Illustrative Image
DEAR FRIENDS. IF YOU LIKE THIS TYPE OF CONTENT, SUPPORT SOUTHFRONT WORK :
MONERO (XMR): 8332UX6Ero53cnz2dKzmfRYtDa5DZ9wRsBfKHcYPHzTvBTTSgLGaC8f8Eo8QsmaoRsCosURvfjv4uiyFcm2WHEf5TfuRYY9
BITCOIN (BTC): bc1q2u872wf5t6tunuzxc5jq6wzz5jwr3ew2q8htxw
BITCOIN CASH (BCH): qqrjde2cq9g473687utlwh4p7ngdaacca5wdraxatl
PAYPAL, WESTERN UNION etc: write to info@southfront.org , southfront@list.ru
By Alex Gallant
Since the May 2021 Truce with Gaza’s militant groups, pressure has continued to intensify on multiple fronts for Israel. On the one side, tensions between the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and Hamas are again on the brink of armed conflict, and on the other, Iran-backed Hezbollah is threatening the Lebanese and Syrian borders with Israel.
Furthermore, with Iran entering its 8th round of negotiations in Vienna on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Tel-Aviv is adopting precautionary measures to counter any future threat lest the negotiations fail.
Cycle of Violence in Gaza
In a recent report entitled ‘’Ending Gaza’s Perpetual Crisis’’ by the Center for New American Security (CNAS), the authors accurately portrayed the ‘’Cycle of Violence’’, or ‘’Doom-Loop’’, happening between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’ takeover in 2007.
Step 1: Israel squeezes Gaza economically to pressure Hamas politically, deter it militarily, and limit its future military capabilities. […]
Step 2: Eventually, humanitarian and economic pressure builds inside Gaza, and Hamas escalates its use of violence […]
Step 3: Israel responds with its own escalation, including military strikes inside Gaza and punitive economic measures that further choke the Strip. […]
Step 4: Political pressure builds among both Palestinian and Israeli constituencies, with violence escalating into a major conflict that does severe damage to all sides […]
Step 5: Egypt steps in to broker a bare-bones cease-fire – as it did in 2009, 2012, and 2014. […]
Step 6: The international community convenes a major donor conference, at which large sums of money are pledged for reconstructing Gaza. Much of this funding never materializes[…]
Step 7: All parties return to the status quo […] and the cycle of violence begins again.
Ending Gaza’s Perpetual Crisis, Dec. 2018, CNAS, p.11
It is then not surprising to see the renewal of tension between Hamas and the IDF, only a few months after the May Truce. Since the start of 2022, multiple clashes have already taken place between the two parties. The current round of confrontations seems to have started following clashes between police and Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Hamas answered to the situation by firing rockets towards Tel-Aviv, followed by the usual overwhelming response from Israel, using attack helicopters, tanks and airstrikes to shell observation posts in Northern and Southern Gaza.
On Dec. 15, 2021, Hamas’ armed wing performed its first military drill since the Truce in May 2021, parallel to the IDF’s own exercise in the Dimona region. These exercises were a definite show of force from both sides, emulating the consequences of a backlash in the reconstruction process of Gaza City, announced by Cairo on Dec. 13. It would not be surprising to see Hamas re-escalate the conflict with the IDF in the next few weeks if no signs of improvement are made.
Islamic Republic’s Threat
In its recent exercise simulating a strike against Israel’s nuclear facility in Dimona, Iran unveiled its new strategy against the impervious Israeli Air-Defense System. The use of the Shahed-136 kamikaze-drones to swarm Israel’s defenses, in combination with surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, could seriously compromise Tel-Aviv’s ability to defend itself against the attack. The Shahed-136 drones have an approximate range of 2000 km, making them within arms reach of Israel from the Iranian border. However, the ballistic missiles used during the Payambar-e Azam 17 war game had ranges from 350 km to 2000 km, making at least some of them unlikely to be fired from within Iran, especially if they are in fact targeting Domina’s facility. The most probable locations for Tehran to fire these ballistic missiles would be from within its proxies-controlled territories, such as Lebanon and Syria, in closer range to Israel.
The recent increase in Israeli’s Air Force’s (IAF) airstrikes against targets on Syrian soil might indicate a rise in the weapon’s shipments from Iran to its proxies in Syria and Lebanon.
