In the fifth issue of the Arms Export magazine, a detailed analytical commentary was published by Yuri Lyamin, a researcher at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies and an expert on the Middle East, on the prerequisites and the initial stage of the armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. The bmpd blog offers readers the full text of the article.
(c) Sameh Rahmi / NurPhoto via Getty Images
The military operation launched on the morning of October 7 by the armed wing of the Hamas movement (the Islamic Resistance Movement) and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip against Israel marked a new round of Arab-Israeli confrontation and an attempt by Hamas to break the current situation.
The conflicts between the Palestinian factions of the Gaza Strip and Israel in the last decade had common characteristics - the Palestinians mostly fired at Israeli territory with unguided rockets and mortars, and Israel bombed the territory of the Gaza Strip, after which everything ended with another truce. Israel has largely adapted to these conflicts thanks to its complete air supremacy, overwhelming advantage in guided weapons and the deployment of Iron Dome missile defense systems. This time, the Hamas movement was able to organize and conduct a sudden large-scale ground attack along the border of the entire Gaza Strip. The fighting continues, but based on the known information, it is already possible to draw some conclusions about their initial stage.
Background and preparation of the Hamas operation
Tension in the zone of this conflict has been growing for a long time. The Israeli leadership, taking advantage of the situation in the region and the support of the United States, has been actively establishing ties with the leading Arab monarchies in recent years and believed that it could keep the Palestinian issue under control by force.
Such arguments, of course, were not unfounded, since the Israel Defense Forces, along with other Israeli law enforcement agencies, have overwhelming quantitative and qualitative superiority over the forces of all Palestinian groups combined, especially since there is a split between the main Palestinian political forces. In the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank (ZBRI), power belongs to the Government led by the Fatah organization (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine), and Hamas is the de facto ruling party in the Gaza Strip.
Thus, the already difficult Israeli-Palestinian peace process has virtually completely stopped in recent years. As the Palestinian Ambassador to Russia noted in April 2023: "All relations [with Israel] are almost stopped, with the exception of civil services"[1].
The economic situation in the separated Palestinian territories is also difficult, especially in the Gaza Strip. Under the conditions of harsh economic sanctions imposed by Israel since 2007, restrictions on movement and other measures to isolate the Gaza Strip, as well as repeated armed conflicts between Palestinian factions and Israel, according to the IMF, unemployment there in 2022 was 45%, and the proportion of the population below the poverty line reached 53%[2].
Although the economic situation in the ZBRI was better, the overall situation in the Palestinian territories increasingly resembled a steam boiler on the verge of explosion, and the actions of the Israeli authorities only increased tension. Uncompromising rhetoric on the part of Israeli high-ranking officials towards the Palestinians, continued in violation of UN Security Council resolution 2334, the steady expansion of Israeli settlements in the ZBRI and East Jerusalem, as well as the demolition and seizure of Palestinian-owned buildings[3] - all this at times caused friction between the Israeli leadership, even with the United States and Arab countries with diplomatic relations. relations with Israel[4].
Against this background, it is not surprising that there has been a new increase in violence[5] on both sides. According to the data from the official report on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 for the period from June 15 to September 19, 2023, during this four-month period alone, 10 Israelis, including women and children, were killed and 122 Israelis were injured as a result of terrorist attacks and attacks involving Palestinians. At the same time, 68 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, including 18 children, and another 2,830 Palestinians were injured. There were also casualties on the part of Palestinians as a result of attacks by Jewish settlers. In addition, Israeli security forces conducted 1,042 operations during this period, as a result of which 1,504 Palestinians, including 88 children, were arrested. The report also noted that the total number of Palestinians under arrest was the highest in more than 10 years[6].
Regularly in recent years, a wave of violence has also affected the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is a sacred place in both Judaism and Islam. In ancient times, there were the Jewish First and then the Second Jerusalem temples, and now there is an Islamic shrine - the Al-Aqsa Mosque. In April 2023, clashes occurred there again, during which Israeli police raided Palestinians who had barricaded themselves in the mosque complex. The pretext for the actions of the Palestinians were reports about the intentions of the Jewish movement "Return to the Temple Mount" to bring a sacrifice on the Temple Mount on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover[7].
