Is the Israel-Hamas war going to spread into the wider Middle East? | DW Analysis

Is the Israel-Hamas war going to spread into the wider Middle East? | DW Analysis

The Middle East is a powder kick after the killing of a top Hamas official in Beirut the strike against the militant group in Lebanon is Raising fears that the war between Hamas and Israel could spread throughout the region on Tuesday Sala ruri Hamas Deputy political leader

And six others died in a strike on an apartment building in a Beirut suburb Lebanese officials and Hamas blamed the attack on Israel and while the chief of Israel’s Assad intelligence service vowed on Wednesday to hunt down every Hamas member involved in the October 7th attack the Israeli government won’t

Confirm or deny it was behind the strike the aftermath of a deadly strike in the heart of Lebanon one of hamas’s most senior figures was killed by an explosion in this apartment building in the suburbs of Beirut Salah alarri was Deputy to hamas’s political leader Ismael hanaya and a founder of the

Group’s military Wing the alasan brigades Hamas is designated as a terrorist group by the US and EU among others and alarri was on a US terrorist list he had spent years in Israeli prisons at the time of his death Al aruri was living in Lebanon as hamas’s kazon with the Lebanese militant group

Hezbollah Al aruri also headed up hamas’s presence in the occupied West Bank and his hometown was rala Palestinians in the West Bank held a general strike following the news of his death today we’re on strike because yesterday the hero and leader Salah Al arui was mared

He is a good son of Palestine who sacrificed himself for the Palestinian cause Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike officials generally do not comment in operations outside of Israel and the Palestinian territories but Israeli officials had previously vowed to hunt down Hamas leaders wherever they

Are for Lebanon the strike on Beirut is seen as a violation of its territory the Lebanese prime minister called it an attempt to pull his country into Israel’s war with Hamas Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging near daily fire along the Lebanese Israeli border since the War Began this strike deep in Lebanese

Territory has raised concerns of a major retaliation from Hezbollah that would see the war spread far out across Israel’s northern border let’s bring in Daniel bman he’s a senior fellow at the center of strategic and international studies and a professor at Georgetown University good

To see you good to have you on the day now Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in aru’s killing but they’re widely believed to be behind the strike how would it fit into their strategy in this war so Israel has long gone after linkages between Hamas and outside

Sponsors whether it’s Iran or hisb so this predates October 7th but of course after the October 7th attacks Israel is redoubling or or much more its efforts to destroy all of hamas’s leadership and particularly important for Israel is destroying the connections outside Gaza that have made the group so strong will

It do much to weaken Hamas though so any individual can be replaced but part of what Israel is trying to do is do a sustained series of attacks that make it hard foras to generate its entire leadership it’s a bit like the difference between one boss leaving at organization and an entire leadership

Resigning so Israel’s hope is to put enough pressure on the group that its leadership collapses now there are fears of this leading to the conflict spiraling further out of control and spilling over into into Lebanon why would Israel Target Sal even at the danger of the conflict escalating even further as a result

So Israel has calculated that this is if you will within the acceptable boundaries of its conflict with hisb and these organizations his Bala in Israel have gone back and forth over the years and actually pretty carefully defined where an attack is escal escalatory where it is not and Israel believes that

This individual is important enough and such important link that it’s worth the risk in escalation but also it probably believes that this will not cause a major escal relation with his now that you you mention that Hezbollah leader Hassan nzala talked today about retaliation but in very

Vague terms how confident do you think is Israel that the Palestinian issue won’t be a make or break topic for the Shia axes not only including of course Hezbollah and Lebanon but also their backers in Iran so there’s been such a back and forth sense of October 7th with his

Balah in particular that this is an organization that Israel has hit hard has killed over 100 hisbah members since October 7th so killing a Palestinian someone who’s not a member of the group even though he’s close to hisbah is probably not going to put uh this group

Over the edge and we’ll continue to see the the very deadly back and forth but the limited back and forth Washington had a $5 million bounty on aori at the same time the Biden Administration is of course Keen to prevent Regional escalation what is the view in Washington of this

Killing so I I can’t speak for the Biden Administration but this is someone the United States has long saw as very dangerous as someone who makes terrorist groups far more capable and I suspect there’ll be few tears shed in Washington over his death let’s turn to the war in Gaza

Where does Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas stand right now so Israel has made fairly steady progress in its effort against Hamas but at huge cost Gaza of course is you know incredibly uh incredible state of Destruction um around 22,000 Palestinian deaths many of them civilians including children and so Israel has hurt hamas’s

