Experts and analysts said that Israel’s talk about a third phase of the war on the Gaza Strip is an escape from military failure, while their opinions differed about Iran’s response and its possible location to the assassination of its prominent military advisor in Syria.
Israeli affairs expert Dr. Muhannad Mustafa believes that the occupation’s talk about a new phase in the Gaza war is an escape forward after failing to achieve the goals, and an attempt to reduce popular pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu’s government due to the losses of the occupation army.
The expert adds that the rate of dead officers in the ranks of the Israeli army is the highest in the history of the Tel Aviv wars, noting that Israel hopes that the new phase of the war will reduce the burden of the economic repercussions and the cost of calling up reserve soldiers, and it also comes within the framework of Netanyahu’s tendency to prolong the duration of the war.
He indicated that Netanyahu presented in an article his vision for a political solution through three points: These are: eliminating the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), turning Gaza into a demilitarized zone, and educating the Palestinians about the so-called “love of life,” which in practice means a long occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli media reported that the Israeli army is preparing to move to the third phase of the fighting in Gaza in the coming weeks, which includes “ending the ground maneuver in the Gaza Strip, reducing forces, demobilizing reserve soldiers, resorting to concentrated air strikes, and establishing a buffer zone on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.” Gaza”.
In turn, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Dr. Khalil Al-Anani, said that there is an Israeli-American disagreement over the form of the war, its duration, and the post-war phase, as Netanyahu rejects the return of the Palestinian Authority, contrary to Washington’s wishes.
However, Al-Anani asserts that electoral calculations pushed US President Joe Biden to blindly follow Netanyahu and surrender to his tendencies, especially since the former is weak and shaky despite his desire to end the war as quickly as possible.
For his part, the military and strategic expert, Major General Fayez Al-Duwairi, explains that there are no real separations between the stages of the Gaza war, and these stages that are being talked about are not consistent with the standards taught in military institutes. Because certain goals have not been achieved to move on to others.
He added that the fighting in the northern Gaza Strip is still continuing, and what actually happened separated the ground operation before the temporary truce and after it, by starting a ground phase in Khan Yunis in the south, believing that the perception revolves around the shape of the war in the next phase.
Mousavi’s assassination
Regarding the repercussions of the assassination of Radhi Mousavi, one of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ advisors in Syria, Dr. Muhannad said that there is a kind of Israeli reassurance given the history of the conflict with Iran, expecting the response to be via “Iran’s arms,” likely to intensify the confrontations on the northern front between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah. .
But Al-Anani believes that Tehran may use the Yemeni front as it is softer and more vital than the fronts of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, especially in light of the movements of the Ansar Allah Houthi group in the Red Sea, and the pursuit of ships heading to Israeli ports.
In turn, military expert Fayez Al-Duwairi said that the killing of the Iranian advisor will not cast a large shadow on the current reality, recalling the liquidation operations that took place against Iranian generals and others inside Syria, and the Iranian responses were not up to the level of statements.