In these circumstances, the relatively calm and moderate reaction on the part of Hamas to the events that have taken place over the past year could even surprise. It seemed that they did not even care about the leaked information[8] about the US-mediated negotiations on the possible normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Today it is clear that at that time Hamas was already preparing for an offensive military operation, trying to demonstrate calmness and a desire to deal only with internal economic problems in order to mislead the enemy[9]. According to a statement by a representative of the armed wing of Hamas itself, the idea of this operation originated in 2021, and since 2022 the movement has been conducting a strategic operation to disinform the enemy[10].
Last year, Hamas was able to solve one of its foreign policy problems - to restore relations with Syria. It should be recalled that Hamas, although it is a Sunni Palestinian movement, has enjoyed support from Iran and Syria since the 2000s, and until 2012 there was even a part of the Hamas leadership in the Syrian capital Damascus. However, due to the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, the Hamas leadership faced an unpleasant choice, as other important sponsors of the movement - Qatar and Turkey - supported the Syrian opposition. As a result, in 2012, Hamas severed ties with Syria and its politburo moved from Damascus to Doha (the capital of Qatar)[11].
In Iran, the Hamas leadership was not forgiven for this at that time and cut off support for the movement for a while, focusing its main financial and military-technical assistance on other Palestinian groups, primarily on the second most powerful group in the Gaza Strip - the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hamas was able to fully restore normal relations with Iran only in 2017, but even after that Tehran continued to put pressure on Hamas in order to restore relations with Syria. This was achieved in 2022, when at a meeting of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and deputy head of the Hamas politburo Khalil al-Haya in Damascus, it was announced that Syria and Hamas had restored trusting relations and returned to cooperation[12].
For Hamas, all this was extremely important. The movement receives major financial and informational support from Qatar and Turkey, but it turned out to be difficult to replace military and technical assistance from Iran. Back in 2017, during the normalization of relations with Tehran, one of the leaders of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, said that it was Iran that provided the greatest support with money and weapons to the armed wing of Hamas - the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades[13].
Thus, Hamas, preparing for an operation against Israel, could fully count on the support of Iran and its closest allies on the "Axis of Resistance"[14]. In turn, for Iran and Syria, investing in such operations is a convenient way to avenge all Israeli sabotage and murder on the territory of Iran, bombing the territory of Syria, etc.
Due to the difficulties with the delivery of weapons to the blockaded Gaza Strip, considerable efforts were made to help organize their own military production there from available materials and components. In addition to the production of unguided rockets, which has been widely known and developed since the 2000s (the range of the longest-range of them - Ayyash 250 - is up to 250 km), the production of some shots for RPG-7, mines and simple UAVs has been established in the Gaza Strip. Thus, the armed formations of Hamas and the "Palestinian Islamic Jihad" have kamikaze drones Shehab[15] and Sayyad[16], which outwardly strongly resemble simplified versions of the Iranian UAVs Ababil-2 and Sayyad, respectively.
Information is still being received regarding the level of Iranian involvement in the organization of the operation against Israel. Some sources report that a narrow circle of people from Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement helped Hamas directly plan and prepare the operation, these people allegedly had deep knowledge about it[17]. Other sources suggest that Iran probably knew about Hamas' plans to take action against Israel, but did not have accurate information about the time and scale[18].
It is obvious that the accumulation of stocks of UAVs, rockets and other weapons, as well as the direct training of Palestinian assault units (including specialized engineering assault detachments [19]) took considerable time. The scale and depth of preparation for the future operation were carried out at an incomparably higher level than all previous operations of Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip. Judging by the videos of their training, which were published after the start of hostilities, they tried to work out key points to automatism, such as overcoming the barrier around the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, storming checkpoints, etc. The strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli defense were carefully studied, even small groups received step-by-step action plans, maps of Israeli strongholds, bases and other important objects with identified main objectives were prepared for them on the basis of satellite images. Memos were also distributed to identify Israeli military equipment with recommendations for their most effective defeat[20]. To practice assault operations, a mock-up of an Israeli settlement was even built[21].
The debate over why the Israeli intelligence services could not accurately determine the preparation for such a large operation is likely to go on for a long time. Today, various possible reasons are called: internal political instability and protests against the government due to judicial reform could affect the work of law enforcement agencies in Israel; in Israel, they could rely too much on technological means of intelligence, and in the Gaza Strip, when preparing an operation, they tried not to use phones and computers to transmit information, or use equipment and devices manufactured by Chinese Huawei companies that are less susceptible to hacking[22].