Military organization and hurt his leadership but it has a long way to go and the price has been very heavy you were just in Israel and you’ve talked to to many players there um but I’d like to know how far you think the Israeli establishment is prepared to try

Especially American patience when it comes to persecuting a war that is claiming so many civilian casualties among Palestinians so Israel for its own political reasons its own strategic reasons is very committed to destroying Hamas and prime minister Dan yahu has talked about this war lasting many more

Months as have military leaders uh but there heavy pressure on Israel from the biding Administration and they recognize the importance of American diplomatic support the necessity of American Military Support and so we’re already seeing some steps to reduce the scale and the scope of conflict and I think

There’ll be further measures to limit the war further measures to increase humanitarian support for Gaza so I think we’re likely to see the war continue but at a lower Pace in the coming months to what extent um drawing from your experience now having been in post October 7 Israel is Israel’s strategy in

Gaza motivated by the need to rebuild the faith in their security forces so that’s a big challenge for Israel is uring that its own people trust their government to protect them and part of that is very visibly destroying Hamas which is an exceptionally difficult task but it’s very much well shaping Israeli strategy

Are they in a position to do all of that so Israel can do part of this but certainly not all of it um it will need to sustain a military campaign for many months which it’s unlikely to be able to do due to diplomatic pressure and its

Own limits um so Israel is trying to juggle bu of competing priorities and its best bet is probably to hit Hamas hard which is doing but it’s not going to be able to destroy it so what is the best case scenario scario then for for Israel and and how

Long a campaign are we are we looking at here then because the stated goal is to destroy Hamas in my view the best case scenario for Israel is a weaker Hamas with while avoiding Regional war with hisbah while minimizing or reducing the incredible damage to Palestinian civilian Society

In Gaza um Israel has a chance at succeed at these more limited goals but it requires recognizing that it won’t be able to destroy Hamas completely uh but also um this is going to be a sustained campaign in that even if Israel reduces the war there’ll still be lots of raids

In Gaza there’ll still be assassination of Hamas leaders so when we talk about war or peace in my view it’s not going to be one or the other but rather the level of conflict between Israel and Hamas that we’re likely to see and for more on this I’m now joined by our

Middle East analyst shie rosan shanie good to have you back with us now um lebanon’s Hezbollah militia which is allied with Hamas and backed by Iran has vowed that this killing will not go unpunished Hassan nasrala the head of Hezbollah is talking right now as we speak what do you make of hezbollah’s

Reaction to all of this so far well the attack yesterday was actually an attempt to test the bond between hasbalah and Hamas um we know for example that the attack on October 7th was not coordinated between Hamas and his balah and Iran their backers so in a way

Israel though it’s not it’s not officially confirming that it’s denying it’s it’s a you know but Israel was trying to test that Bond and so what we’re seeing now is that the response that the bet that Israel was saying we know that hasbalah would respond very uh

Harshly if we had done anything directly to hisbah connected to tobala or Lebanese targets but now we are attacking Hamas and we feel that this is going to be something that can somehow contain the response in the last 24 hours have shown us that in that aspect

So far they’re correct we’ve seen very little you know there’s been back and forth along the border as we’ve seen almost every day for the last 90 days so nothing new on that front no nothing extreme no breaking of the uh the rules so of conduct between these two sides

Today so so far we’ve seen a very calm response we will see Nala also now speaking over 40 minutes not yet even reaching this topic so obviously the uh theala australa they want to make them send a message um we are not hysteric about this we are taking the time to

Choose when and how uh to to respond attentions are high and fears are that this might lead to a widening of the conflict would you say that those fears from what you can assess right now are Justified well yesterday there was a big big fear of that and it was coming

Exactly at the timing that the Gerald for Ford carrier the American uh carrier that was parking in the Mediterranean was actually leaving the region after almost 90 days so so uh obviously if the Americans assess that it’s safe to leave uh maybe it’s a good sign that was

Happening that decision was taken before this assassination still we did not see make a U-turn um we feel again so so far we see the response is quite calm it’s quite moderate um hasbalah is very cautious with bringing damage to Beirut to Lebanon U for the cause of Palestine

Palestinians and Hamas um and so there will be a response I think there’s no doubt about it but the grand escalation we expected maybe to see immediately that’s not happening not yet at least what effect do you think a RIS killing could have on the war in Gaza and also