Consequently, some attacks were done unconventionally compared to the IDF’s usual modus operandi. On Nov. 30, Israeli Ground-to-Ground missiles were launched on the outskirts of Damascus in plain daylight, targeting alleged Iranian shipments. As mentioned by Researchers Kat Lawlor and Zach Coles in their report for the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) :
‘’We have seen a lot of indication recently that Iran is importing shipments of precision guided munitions and other high-tech weaponry […] mainly through the main corridor in Syria, but also through maritime routes. […] Iran recently conducted a military exercise that simulated an attack on an Israeli nuclear facility. The missiles used during the exercise, however, had a pretty short range. […] likely the most promising location for that to be launched would’ve been inside Lebanon itself.’’
It seems that the likely course of action taken by the ‘’Axis of Resistance’’ is a well coordinated-offensive on multiple fronts, slowly wearing down Israel’s defenses. The combination of:
- An exhaustion campaign led by the different Islamic-militant groups;
- An over-saturation of the Israeli Air-Defense System targeted from within Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, and Syria;
- An escalation of the ground confrontation in Palestine and Syria;
- And a dislocation of Israel’s internal defense assets (destruction of air-defense, nuclear facilities, ) could gravely endanger Israel’s national security, benefiting Iran’s political agenda.
Israel’s Retaliation
Towards maintaining the IDF’s grip over the region, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced in July 2021 the increase of its military budget up to US$19.2 billion for the year 2022. According to Kan Public Broadcaster, approximately 14% ($2.77 billion) will be spent on rearmament and strengthening the IDF against Iran’s nuclear program.
To start with, the IDF will continue to invest in its most reliable tool against the Islamic threat: the IAF. As shown in the recent conflicts in Syria, Yemen and American-occupied Afghanistan, the use of ALB (Air-Land Battle) doctrine gives a significant advantage in 21st century warfare. The ability to support the movement of ground troops, while simultaneously constricting the mobility of the opposing force, gives a powerful edge to one side over the other. Reinforcing their intentions to dominate the sky in future conflicts, the IAF held a joint exercise in early
January, along with the U.S. Air Force, in order to sharpen airstrikes and mid-air dogfights capabilities. As in the Six-Day War, Israel will continue to rely on air superiority if it wants to dominate a potential large-scale conflict with Iran or other inherent threats.
Additionally, the Israeli’s Ministry of Defense recently signed an agreement with the U.S. government for the purchase of additional aircraft. The agreement includes 12 Lockheed Martin CH-53K helicopters and two Boeing KC-46 refueling aircraft. This comes in addition to the purchase of another 8 Boeing KC-46 in March 2021. As described by the Jerusalem Post:
‘With a range of 11, 830 km and the capacity to carry 207, 000 pounds of fuel, the KC-46 can refuel over 64 different types of aircraft and allow dozens of jets to remain airborne for up to 12 hours.’’
This logistical improvement could allow aircraft, such as the stealth multirole F-35 Adir, to fly within Iranian airspace, strike critical targets, and return to Israel all in the same outing.
Furthermore, this advancement could also be used to sustain air superiority over Iranian’s proxies’ territory, maintaining the already high pressure of airstrikes against Hezbollah and Hamas.
What’s For the Future?
As aforementioned, it is highly probable that we will see an escalation of violence between Hamas and the IDF in the coming weeks. Although Egypt began the reconstruction process in mid-December, it is doubtful that Hamas will not revive the confrontation amid the 8th round of the JCPOA in support of its economic sponsor. Weakening Israel from within is a long standing tactic of the ‘’Axis of Resistance’’. In retaliation, the IDF will surely answer with overwhelming firepower, returning to the unbroken ‘’Doom-Loop’’. This Cycle of Violence is likely to stay active, until some form of acknowledgement and legitimacy is shown to the Palestinian states. As it is mentioned by journalist Zack Beauchamp in an article from Vox :
‘’Epitomized by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government formed in 1992, it believed that Palestinians deserved a political voice as a matter of principle — either in a single state or, more typically, through a two-state arrangement. Such an agreement would sap Palestinian support for violent groups like Hamas by taking away the population’s underlying grievance: the lack of a state to call their own.’’