Anyway, it was impossible to hide all the preparations for such an operation, so what happened was a clear failure of the Israeli special services. It seems that the reason in the first place was underestimation and too arrogant attitude towards the enemy. It seems that the leadership of Israel and its law enforcement agencies dismissed the very possibility of such an operation by Palestinian groups from the Gaza Strip. These problems affected not only the work of the special services, which could not accurately identify the preparations for the attack, but also the Israeli army itself, which met the attack unprepared, which led to serious initial losses.
The beginning of Operation "Al-Aqsa Storm"
The time and name for the operation against Israel were chosen very symbolic. The operation began almost exactly (with a difference of one day) on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 (the Yom Kippur War), the beginning of which was also characterized by a surprise for Israel, serious miscalculations and mistakes on the Israeli side. In turn, the name of the operation "Tufan Al-Aqsa" ("Storm of Al-Aqsa"), where the word "Tufan" means a catastrophic storm or flood, and "Al-Aqsa" is a sacred mosque in Jerusalem, emphasizes that this operation, according to Hamas, is akin to divine punishment for Israel for actions against the shrine of Islam. Therefore, in a statement by the head of the Hamas politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, after the start of the operation, it was said: "Our military operations were a response to Israeli aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque"[23].
The main part of the forces involved in the operation were the forces of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which were joined by the forces of the al-Quds Brigades - the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the National Resistance Brigades - the armed wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades - the armed wing The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. That is, both the main Islamist and leftist Palestinian groups of the Gaza Strip came together.
According to Abu Ubayda, a representative of the armed wing of Hamas, they selected 4,500 people in total for direct participation in the operation, of which 3,000 were directly in the assault units, and another 1,500 provided support[24]. This generally coincides with Israeli estimates, according to which the number of militants who broke into Israeli territory was about 2500-3000 people[25].
Active hostilities began on Saturday, October 7, at about 6:30 a.m. local time[26] with massive strikes by unguided rockets and mortars on the positions of the Israeli army near the Gaza Strip and deep into Israel. According to Israeli estimates, during the first, most massive volleys, about 2,200 rockets were launched at southern and central Israel[27]. According to a representative of the armed wing of Hamas, a total of 3,500 rockets and mines were fired to hit Israeli positions around the Gaza Strip, and another 1,000 were launched into deeper areas of Israel[28]. Such massive launches were able to saturate the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense systems, and some of the shells reached Israeli cities and military positions.
Simultaneously with the beginning of the shelling, Palestinian snipers, as well as operators of multicopters with explosive charges, began knocking out remotely controlled machine guns and surveillance cameras on towers and walls around the Gaza Strip. For economy and safety of personnel, monitoring of the situation by Israel was largely carried out remotely.
While the threat from the towers with machine guns was being suppressed, amphibious groups penetrated the Israeli territory by sea on motorboats and by air with the help of motorized paragliders/paragliders, and engineering assault detachments advanced to the barrier, which quickly began to make passages in the walls and wire fencing in dozens of places with the help of overhead and elongated explosive charges (the so-called Bangalore torpedoes). To ensure the rapid passage of motorcycles and cars of the main assault units through undermined fences and ditches, engineering assault detachments also laid out special assault bridges that they carried on themselves.
Thus, the assault units of the Palestinians were able to quickly overcome the fence around the Gaza Strip and capture the Erez and Kerem Shalom checkpoints. The Israeli soldiers who were there were killed or captured, and the Israeli armored vehicles that were there were abandoned or hit with grenade launchers and UAVs. So, at least one Merkava Mk 4 tank near the fence with the Gaza Strip was hit by a grenade with a tandem warhead dropped from a multicopter[29].
Apparently, the Israeli plans assumed that in the event of a threat of a breakthrough, units of the Israel Defense Forces stationed at strong points and bases near various settlements at a relatively short distance from the Gaza Strip should have been promptly moved to this place. The main role in perimeter protection was played by the territorial division "Gaza"[30], but it was also supported by units from other army formations.
However, Israeli troops stationed near the Gaza Strip were not ready not only to quickly eliminate numerous breakthroughs, but also to protect their strongholds and bases, as well as border settlements. The assault units of the Palestinian groups, dividing into smaller groups, attacked dozens of military strongholds, bases and settlements along the entire border in a wide fan, capturing many of them in the first hours[31].
