By Kayode Adebiyi
This round of a potential all-out war between Israel and the Arab World was triggered on October. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants from Gaza fired thousands of rockets into towns and cities in southern Israel.
As reported, the militants broke through the heavily fortified border fence with Israel, killed more than 1,200 people, including civilians and soldiers. As they retreated to too with them took 240 hostages.
It was the first time that Israel faced a direct attack of that scale on its territories since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It dealt an embarrassing blow to Israel’s renowned intelligence system.
Conflict experts say there are many reasons why the attack not only embarrassed but also infuriated Israel.
Firstly, it caught the Israeli forces off guard on the solemn Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret. It occurred under the shadow of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.
Also, the thousands of rockets launched into Israel in 20 minutes distracted the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) while Hamas militants infiltrated the border and captured both civilians and soldiers.
Security experts say probably most embarrassing for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is that the assault echoed and amplified that of Hezbollah in the Lebanon War in 2006.
Netanyahu vow to dismantle and destroy Hamas using “all the power” of the IDF. Indeed, the next day Israel declared a state of war.
The intricacy of any conflict between Israel and its neighbours became yet evident when Hezbollah and the Houthi escalated their attacks on Israel which dated before the October 7 attack.
Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and Houthi, a Yemeni militia that disrupted global shipping by attacking ships in the Red Sea, stepped up a series of confrontations with Israel.
Since then, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon have killed at least seven high-ranking Hezbollah commanders and officials in recent weeks, including the militant group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah.
Unfortunately, as stakeholders work frantically to reach a ceasefire as a precursor for a more sustainable peace deal, Iran launched close to 200 ballistic missiles at Israel in a large-scale attack. It was piqued by the death of Nasrallah.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said the strikes, including the use of hypersonic weapons, were in retaliation for the killings of the leaders of its allies Hezbollah and Hamas.
Middle East conflict experts say, although it is open knowledge that Iran supports Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthi, it was the first time it publicly and directly owned up to such support.
Netanyahu said Iran had made a “big mistake and will pay for it”, prompting experts to warn that the Iranian attack has done nothing but to heighten fears of an all-out regional war further.
The current crisis in the Middle East is not the first one between Israel and its Arab neigbours, therefore world leaders and the international community should avert this looming war.
On May 15, 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war broke out following the declaration of the State of Israel’s independence on May 14, 1948.
The conflict involved Israel and Arab forces from Egypt, Transjordan (now Jordan), Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
The war formally ended with a series of armistice agreements between February and July 1949, although the fighting largely ceased on January 7, 1949.
Eighteen years after the first Arab-Israeli war, Arab and Israeli forces clashed again between June 5 and 10, 1967, in what came to be called the Six-Day War.
The Six-Day War started after intensified bombardment of Israeli villages from positions in the Golan Heights.
The Israeli Air Force responded by shooting down six Syrian MiG fighter jets.
By the time the war ended, Israel had driven back Syrian forces from the Golan Heights, took control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and drove Jordanian forces from the West Bank.
The 1973 Yom Kippur War broke out after sporadic after sporadic fighting that followed the Six-Day War.
On Oct. 6, 1973, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur Israel was caught off guard by Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal and by Syrian forces crossing into the Golan Heights.
The Arab armies showed greater aggressiveness and fighting ability than in the previous wars, and the Israeli forces suffered heavy casualties.
The fighting lasted through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and only came to an end on Oct. 26, 1973.
On March 26, 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty formally ending the state of war that had existed between the two countries for 30 years.
Under the terms of the treaty, which had resulted from the Camp David Accords signed in 1978, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, and, in return, Egypt recognised Israel’s right to exist.
On June 5, 1982, less than six weeks after Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Sinai, increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians resulted in the Israeli bombing of Beirut and southern Lebanon.
Considered a stronghold of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the organisaton evacuated the city under the supervision of a multinational force following massive Israeli shelling of west Beirut.
However, Hezbollah, a militant group that formed as a militia to resist the Israeli invasion in 1982, continued to engage in a guerrilla campaign against Israeli forces until they withdrew fully in May 2000.
Even after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah continued to press Israel over border disputes and Israel’s detention of Lebanese prisoners.
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets into northern Israel, killing several Israeli soldiers and capturing two others in an attempt to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese prisoners.
Israel retaliated by launching an offensive into Lebanon to recover the captured soldiers, and later a ground offensive that aimed to push Hezbollah away from the Israeli-Lebanese border.
By the time the conflict ended on Aug. 14, 2006, the abducted Israeli soldiers remained in Hezbollah’s custody.
Their remains were later exchanged through UN-brokered negotiations in 2008 and the handling of the war was heavily criticised by the Israeli public.
In September, UN human rights Chief, Volker Turk, said major Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank were taking place “at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades”.
UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, also condemned what he referred to as the “broadening conflict in the Middle East”.
However, beyond the rhetoric, the world must prevent another Arab-Israeli war. (NANFeatures)