Although the future is full of surprises, it is doubtful that a resolution of the current conflict will be achieved in the near future.
On the Northern front, Iranian-backed Hezbollah is likely to increase its volume of skirmishes with the IDF. Considering the heightened tensions between Tehran and Tel-Aviv, it is expected that the proxy group will be encouraged to maintain pressure towards Israel, while still being supported by constant shipments of new technological innovations through Syria and the Mediterranean Sea. It is believed that the rise in violence will be taken advantage of by Hezbollah on the Eve of the elections in Lebanon, as a show of strength by the proxy group might guarantee them the support of Lebanese voters. A heightened number of airstrikes from the IAF in Syria is thus to be expected, targeting ports, land transports and warehouses to decrease Iran’s influence and alleviate the grasp of Hezbollah in the region.
No matter what Israel does, it will lose. Zionist empire made a mistake by letting Iran and Hezbollah grow
Actually, the Americans strengthened Iran by overthrowing Saddam.
No lol, Saddam wasn’t going to do anything after that war. He embarrassed his country, then lost his CIA handler because of that poor performance. If Saddam stayed, he would’ve showed to his blind followers he isn’t such a great leader
Soviet Union supported Saddam mostly.
I thought that the sanctions were the reason why iranians started to develop their military capacity by their own. That and the fact that they acknowledged the prejudice against them.
The Zionist parasites know that the clock is literally ticking in Occupied Palestine.
May God stop zionist israel’s evil geo political plans.
When Iran says that there are no limits in its cooperation with Russia, it is speaking the language of provocation. Just as like when someone else says an attack can come at short notice or that the army can be doubled easily or an attack can come at any point. lol Hard to negotiate with all the obfuscation. It is better that people mean what they say.
Take your head outta your Jew arse
Two mistakes in that article.
1 – For the millionth time,the Iron Dome was never built or designed to defend against ballistic missiles with detaching wardheads coming to from the higher atsmophere in hypersonic terminal speeds, its role is subsonic vectors such as slow-flying rockets (not missiles) and mortars. It is not even advertized as anything remotely close to an ABM nor does it even belong to the same discussion. For such weapons, the Arrow ABM would be employed, without even entering the debate of its efficacy , which was anyway put in doubt by none other than its founder himself, Uzi Rubin, against determined strikes from Iranian artillery groups combining both decoys and penetration aids from their olders legacy stocks such as their grossly inaccurate Shabab-3 “city busters” to divert interceptors away and allow for metric precision Dezful, Zulfiqar, Qiam,Emad and Ghadr vectors to do the intended job. In a total, multipronged attack would also come the long range kamikaze drones and LACMs such as the Hoveizeh,a reverse-engineered kh-55 knock-off said to be guided by Tercom,INS and Glonass/Beidou.
2 – Even with additionnal tanker planes, it has been time and again assessed by various veterans and analysts around the world that deep penetration strikes in a country the size of Iran as distant from Israeli airspace in such a daring theoretical long-range endeavor by the IAF, would pose tremendous operationnal constraints on the strike packages which will be detected almost from the onset of its flight by both Russian and Iranian EW assets in Syria and Lebannon, having to refuel in possible contested or at least closely monitored arispace from Iran’s advanced apparatus involving several OTH radars and Long range VHF ones which would have no difficulty spotting a tanker-sized asset and its cathedral-sized signature flying even hundreds of kilometers away from its borders , and would immediatly scramble CAP in tje estimated egress routes aided by GCI data comprised of Russia-modernized Mig-29s of the SMT standard and digitized F-14s with datalink plus Iran’s local variant of the AIM-54 Phoenix,the Fakour-90 with upgraded range and ECCM-capable seeker .
At most the IAF could scramble 80 planes, of which half woukd be needed in the escort role in full A2A configuration,there are 5 major nuclear-related targets to destroy in a single strike in order to preserve the momentum and relative surprise effect at the onset of a war,which leaves less than 20 planes per area. Good luck to them operating far away from their bases with minuscule margin for advanced avoidance and (if it ever gets to WVR) dogfighting manoeuvers facing the combined strenght of the best interceptor squadrons the IRIAF has to offer and their widespread modern,proven and robust multilayered IADS operating from nearby home bases ,and enjoying the full range of options to out-manoeuver and wear down attacking planes flying for hours already to reach Iran’s depths. With such wholly advantageous defensive flight parameters they will be sure to greatly offset their relative obsolescence compared to the Israeli taxpayer-funded super-modern F-16Is and F-35s.
