctance to drag bankrupt Lebanon into a full-scale war, according to Modern Diplomacy.
On Saturday, Hezbollah fired 62 rockets at an Israeli observation post, saying it was a “preliminary response” to the killing of al-Auri. The attack appeared to be designed to deter hostilities with the Israelis.
But in a possible sign of things to come, Mr Nasrallah’s representative in Iraq, Mohammad Hussein al-Kawtharani, has returned to Baghdad to direct attacks on US targets in Iraq with Iraqi militias backed by Iran.
A $10 million bounty has been placed on the head of Mr Al-Kawtharani, who is on the US Treasury’s Global Terrorist Watch List. Mr Al-Kawtharani’s return coincided with the US assassination of the leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia in retaliation for recent attacks on US personnel and Iraqi moves to remove the US-led international military coalition against Islamic State from the country.
Al-Arouri is considered a hardliner within Hamas. He became close to Mr Nasrallah after the Hamas official travelled to Lebanon at a time when the group’s relations with Hezbollah were strained over Lebanese Shiite support for President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, Modern Diplomacy reports.
Mr Nasrallah “turned Al-Arouri into a power card in Hamas, but in Nasrallah’s hands … “Some even say Al-Arouri was a Hezbollah hawk in Hamas,” said a source close to Hezbollah.
In a speech to Israelis earlier this week, Mr. Nasrallah explicitly advocated replacing Israel with a Palestinian state, rather than an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. He noted:
“Here you (Israelis) don’t have a future. The land of Palestine is for the Palestinians.”
From the perspective of Hamas representatives, responding to the assassination of Mr Al-Arouri by striking abroad at Israeli embassies, diplomatic facilities and missions is its best option. It is unlikely that Hamas would consider rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli cities and towns, most of which are intercepted by Israeli air defences, to be a sufficient response.
Similarly, Hamas, three months into the war, lacks sufficient capability to successfully target Israeli government institutions and officials in Israel. Raising the stakes, the Islamic State this week called for lone-wolf attacks on civilian targets in Europe and the United States, including churches and synagogues.
With reference to past Islamic State operations and lone-wolf attacks in several European cities, the group’s spokesman Abu Ḥudhayfah Al-Ansari, in a 67-minute audio message, called on Muslims in the West to “renew their activity and revive their blessed operations in the heart of the homes of Jews and Christians….. Stalk your prey of Jews, Christians and their allies on the streets and roads of America, Europe and the world. Break into their homes, kill and torture them in every way possible.” Mr. Al-Ansari said:
“Blow them up with explosives, burn them with incendiary bombs, shoot them with bullets, slaughter their necks with knives, and run them over with buses… Do not differentiate between an infidel civilian or military, as they are all infidels, and they should be judged the same way… Aim for an easy target before the difficult ones, and for civilian targets before military ones, and religious sites such as synagogues and churches, before anything else.”
Mr Al-Ansari made the call a day after the group claimed responsibility for two bombings in the Iranian city of Kerman that killed at least 89 people. He justified the bombings, calling Hamas’ alliance with Iran a “sin.” He also called the 1979 Iranian revolution an “apostate revolution.”
He accused Hamas and its archrival, President Mahmoud Abbas Palestine Authority and Al Fatah movement, as well as a United Arab Emirates-backed former Gaza security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, of being US and/or Iranian proxies, according to Modern Diplomacy.
The spokesman insisted that “the battle with the Jews is not a religious patriotic or nationalistic battle. It is a battle not because of the land, soil, or borders. Rather, it is a battle that derives its legitimacy from the Quran and Sunnah,” Prophet Mohammed’s deeds and sayings, Mr. Al-Ansari said.
The growing spate of contract killings by Israelis of Palestinians in third countries is likely to resemble a similar spate in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, with one caveat.
Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officials who were killed by Israel and hardline Palestinians such as Abu Nidal, a PLO defector official, were advocates of compromise with Israel. This time, however, Israel is likely to take on Hamas officials, no matter how much influence they have in the Hamas political spectrum.
In a potential tit-for-tat situation, Israel may favour Hamas representatives in countries such as Turkey, where, among others, the group’s “chief financier” resides, Lebanon, where other senior Hamas officials besides Mr Al-Arouri are based, and Malaysia, which allows Hamas to operate in the country and raise funds, despite its recent crackdown on a local Hamas funding channel, Modern Diplomacy reports.
At the same time, Israel is unlikely to target senior officials in Qatar such as Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mishal, who live in Doha, as long as Hamas holds hostages in Gaza who were kidnapped during the group’s 7 October attack on Israel.
Qatar has been the main mediator trying to negotiate further prisoner exchanges between Israel and Hamas. In November, Qatar facilitated a week-long truce in Gaza in which Hamas released more than 100 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Hamas still holds 129 hostages, including the bodies of captives killed in the fighting in Gaza.
The tit-for-tat killings could play into the hands of Hamas, a movement that has proven it can survive Israeli assassinations of its successive leaders over the past two decades.
It could also serve the Hamas strategy articulated in 2007 by Mr. Al-Arouri in an interview with Middle East scholar Bronwen Maddox. Mr. Al-Arouri said:
“Our job is to keep the Palestinians radicalized. Most of them would settle in a moment for peace, some deal that will let them get on with their lives. We need to keep them angry.”
Regardless of how Gazans would feel about Hamas once hostilities ceased, Mr. Al-Arouri realised that he remained the group’s Achilles’ heel.
Instead of exploiting it, Israel has focused on security and the humiliating control and subjugation of Palestinians in its quest to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel at the expense of socio-economic development.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s recent proposal for the post-war administration of Gaza suggests that Israel will continue to refrain from playing what could have been its trump card.
The reconstruction and development of Gaza under an obedient Palestinian authority that will lack credibility, according to Mr. Gallant, is already a matter for which the international community, not Israel, is responsible.
