Israel-Hamas War pushing the Middle East to a regional war

At one point in December last year, it looked like Israel could finally be compelled to cease its atrocities in the Gaza Strip, pressured by the mounting international scrutiny, and more significantly, the potential decline of support from its biggest ally, the United States. 

This was when Washington began placing pressure on Israel to withdraw from what President Joe Biden had characterised as "indiscriminate bombing" and ratchet down the devastating civilian casualties.

Nonetheless, at the turn of the new year, things took a turn for the worse. With the Israel-Hamas conflict reaching the three-month mark on 7 January and the death toll among Palestinians exceeding 22,000 already, it appears that rather than witnessing a sustainable ceasefire, the region is teetering on the brink of a wider war across the Middle East and beyond.

This new chapter of uncertainty unfolded with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealing in a New Year's message on 31 December that it was expecting the conflict in Gaza to continue throughout 2024.

In the statement, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari added that the Israeli military was making adjustments to its deployment of troops in the Gaza Strip.

This statement more or less sets the tone for what to expect in the new year regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict. The complexity however grew manifold after consecutive attacks in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq and the warnings of tougher action against Houthi rebels in Yemen backed by a dozen nations.  

On 2 January, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri was killed in a drone strike in Lebanon's capital Beirut. Even though Israeli officials refrained from confirming or denying any role in the assassination of al-Arouri, the assassination received widespread acclaim in Israel.

Israel vowed after the sudden attack by Hamas on 7 October to hunt down Hamas leaders wherever they are, and al-Arouri is so far the highest-ranking Hamas official to be killed since then. 

"Without doubt, this was the most significant assassination of any senior Hamas official since the war began on 7 October," wrote Palestinian affairs expert Avi Issacharoff in the Tel Aviv-based newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Until his demise, al-Arouri was considered a key player for Hamas, masterminding its operations in the West Bank from exile in Syria, Turkey, Qatar and finally Lebanon after long stints in Israeli prisons.

He was also named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US Treasury Department in 2015, offering a $5 million reward for information about him. 

Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that with Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri assassination, "he can provide to the Israeli public an image of victory, which is not true," said senior Palestinian politician, Mustafa Barghouti.

"In reality, he is risking a total explosion of the region. But Netanyahu doesn't care, not only about Palestinian lives, he doesn't care even about Israeli lives. All he wants is the extension of this war for as long as possible to save himself from losing the position of the Prime Minister and going to jail eventually," Barghouti added.

Meanwhile, over the past few days since al-Arouri's death, Israeli forces intensified their bombing of the Gaza Strip and told civilians to leave a refugee camp in the north of the Palestinian enclave.

The reasoning behind this move may be that Israel also knows that only targeted killings cannot win the war. These could merely be a tactic to thwart the opposition's plans, disrupt the leadership of various factions and demonstrate that Mossad's long arm can reach Israel's enemies anywhere on Earth.

However, it doesn't look like al-Arouri's death will be a debilitating blow to an organisation like Hamas, which has rebounded again and again from the murder of its leaders. Hence, the death of a certain individual is not expected to affect the group much, as Hamas always maintains a hierarchy and replacements usually go fairly easily.

Instead, one thing is for sure - Hamas will not take this loss lightly. Going forward, they too will likely adopt a more aggressive stance against Israel, currently waging a shattering air and ground offensive against the group. 

"We are highly prepared for any scenario," Daniel Hagari said after al-Arouri's killing.

But that will be far from easy for Israel. Inside and across the border of Lebanon, Hamas will be heavily aided by Hezbollah.

Notably, leading up to this attack, Hezbollah had conducted limited attacks along the border between Israel and Lebanon. These attacks were designed to demonstrate support for Hamas and tie down Israeli forces in the North, but Hezbollah has refrained from any attacks that are likely to provoke a full Israeli counterattack.

However, the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously warned that any assassinations in Lebanon would be met with a strong response, and a day after the al-Arouri killing, he made it clear that Israel would "not go unpunished."