And even assuming the near-impossible scenario of a successful strike, then what becomes of Israel when every bridge,factory,sole nuclear and all electric plants ,refineries and ports are hit with dozens upon dozens of precision-guided ballistic and cruise missiles ? will they consider a bare minimum $100-billion damage pricetag to merely have a chance at temporarily degrading Iran’s ability at reaching its nuclear goals and quitting the NPT altogether as a first response ?
TL;DR – will they be that fucking stupid ?
We always maintain the military option Gryzor, not you and not me can predict how it ends.
However one thing is certain, if Iran and Israel go head on into a full blown war in which Iran also uses their proxies to kill thousands of Israelis, then you can be sure that we will hit Iran with everything we have.
Remember that word – everything.
Short-cocked dune coon sandmutt boast…meanwhile, shitskin hebrews cannot even deal with lebanese dune coons.
Yahweh will have his nuts cut before all the kikeroaches after jerusalem is RAPED AGAIN.
Even though I know I am talking to an ape, I’ll write a comment for others to read too.
You and the rest of the guys here always confuse between political decisions and military ones. The IDF as strong as we are, we can not go 1 meter into Gaza or Lebanon without a direct order from the government. Tens of thousands of us are always ready to engage Hamas and Hezbollah anytime, but that is not our decision.
You wrote you were in Lebanon, still you chose not go and engage IDF units back then. That was a smart choise on your side and a misfortune on our side that you didn’t do it, otherwise we would not have that conversation.
Want round 2?
Kikeroach mongrel sandmutt, I know you are a shitskinned brown wog turd but here’s a newsflash – your generals are aware that sending tanks into an urban zone riddled with underground bunkers is suicide.
Russians tried that with Grozny in 1995 and the world laughs at the arse-raping they got today. I would love nothing more than you brown sandmutt baboons to stupidly enter a kill zone and be shot up into identifiable lumps of kikemeat. It’s your slightly smarter officers preventing you from entering the grave early.
Low IQ knuckle dragging shitskin, I was never in Lebanon. More than happy to fight you on equal footing in Australia and rip your wog eyes right out of their sockets. Hell, I’ll livestream myself sodomizing you with a menorah and castrating you with a butter knife.
Maybe I’ll even send your kike sow whore of a mother your mutilated severed pindick to wear as a necklace.
Sorry, I do not speak a baboon language. I can give you a banana if you be a good ape :-)
And anytime buddy, but as a soldier to a soldier I expect you to face us on the battlefield and that would be even more interesting.
So don’t come to Israel, fly to Lebanon and enter Israel with all your mucho attitude and try killing as many IDF soldiers as you like. Here is your chance, take it!
Don’t be scared of some Hebrews whitey boy :-)
Since I don’t speak your shitskin sandmutt sheepfucker language, I’ll tell you in plain Queen’s English that I’d happily bugger you with that same banana and the muzzle of your own service rifle while castrating you with a blunt razor and stomping your little peas of balls to a pulp.
Who’s scared of a bunch of sandmutt mongrels who escaped the concentration camp LMAO? We’ll brand your personal camp number on your small cock…with a red-hot poker, shitskin hebrew. And elohim your desert dune coon god will play with his yom kippur pussy as it happens.
It is comments like yours that keep me coming back here despite the hasbarabot pestilence. Thank you for thinking and sharing those thoughts.
Why are those countering Is**eli aggression called “axis of resistance” with quote marks?
Is**el is an aggressive apartheid state with 1935 Nuremberg style race laws, it attacks its neighbours almost daily , it possesses WMD´s, it funds and support terror and subversion, is involved in all kinds of international/organized crime including human and organ trafficking.
Wonder how much the author is paid to write this article. I would not put my name on it for money.
This load of pro isrealhell propaganda is clear. Blame Hamas for all …the innocent Zio terrorist Jews, children of Lucifer squatters, does nothing and it’s all Hamas and Iran who threatening …