So, to the north of the Gaza Strip, in the area of Kibbutz Zikim, the training base No. 4 of the Israel Defense Forces was captured, near which a Palestinian marine landing from motor boats first landed (although some of the attackers were intercepted and destroyed at sea), and then the main forces approached by land[32]. To the east of the Gaza Strip, Israeli bases and small strongholds were captured in the area of kibbutzim Reim, Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza, Beeri and others. Moreover, judging by the well-known data and videos published by the Palestinian side, the Israeli military at these bases and strongholds were not ready for an attack, and the situation came as a complete surprise to them. Dozens of armored vehicles, including Merkava Mk 2 and Mk 4 tanks, Achzarit, Namer, Nakpadon heavy armored personnel carriers, M113 armored personnel carriers and lighter vehicles were thrown at the captured Israeli positions. Some of the Israeli military were caught in the barracks at all - they only managed to grab weapons and put on bulletproof vests and helmets before they were killed or captured[33].
The capture of the Reim military base was a serious blow for the Israeli military, since it was there that the headquarters of the aforementioned Israeli Gaza division responsible for this sector was located. It was possible to regain control of the base only by the end of the day[34]. The loss of the headquarters was supposed to add to the general confusion in the interaction of Israeli units, especially since the commander of the 481st communications battalion of the Gaza Division, Lieutenant Colonel Sahar Makhlouf, died there. On the very first day of the fighting, the commander of the Nahal infantry brigade, Colonel Jonathan Steinberg, who became the highest-ranking officer of the Israeli army who died in battles over the past half century, was also killed[35].
Apparently, as an emergency means of support, Israel began urgently transferring army and police special forces units to the Gaza Strip, which immediately entered the battle and suffered significant losses. So, from Israeli sources it is known about the death in battles on October 7 of Colonel Roy Levy, commander of the army special multidisciplinary unit "Rephaim", Major Chen Bukhris, deputy commander of the army special forces "Maglan" ("Ibis") and many other servicemen of various special forces units of the Israel Defense Forces [36], as well as police officers counter-terrorism special forces YAMAM [37]. It is also known that on October 7, the Palestinians shot down a CH-53 Yasur helicopter of the Israeli Air Force, which participated in the transfer of soldiers of the parachute brigade to the combat area [38] - the pilots managed to land the helicopter on the ground, but after that the car burned down.
In general, in the first days the conflict has already become the bloodiest for Israel since the 1973 war. According to official data in mid-October, the recognized Israeli civilian and military losses amounted to about 1,400 people killed, 4,200 people were wounded[39]. Among the dead, 306 servicemen and 58 policemen were accurately identified[40]. Most of the above losses fall on October 7, and these are not final figures yet, as the identification of the dead continues.
Among the dead on the first day of the fighting were a lot of civilians - residents and guests of Israel's border areas with the Gaza Strip, which turned out to be a zone of fierce fighting and shelling. The fighting unfolded both in the 30,000-strong city of Sderot and in smaller settlements, and on the way of the Palestinian assault groups that broke through to the headquarters of the Gaza division in the area of Kibbutz Reim, there was also a crowded open-air music festival Nature Party. An important factor was also the fact that the Palestinian assault groups clearly had the task of capturing as many Israeli citizens as possible for subsequent exchange for Palestinian prisoners. In addition, some residents of the attacked Israeli settlements were armed and defended[41].
Probably, the increase in the number of victims was also facilitated by the fact that smaller and looter groups followed the main Palestinian groups from the Gaza Strip to the surrounding Israeli areas. It is significant that Hamas does not even have accurate information about the number of captured Israeli hostages. Representatives of the movement stated that by mid-October they were holding 200 Israeli prisoners of war and civilian hostages, 22 hostages were killed by Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip and about 500 more people were held by other Palestinian groups and in "other places"[42].
Operation Iron Swords
Against the background of shelling and numerous breakthroughs of armed formations of Hamas and other Palestinian groups deep into the territory of southern Israel on the same day, October 7, Israel announced the start of a military operation called "Iron Swords"[43]. A war readiness regime was introduced in the Israel Defense Forces, and a mass conscription of reservists began[44].
Despite the above-mentioned urgent transfer of special forces units to the combat area and the active actions of Israeli aviation, the Israeli security forces could not immediately bring the situation back under control. By the evening of October 7, fighting continued in the area of several settlements along the Gaza Strip, including the city of Sderot, where Palestinians had entrenched themselves in the captured building of the local police station. The fighting there continued until the morning of October 8, when representatives of the Israeli police stated that "about ten armed terrorists" were neutralized after an order was received to fire at the captured building "by any means"[45].
