The Gaza Strip, Who Is Involved?

October 10th, 2023

In a bit of a departure for me, I am going to comment on non-UK happenings and offer some opinions rather than my usual objective comments in my letters.

The Gaza incursion was an act of unbelievable barbarism and will require high degrees of diplomatic skill to determine appropriate responses from world leaders. I have seen Nanaia Mahuta’s statement and find it unbelievable. I can’t help but think that if Winston Peters were Minister of Foreign Affairs New Zealand’s response would have been handled far better.

I have a little knowledge of the Middle East. My uncle was one of the first troops into Belsen and my father was with the British troops in Palestine/Israel in 1946. He was there when the King David Hotel was bombed by Irgun. As a family, we were aware of the Middle East’s issues and not afraid to discuss them.

During Covid, I had an assignment carried out by Zoom, with clients in Beirut. Again, this gave me a little bit of extra perspective.

In an amazing piece of irony

Beginning with a detonation from what appeared to be an anti-tank guided missile, members of Hamas’s special forces – Nukhba – quickly moved to secure entrances to the complex and to the access gate used by the Israeli military to enter Gaza during incursions, engaging Israeli forces in their watchtowers set into the wall. The aim of militants at Erez and other key locations along the Gaza border, as has become clear since Hamas launched its murderous rampage through southern Israel, was to decapitate the ability of Israel’s security forces to communicate with each other.

Communication disruption straight from the Ukrainians’ playbook?

Hamas had spent months if not years gathering intelligence on Israeli operations along the border, perhaps including during the Gaza border protests four years ago.

Source The Guardian 9 October 2023.

This viewpoint was also communicated to me by an acquaintance who is a retired Mossad officer and who also has strong relationships with the Russian Oligarch community in the UK. It was suggested that Russia and Iran are somewhere in the background and, whilst not directly involved in the execution of Hamas’s plans, were certainly assisting with the development of the strategy and formulation of the plan. What would Iran and Russia get from this? Iran would benefit from the disruption of the talks to improve relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia (and other Middle East states following). Russia would be cementing relations with Iran and ensuring a continuing supply of weapons for its use against Ukraine.

Russia would benefit from the Middle East situation putting pressure on the USA and giving it two conflicts to address – Ukraine and Gaza. What is gradually emerging are further details of Iran’s involvement, supporting the development of similar cells encircling Israel. The purpose of the Hamas incursion was, as well as being a stand-alone incursion, a test run for the principle of the cell organisation.

There are calls for negotiations from the likes of the United Nations, but these ignore one simple fact: Iran, like Russia, regards goodwill and negotiations from the West as signs of weakness and has to be dealt with as such (Thanks Obama). If they are involved in any way, then Hamas will not negotiate any settlement or agreement in good faith and cannot be trusted to keep to the terms of any agreement.

The Times of Israel contained details of a prescient speech by David Barnea, head of Mossad.

Mossad Director David Barnea on Sunday warned Iran’s leaders that they would pay a direct price if Israelis or Jews are harmed in what he said was an ongoing, significantly stepped-up, state-organized Iranian terror effort worldwide.

He said the terror campaign was being carried out in accordance with a “political directive by the leader” — an apparent reference to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — and threatened the Iranian leadership in response.

“Fortunately for Iran, their terror efforts have been thwarted,” he said. “Why fortunately for them? Because thus far we have only got to the operatives and those who dispatched them.” If Israelis or Jews are harmed, however, he warned, Israel’s response would go all the way to “the highest echelon.”

In an extensive speech highlighting the dangers posed by the Iranian regime, and Israel’s determination to thwart those dangers, Barnea also said that Israel was concerned about Russia selling advanced weaponry to Iran that could pose an existential threat to Israel.

We are witnessing a significant increase in attempts to harm Jews and Israelis around the world, and we are working even now at this very moment to follow Iranian and proxy squads to prevent them from killing Jews and Israelis around the world,” Barnea went on.

He said that “the time has come to exact a price from Iran in a different way,” and elaborated: “Harming Israelis and Jews in any way — by proxy, by Iranians, or by Iranian weapons smuggled into Israel — will lead to activity against the Iranians who sent the terrorists and also against the decision-makers, from the ground operators to the commanders who approved the operation, to the highest echelon, and I mean that,” he said.

“These prices will be exacted with great precision in the depths of Iran, in the heart of Tehran,” Barnea warned.

“The Iranian regime no longer has no room for denial and, above all, it has no immunity,” he vowed.

“Our message is loud, clear and determined: To those who have decided to dispatch the [terror] cells, be sure that we will get to you, and that justice will be done and seen to be done,” said Barnea. “This has been proven in the past, and it will be stepped up a level in the future. This is state terror: To be clear, we are talking about a political directive by the leader. The funding is by the state. And the planning and operations are carried by the state’s security and intelligence hierarchies.”

Iranian-Russian threat

Turning to Iranian-Russian cooperation, Barnea said Iran had intentions to provide Russia with short- and long-range missiles in addition to the UAVs that it sold to the Russian military for its invasion of Ukraine.

Amid the ongoing invasion, which began in February 2022, Russia has been using the Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone, after it received delivery of hundreds of units from Tehran, despite Western nations warning Iran against exporting the weapon.

Attempts by Iran to also provide Russia with missiles amid the war were foiled, Barnea said, without elaborating further. “I have a feeling that more deals will be foiled soon.”
“Our fear is that the Russians will transfer to the Iranians in return what they lack, advanced weapons that will certainly endanger our peace and maybe even our existence here,” Barnea said.

Source, Times of Israel 10th September 2023.

I don’t make forecasts, but this will only get worse, with Israel’s response going beyond the Gaza Strip. I would think that there will be incursions into Iran which may well have an impact on the Russia/Ukraine war. It also seems that one of the tasks of the US carrier force deployed to the eastern Mediterranean is an intelligence-gathering exercise. There are intense political discussions taking place in Israel as to what the actual response will be.