Additionally, al-Arouri's killing could drive the other exiled Hamas leaders deeper into hiding, impeding efforts to negotiate further Gaza ceasefires and hostage releases.

In the meantime, on 3 January, another pair of explosions at a memorial for Iran's former top general, Qassim Suleimani, killed at least 103 people and injured more than 200. Soleimani was perceived as the most powerful figure in Iran after Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, before he was killed in a US drone strike in neighbouring Iraq in 2020.

Though the Islamic State on 4 January took responsibility for what is believed to have been the deadliest such attack in Iran in 42 years, Iran's officials had initially attributed blame to the two countries Tehran has long cast as archenemies: Israel and the US.

"Washington says USA and Israel had no role in the terrorist attack in Kerman, Iran. Really? A fox smells its own lair first," the Iranian president's political deputy, Mohammad Jamshidi wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"Make no mistake. The responsibility for this crime lies with the US and Zionist regimes (Israel) and terrorism is just a tool," he added.

A few hours after the tragedy, crowds gathered at the Martyrs Cemetery in Kerman chanting "Death to Israel" and "Death to America," underscoring the people's perception of these entities as their true adversaries.

Furthermore, in the preceding week, Iran had charged Israel with the killing of another senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer — and Soleimani's former colleague — Seyyed Razi Mousavi, in Syria.

On 4 January, the US military killed a high-ranking commander of an Iran-backed militia in Iraq's central Baghdad. 

The deceased Mushtaq Taleb al-Saidi, also known as Abu Taqwa, served as a commander in Harakat al-Nujaba, which is close to Iran's Revolutionary Guards. 

Earlier, the US military had also carried out retaliatory air strikes on Iraqi military positions on 25 December that killed one serviceman and wounded 18 people.

Still, a US attack inside Iraq is out of the ordinary these days, as Iraq is hosting the US forces. An Iraqi government spokesman called the most recent US strike a "flagrant violation of the sovereignty and security of Iraq," and  "no different from a terrorist act."

Turkey may also play a pivotal role in the coming days. Unlike the United Kingdom, the US and the European Union, it does not categorise Hamas as a terrorist organisation, and for years it has maintained ties with Hamas leadership even hosting some of its members on Turkish soil.

Turkey's President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issued a warning last month to Israel that it would be "doomed to pay a heavy price" if it tried to assassinate members of Hamas on Turkish soil.

Even as recently as 2 January, before al-Arouri's killing, Turkish authorities detained 34 people suspected of links to Mossad and with plans to attack Palestinians living in Turkey.

And if all these were not enough proof of the Middle East sliding closer to the edge of a wider regional conflict, Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant recently spoke of seven theatres from where Israel was "under attack," namely Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria [an Israeli term for the West Bank], Iraq, Yemen and Iran.

Without specifying, he claimed in the last week of December they had "already responded and taken action in six of these theatres." 

Additionally, a dozen nations, including the US, warned the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen on 3 January, of unspecified consequences if it continued to attack shipping in the Red Sea, one of the world's busiest commercial routes.

The warning — also signed by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands — stopped short of threatening military strikes.  The US forces on the last day of 2023 also sank three boats belonging to Houthi rebels in the Red Sea.

The Houthis, however, had earlier declared that unless humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza and Israel stopped its attacks on the civilians, they would not stop going after shipping "even if America succeeds in mobilising the entire world".

If the recent warning, which is deemed highly likely to be ineffective, fails to deter them, the US might finally opt to attack targets in Yemen, heightening tensions with Iran in the process. 

Thus, concerns about a broader regional conflict appear to be gaining their own deadly momentum, intensifying the likelihood of directly drawing in the US as well. 

"We feel and we're afraid of it," Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib recently told CNN's Christiane Amanpour this week. "We don't want any escalation in the war. We don't like a regional war because it's dangerous to everybody. Dangerous to Lebanon, dangerous to Israel and to the countries surrounding Israel. A regional war is bad for everybody."

If the wider regional war does indeed erupt, it's anyone's guess how deadly it may turn out to be. For now, an end to the sufferings of Gaza civilians is nowhere in sight.