On October 8, the Government of Israel officially transferred the country to a "state of war" on the basis of article 40 of the Basic Law on Government. This article defines the legal framework for the "declaration of war or the beginning of significant hostilities" with the approval of the Government[46]. On the same day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced[47] that the first stage of Operation Iron Swords was being completed and the vast majority of enemy forces that had penetrated into Israeli territory had been destroyed. But the Israeli military was able to declare the restoration of full control over all Israeli border settlements only on October 9. On the same day, it was announced that 300 thousand reservists were drafted into the army (then this number increased to 360 thousand).[48], as well as the beginning of a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip - Israel has completely cut off the supply of fuel, electricity and even water there. At the same time, Israel carried out the evacuation of border areas, increased the land grouping around the Gaza Strip, intensified air and artillery strikes, and Palestinian groups continued rocket attacks on Israeli territory[49].
Following the results of the fighting of the first days, the Israeli side stated that about 1,500 bodies of Hamas militants were found in Israel near the Gaza Strip[50], but there is no objective data to confirm this information.
Regarding the scale of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip on October 12, the Israeli military reported that since the beginning of hostilities, that is, in about five days, the Israeli Air Force dropped about 6,000 bombs with a total mass of 4,000 tons on Hamas and other groups in the Gaza Strip, hitting more than 3,600 objects[51]. Judging by the available footage, both guided and unguided bombs are used for bombing[52].
For comparison, during the entire US aviation campaign against the Islamic State terrorists in 2014-2019, a total of 117.5 thousand different aviation weapons were spent, while the peak of use fell on the storming of the city of Raqqa in 2017, when in May - August, American aviation spent about 4000-5000 aviation weapons per month, the average the same expense was about 2000-3000 per month[53].
Such massive Israeli air strikes without regard to possible collateral casualties, including numerous strikes on multi-storey buildings[54] in dense urban areas, quite predictably led to major destruction [55] and to very large casualties among the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, which already far exceed the corresponding Israeli losses. As of mid-October, 4,821 residential buildings were destroyed[56], the death toll exceeded 3,000 people, more than 12.5 thousand people were injured, hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their areas of residence[57]. About 1,200 more people were under the rubble[58].
Amid the rapid depletion of stocks of guided bombs, anti-aircraft missiles and other means of destruction, Israel requested emergency assistance from the United States, primarily various ammunition. The first deliveries from the United States to Israel took place in the first few days after the outbreak of hostilities[59]. It is known that in total, Israel has requested $10 billion worth of weapons from the United States, including guided bombs, missiles for the Iron Dome complex and artillery ammunition[60].
Almost from the very beginning of Operation Iron Swords, the Israeli leadership has stated that its goal is the complete destruction of Hamas[61], the dismantling of its infrastructure and management system in the Gaza Strip. Achieving such goals almost inevitably requires a large-scale land operation. Despite the fact that members of Hamas, including high-ranking representatives of the military and political leadership of the movement, are killed during the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip (for example, on October 10, two members of the Hamas politburo, Zakaria Muammar and Javad Abu Shimal, were reported dead[62], and on October 17, the commander of the central brigade of the Izz Ad Brigades was killed).Dina al-Qassama"Ayman Nofal[63]), even long-term bombing and blockade cannot completely destroy such a large and well-adapted group for survival as Hamas. Moreover, all other prominent forces in the Gaza Strip support Hamas in its fight against Israel. It is also significant that despite the force of Israeli strikes, Palestinian groups retain the ability to continue active shelling of Israeli territory.
At the same time, a large-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip seems to be a very difficult task, especially since the Israeli army currently has no experience in storming and mopping up large cities. For example, during the operation "Cast Lead" against Hamas in late 2008 - early 2009, significant forces of Israeli ground forces were introduced into the Gaza Strip, but then they cut the Gaza Strip in open areas and blocked the main cities and refugee camps, trying to avoid being drawn into heavy street fighting. One can also recall the 1982 Lebanon War, when the Israeli army, having surrounded the forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in west Beirut, proceeded to besiege the city, and the fighting ended not with the storming and destruction of the PLO, but with a political agreement on the withdrawal of PLO forces from Lebanon[64].
The Palestinian factions of the Gaza Strip are, of course, much weaker than the Israeli army, but they number tens of thousands of people. The total number of "Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades" is estimated at 40 thousand people [65], we should not forget about the forces of other groups, even if they are significantly smaller. In fact, they are light infantry, but they have various anti-tank weapons, mines, small UAVs and other means capable of causing a lot of problems in urban battles, even to significantly superior enemy forces.