The negotiations to get the hostages back well this is Hamas you know this is a direct attack on one of hamas’s leading operatives um Hamas is considered a terror organization by many countries around the world so they do not find themselves bound to any specific rules of conduct they will

Choose how and when to respond but we’ve seen them quite weak in their response so far because they’re Limited in Gaza they’re under strong you know uh oppression by the Israeli military in the West Bank uh Israeli military has been very hardly uh pushing down and impressing on that so they have very

Little room for maneuver for response there when it comes to the refu hostages this is their only key this is what they say they immediately stop any talks about the release and they say they will not resume that anytime soon um Israel tried points to the fact that Qatar did

Not officially uh withdraw from the talks on the hostages as a good sign of maybe there’s still hope to save something there and also the fact that aruri the man who was assassinated was considered to be one of the hawkish sound voices in Hamas hoping that maybe his removal will allow some more

Flexibility within Hamas ranks in the long run Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement in all of this but Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of the mosad have said time and again they will hunt down the people who were responsible for October 7th no matter

Where they are so why then are we not seeing a clearer statement by Israel on what we saw yesterday you know it’s always this uh you know back and forth very gentle game of deterrence and you know Israel is is according to many reports being very active in Damascus

And in other parts of Syria in Lebanon uh sometimes also on Iranian grounds of course nothing of that is ever confirmed because Israel is not you know because then it’s a direct attack on on another sovereign country here Beirut is the capital of Lebanon so they don’t want to

Be clearly announcing we’ve been that bold in making that um in making that also specifically again because of the very uh tense um move that they’re trying to manipulate here between Hamas and their backers Nala they actually like keeping it vague this is a policy Israel is sticking to for many many

Years for Century hundreds of years several uh sorry when we talk about for example Israeli not admitting to the day that they have a nuclear attack uh nuclear weapons nuclear capabilities something the world clearly sees as you know and and Israel has Israel is still refusing to do that it’s part of Israeli

Policy to sustain uh some more of its defense they feel and deterrence by keeping it vague and for more Sami s joins us now he has been following the story for us from Jerusalem Sami High there there are concerns about the Israel Hamas war from spilling over from where we stand today

Do you believe this could lead to a larger War well definitely that danger exists uh but I think it’s still early to tell at this stage whether this is something that is imminent whether this is something that will happen I think it will also uh depend on the International

Community but I think we should also listen to what n was saying in his speech today in beut uh because he was saying that ER his organization will retaliate and then he said that following this retaliation if Israel will wage a war then then hisbah will wage an open war

Against Israel and use long range missiles Etc that means he doesn’t see this yet as a wage of a war against against Lebanon so that means that we still have to see how Israel would respond to a hisbah retaliation whe whether Israel would accept some kind of

A a retaliation so we have here a dynamic that we still have to examine so far what we’ve seen here on the ground between Lebanon and a and Israel is more of the same there was exchange of fire throughout the day but this is like more

Of the same we haven’t seen it kind of like going into a a different phase yet Palestinians in the West West Bank were on strike today there were demonstrations against the killing of arui as well how tense is the situation there yeah the situation is tense uh Not

Only was the general strike that was called uh by the national and the Islamic forces that means all the political factions in the West Bank they called for this strike and what we we saw is not only the flags of Hamas but also the the the Palestinian flag

And Beyond this kind of like Express of support with the aruri and condemnation of Israel we’ve also seen an Israeli military campaign in tarim both they have two refugee camps the tar refugee camps andam refugee camp and over there there have been arrests and so forth so we still see also kind

Of like a tension that is continuing in the West Bank that was s so cool thank you so [Applause] much

The strike against the militant group in Lebanon is raising fears that the war between Hamas and Israel could spread throughout the region. Hamas has been classified as a terror organization by multiple entities. On Tuesday, Saleh Arouri — Hamas’ deputy political leader — and six others died in a strike on an apartment building in a Beirut suburb. Lebanese officials and Hamas blame the attack on Israel. And while the chief of Israel’s Mossad Intelligence Service vowed on Wednesday to hunt down every Hamas member involved in the October 7 terror attack, the Israeli government won’t confirm or deny it was behind the strike.

Chapters:
0:00 Beirut strike
2:56 Daniel Byman, Director, Security Studies Program, Georgetown University
9:57 Shani Rozanes, DW Middle East Analyst
15:13 Sami Sockol, Journalist

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