The recent bombing may cause the failure of the efforts to calm the situation and release the detainees in the Gaza Strip, which prompted the White House to confirm that the US administration will not allow those it calls extremists to derail the ceasefire talks in Gaza.
Writer and political researcher Ahmed Zakarneh believes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking the region on a broad, escalating path.
Zakarna added in his interview with Sky News Arabia:
- Since his return from Washington, Netanyahu has been heading towards escalation in the region and wider confrontations in Yemen, Lebanon and Iran.
- The recent Israeli escalation points to two possibilities. The first is that Netanyahu received an American green light for escalation, which is unlikely in light of the differences between the Democratic administration in Washington and the Israeli government.
- The second possibility is that the Israeli Prime Minister got involved in the US elections in favor of the Republicans.
- Netanyahu aims to block the US administration’s efforts to defuse the crisis in the Middle East.
- The US administration may have moved towards concluding an implicit deal at the expense of an overt deal by calming the Iranian side so that it would not respond forcefully to the assassination of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in exchange for concluding a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
- Netanyahu does not want this deal, so he moved to open parallel paths by sending a delegation to negotiate and at the same time putting pressure on Hamas in the field.
- The aim of pressuring Hamas militarily is to force it to accept Netanyahu’s conditions, which are increasing day by day, or to force it to refuse, and here the resistance is accused of rejecting calm and negotiations.
- Israel does not recognize international laws and practices strikes below the belt, and Netanyahu has kidnapped the state.
- Polls have indicated that 70 percent of the Israeli public approves of the attack on the Palestinian people and defends the criminals who torture Palestinians in prisons, which indicates the rise of fascism in Israel similar to the rise of Nazism in the 1930s.
- The Israeli military establishment is being targeted and infiltrated by extremist settlers.
- Statements by Israel’s ally, the Western Atlantic, criticize extremists, especially Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
- The hostages’ families retreated into the street after being insulted, threatened and beaten.
- As for the recent US aid to Israel (America has provided Israel with $6.5 billion in security aid) it is an incentive package to push Netanyahu towards making a deal.
- What Netanyahu wants is ethnic cleansing by forcing the people of Gaza to voluntarily emigrate by creating a repellent environment.
- Iran will not escalate much, and Haniyeh (the former head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh) will not be more valuable than Qassem Soleimani (the former commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard), and Tehran has a nuclear project that it does not want to sacrifice.
- Hamas must not close the door to negotiations, especially as blood is being shed and the home front is on fire.
- Sinwar (Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar) is a pragmatist who uses radical tools and will go for the deal in order to corner Israel and avoid being accused from the home front.
For his part, former minister and lecturer at the Hebrew University, Shimon Sheetrit, said that Israel is attacking Hamas in Gaza because the latter is still firing rockets and carrying out military operations.
Shatrit added in an interview with Sky News Arabia:
- Hamas is still firing rockets and carrying out military operations, and as long as these operations continue, the Israeli response will continue.
- There were warnings before Operation Stairs and Israel is making efforts to limit civilian casualties.
- I expect a truce agreement to be reached in the middle of this month.
- Reaching a truce is important for Israel and Hamas.
- The killing of civilians is the responsibility of Hamas, which uses mosques, shelters for the displaced, and other places as military operations centers.
- There are internal Israeli differences regarding the deal with Hamas.
- Most Israelis oppose the position of extremist ministers such as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir.
- Israel is committed to coordinating operations with the United States at the regional and global levels.
- Sinwar and his colleagues have caused destruction and suffering for ten months under military operations, and the interest is to reach a deal to preserve the movement’s presence in the Gaza Strip.
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