Moreover, over the long years of confrontation with Israel, Hamas has created an extensive underground infrastructure in the form of long-term underground tunnels for the hidden transfer of forces, weapons factories and warehouses, bunkers for personnel and hidden launchers for launching rockets. In 2021 Yahya Sinwar stated that the length of the tunnels is 500 km[66]. The depth of some tunnels may be several tens of meters, and some of them may go into the territory of Israel. Thus, one unfinished tunnel from the Gaza Strip to Israel, found by the Israeli military in 2020, went underground to a depth of 70 m[67].
Given the above, it is not surprising that Israel has mobilized a large number of reservists. The number of the Israeli armed forces, which in normal times was about 170 thousand people [68], was supposed to increase to 530 thousand people after the mobilization of 360 thousand reservists. In addition, the existing equipment is being refined, up to the installation of lattice canopies on Merkava tanks to protect against grenades dropped from drones[69].
Another factor that the Israeli leadership is probably seriously considering is the likelihood of opening new fronts in the event of a prolongation of hostilities and the start of a full-scale ground operation in the Gaza Strip. From Iran, on behalf of the aforementioned "Axis of Resistance", as Israeli preparations for the ground operation intensified, there were repeated hints about the possibility of the closest Iranian allies in the region entering the war. So, on October 17, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "If the crimes of the Zionist regime continue, Muslims around the world and the resistance forces will lose patience. Then no one will be able to stop them"[70]. He was also supported by the Chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, General Mohammad Bagheri, who stated: "The continuation of the crimes of the Zionist regime, its direct support and assistance from other states complicate the situation and may lead to new players entering the arena"[71].
The vanguard of the mentioned resistance forces is obviously the Lebanese Hezbollah. The situation on the Israeli-Lebanese border began to escalate already on October 8 [72], when the armed wing of Hezbollah fired at Israeli positions in the Shebaa farms area (this is part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which Lebanon considers its territory), and Israeli artillery struck back at southern Lebanon. Small groups of local cells of Palestinian groups from Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon also began to act against Israel there. By mid-October, exchanges of strikes between Hezbollah and the Israeli army on the border had become daily, which led to deaths and injuries on both the Lebanese and Israeli sides[73]. So far, these clashes are limited in nature, but the situation may change if the fighting drags on and the Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip begins. At the same time, other Iranian allies in the region may also get involved in the conflict.
So, on October 19, the United States announced that its DDG 64 Carney destroyer of the Arleigh Burke type in the northern part of the Red Sea intercepted three cruise missiles to hit ground targets and several UAVs launched by the Yemeni Houthis. General Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense, said: "We cannot say exactly what these missiles and drones were aimed at, but they were launched from Yemen, headed north along the Red Sea, potentially to targets in Israel."[74] The leader of the Ansar Allah group, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has previously stated that they are coordinating their actions with allies on the "Axis of Resistance" and that the people of Yemen are ready to join the struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel[75].
The United States, supporting Israel, is trying to put pressure on Iran and its allies in the region, for which two American carrier strike groups were sent to the eastern Mediterranean, additional US Air Force forces were deployed to American bases in the region, etc.[76] In turn, clearly in response to these threats from October 18-19, pro-Iranian The forces began to carry out something like warning attacks on American bases in Iraq and eastern Syria with the help of kamikaze drones[77].
Summing up the preliminary results, it can be noted that on the part of Israel, the beginning of this war showed great problems at different levels of the leadership of the state, the special services and the army. In turn, the Palestinian groups led by Hamas have shown a willingness to take very high risks, as well as the combat capability and ability to carry out coordinated actions at a completely new level that have grown greatly in recent years.
At the same time, Israel, after mobilizing reservists and enlisting the full support of the United States and other NATO countries, has further increased its already overwhelming military advantage over Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip. Under these conditions, any refusal to conduct a large-scale ground operation or its curtailment without fulfilling the stated goal of the complete destruction of Hamas will actually represent a political defeat for Israel. At the same time, it seems that the Israeli leadership has not made a final decision on how this ground operation will take place and how to achieve this goal. In addition, diplomatic pressure on Israel and the United States will almost certainly increase against the background of a rapid increase in the number of civilian casualties in Gaza.
Under such circumstances and with the growing involvement of the United States and Iran with allies from different sides of the conflict, by the end of October, the situation directly in the zone of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as well as in the region as a whole, was characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and the threat of further spread of the conflict.
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