Iran’s influence is on full display in Gaza

Along with the blood, a lot of ink has been spilled over this week’s tragic events in Israel and Palestine. But one word has been missing from much of the analysis – Iran.

The thousands of missiles streaking out of Gaza and into Israeli cities were either made, or paid for, by Tehran. Iran hopes to break the recent détente between Israel and some Arab states via the outrage across the Muslim world at the loss of Palestinian lives. As the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) official Ramez al-Halabi said on Iraqi TV this week, “We buy our weapons with Iranian money. An important part of our activity is under the supervision of Iranian experts… I am proud to say that the rockets that are used to pound Tel Aviv have an Iranian signature on them.” Social media throughout the Arab world has seen a surge of praise for Iran this week as the only country prepared to stand up to the ‘Zionist entity’ although criticism from Arab governments has been relatively muted.

Hamas and Iran have been waiting for this moment for years. A series of recent events explains why they have chosen this moment to take on the Israeli military.

Tensions began to rise as we approached the end of Ramadan, a period which sometimes sees a spike in violence in the Arab world as various armed groups seek to direct heightened emotions towards violence. This coincided with a legal case surrounding several houses in the Sheik Jarrah district of East Jerusalem. Palestinian families want to remain in the houses they have lived in for decades, while Jewish groups representing families, who owned the properties but fled during the 1948 war, seek a ruling that their land deeds have current validity. That played into the demonstrations in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex. The Israeli police attempted to prevent these by putting barriers which was seen as a restriction on freedoms and religious rights. During the subsequent rioting the police entered the third most holy place in Islam. However, the key moment was several weeks prior to this when the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, postponed elections. This, at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was distracted by corruption charges, was the chance Hamas had been looking for.

In reality Abbas only rules the West Bank. Hamas, headquartered in Gaza intends to replace him and control both territories. As Abbas has failed to hold elections for 15 years, Hamas can paint him as illegitimate and themselves as defenders of Palestine. They issued an ultimatum to Israel: leave the Al-Aqsa compound or we fire rockets. Both sides knew Israel would not agree.

Since the previous major outbreak of fighting between Hamas and Israel in 2014 Hamas has been resupplied by Iran. Tehran has moved missiles and equipment through Sudan and then the Sinai desert in Egypt and then the tunnels into Gaza. The volume of traffic was reduced after President Trump took Sudan off a list of states which sponsor terrorism and Khartoum embarked on building better relations with a number of countries including Israel. But the tunnels are still open, and money, expertise and missile parts continue to flow through them and in from the sea, and engineers in Gaza appear now to be able to manufacture missiles themselves.

Hamas (and PIJ) appear to have a new weapon and a new strategy. A new version of the Iranian-designed Sajjil missile is flying in a lower trajectory than in previous launches in a bid to avoid the Israeli Iron Dome missile defence system. They also appear to be fitted with more powerful explosives. The number of missiles being fired simultaneously is unprecedented and this appears an attempt to overwhelm the Iron Dome system. It has been more successful than in previous years. Israeli intelligence suggests there are dozens of missiles in Gaza capable of reaching anywhere in Israel, most of these have not been used. There are thought to be hundreds which put Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in range including the Fajr-5 – an Iranian multiple rocket launch system. There are also thousands of shorter-range rockets such as the Fajr-3 which can reach the towns near Gaza such as Ashkelon. If Grad missiles and Qassam rockets are added to the arsenal the number of missiles could be in the tens of thousands.

Hamas commanders are not the only ones watching how Israel deals with this. Iran and Hezbollah are taking a keen interest. This means Israel will deem it a regionally strategic necessity to deal Hamas the most severe blow it can before outside players put enough pressure on both sides to cease fire.

Israel has also been waiting for this moment. It will have spent the past few years tracking the missile building programme, finding where the launch sites are, and locating the Hamas and PIJ commanders. They have already killed the Hamas Gaza City brigade chief, Bassem Issa, the head of the security office of the Hamas Intelligence Service, Hassan Kaugi, and several other senior officials.

Israel feels it has no choice but to try and smash the military infrastructure in Gaza. It also knows there will be civilian casualties despite them usually giving advance warning to people about which buildings they will hit. A proportion of the civilian casualties on the Palestinian side will be killed by the roughly 20 per cent of Hamas/PIJ missiles which fall within Gaza or blow up upon launch. 

Yet that is unlikely to be widely propagated in the Arab world. Iran and Hamas are prepared to sacrifice another generation of Palestinians to the overwhelming firepower of the Israelis in order to win the propaganda battle, and eventually the war.