JERUSALEM — When a unusually heavy rocket series attacked Israel from Lebanon this week, it is the latest reminder of the longstanding animosity between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that dominates Lebanon’s southern border.
But according to analysts and military officials, it also adds a new and dangerous dimension to the conflict: It reflects the growing partnership between Hezbollah and Hamas, the hard-line Palestinian militia. snake that the Israeli military alleges orchestrated the missile attacks, likely with the support of Hezbollah. blessing.
Hamas, a political, social and military movement founded in 1987, has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, after wresting it from the Palestinian mainstream leadership. Since then, Israel has been at war with Israel regularly, often firing rockets into southern Israel from Gaza. Hamas fighters have also carried out gun attacks and bombings inside the occupied West Bank and Israel, like the United States, considers it a terrorist organization and as a result maintains the blockade of Gaza.
Now, Hamas is accused of armed activity in the fourth arena – Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Lebanon.
Hamas praised but did not officially claim responsibility for Thursday’s missile attacks from Lebanon, which came after Israeli police raid Aqsa . Mosque in Jerusalem earlier this week. A spokesman for the group, Basem Naim, declined to comment when asked about it.
But the Israeli military announced that Hamas special forces, possibly in cooperation with another militia, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, fired rockets from near the southern Lebanese city of Tire. The area is home to thousands of Palestinian exiles whose ancestors fled to during the wars surrounding the establishment of Israel in 1948.
Hamas’s suspected involvement reflects the organization’s strengthened ties to Hezbollah and its sponsor, Iran, both of which oppose Israel’s existence. The warming of those ties follows a period of chilling relations more than a decade ago, when groups supported different sides in Syria’s civil war. Hamas, a Sunni Muslim group, backs the Sunni militia that rebelled against the government, while Iran and Hezbollah – both Shia movements – sided with the Syrian government.
But last year, Hamas mended ties with Damascus – and in a new sign of coordination, militants in Syria’s government-controlled area fired short salvoes of rockets towards Israel early Sunday morning, causing Israel to shoot back in a short time.
The rocket fire from Lebanon also shows that Hamas is trying to find a way to maintain the conflict with Israel without causing further damage to its stronghold in Gaza. Hamas’ repeated wars with Israel over the past two decades have resulted in Israeli attacks that have devastated much of the territory and killed thousands of Palestinians.
Israel-Palestinian violence on the rise
A recent spate of violence in Israel and the West Bank has raised concerns that tensions could further escalate.
By firing at Israel from Lebanon, experts say Hamas could deflect attention from Gaza, reducing the possibility of a major Israeli retaliation on the territory. Although Israel responded to the rockets from Lebanon by briefly bombing Hamas infrastructure in Gaza as well as southern Lebanon, the Israeli attacks stayed away from major urban centers and did not cause any harm. any reported injuries.
Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Palestinian affairs at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank based in Berlin, said Hamas “wants to confront Israel, but not in Gaza”. “The recent rocket fire from Lebanon is another attempt by Hamas to open another front against Israel, which has been trying to keep Gaza out of the equation.”
The arrangement also suits Hezbollah, Lovatt said, as it allows the group to increase pressure on Israel without triggering massive retaliation against its own forces. The missiles were “a useful reminder to Israel of Hezbollah’s continued destructive capacity,” he said. However, it still offers a fair bit of disclaimer.
A senior Hamas official in Lebanon dismissed the idea that the group had recently increased its presence in Lebanon. Osama Hamdan, a longtime leader of Hamas in Lebanon, said in a phone interview that relations with Hezbollah have always been warm and declined to talk about Hamas’ military capabilities in Lebanon.
“We are fighting the same enemy,” Hamdan said of Hezbollah. “This relationship dates back more than 30 years, one based on respect and resistance to Zionist occupation. We feel that Hezbollah is by the side of the Palestinian people and that the relationship is always positive.”
But Israeli analysts and officials say Hamas has become closer to Hezbollah in recent years and more active in Lebanon, a process accelerated after Saleh al’s October 2017 election -Arouri as vice president of the political office of Hamas.
Later that month, Arouri began strengthening ties with both Iran and Hezbollah, visiting Tehran to meet the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. A few days later, he publicly met the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, and discussed how their movements could work together, according to Palestinian news reports at the time.
Arouri soon began expanding Hamas’ paramilitary infrastructure in Lebanon, but not necessarily with Hezbollah’s full awareness, according to two unnamed intelligence officials briefed on the matter to comply. protocol player. Soon after, in January 2018, Israel unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate one of Arouri’s key aides in Lebanon with a car bomb, officials said.
Hamas’ cooperation with Hezbollah creates a growing sense of danger along the Israel-Lebanon border. Since fighting an all-out war in 2006Both Israel and Hezbollah avoided another major confrontation along the border, keeping cross-border fire and infiltration to a minimum. Instead, the most direct confrontations between the two sides take place in Syria, where Israel regularly attack targets affiliated with Hezbollah.
But in recent weeks, Hezbollah has shown less fear of a broader armed confrontation. Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, recently said he believes Israel is on the verge of collapse, referring to a political crisis in Israel over a proposed judicial overhaul that has increased divisions in society. Israel Association.
Then, in an unusually daring attack last month, a man Israeli officials say may have ties to Hezbollah secretly entered Israel from Lebanon and put a roadside bomb seriously injured an Israeli citizen.
But Hamas may still want to avoid participating too closely or too often in such attacks, according to Imad Alsoos, a Hamas expert at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, a German research institute.
During the 1970s and 1980s, earlier generations of Palestinian militants used Lebanon as a launch pad for attacks on Israel, prompting Israel to occupy parts of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000, a move that was approved Many consider it a disaster. Israeli briefly invaded again in 2006 in its war with Hezbollah, which filled the power vacuum left by Israel when it withdrew six years earlier.
Hamas leaders believe that Palestinian militias ultimately hindered their cause by getting too involved in Lebanon’s internal dynamics during the Lebanese civil war of the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. , citing conversations with Hamas officials. Alsoos said leaders from Hamas’ main secular rival, Fatah, were eventually forced out of Lebanon and Jordan during that period, a situation that Hamas leaders wanted to avoid repeating.
“They are very, very sensitive about using other countries’ land to launch attacks,” Mr. Alsoos said. “They think that if they get involved in the internal conflicts of these countries, this will be the end of Hamas itself.”
Patrick Kingsley reported from Jerusalem, Ronen Bergman from Tel Aviv, and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon. Hiba Yazbek contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
