Tension across the Middle East is spreading as the Arab-Israeli conflict enters what one expert calls “extremely dangerous waters”.
Almost 50 years to the day after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, Israel has once again been hit hard by a surprise attack.
, has also asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose newly formed unity government is widely expected to launch a ground invasion into the Gaza Strip in the coming days, to take steps to avoid civilian casualties. But he cast some doubts on the idea the Hamas attack was in close coordination with Iran. The need for secrecy, he says, to maintain the element of surprise, argues against that.
He says Israel is prepared for a two-front war and has rapidly moved troops and equipment to the Galilee. There have already been artillery exchanges across the Israel-Lebanon frontier, although both sides appear so far to be attempting to contain the hostilities. Israel rarely acknowledges or discusses attacks it conducts in Syria. But it has carried out hundreds of strikes inside government-controlled regions in recent years, often targeting installations it says are tied to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and allied militia groups.Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the conflict by phone with President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran, in what Riyadh depicted as an effort to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.
Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based non resident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs, said if war broke out with Hezbollah, Israel would have to commit a sizeable number of ground forces for an incursion deep into Lebanon at the inevitable cost of high combat casualties.
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