The threat has been brewing since the start of the conflict. While Israel is massively bombing the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the deadly Hamas raids on October 7, the danger of an extension of the war between the IDF and the terrorist group does not diminish. Because Iran, Israel’s sworn enemy, has subservient militias in most countries bordering or close to the Jewish state. And that he could decide to engage them in the conflict if certain red lines are crossed, as Le Figaro recently revealed.
Last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian led a regional tour to Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. So many countries which have significant Shiite factions controlled by Tehran, likely to get involved in the conflict. If this is already the case of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, other groups act from the border territories of Israel and even from Yemen. The hour of war has not yet come for this “axis of resistance”, but destabilization operations are underway against the Jewish state… and even its American ally.
The most concrete threat to Israel currently comes from southern Lebanon and the Hezbollah militia. From the first IDF bombings on the Gaza Strip, this Shiite terrorist group armed and financed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards warned that it could go to war if the Palestinian enclave was invested by the Israeli army. For now, it is content to bomb military positions in the north of the country. According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), no fewer than 17 attacks were recorded on October 22 alone. Hezbollah fighters notably used anti-tank guided missiles to target armored vehicles positioned at the border.
For the first time, surface-to-air missiles also targeted an IDF helicopter which was carrying out retaliatory operations at the border, an Israeli army spokesperson said. Proof of the flammability of this sector, many localities have been evacuated in recent days, including a town of more than 20,000 inhabitants.
The opening of a second front in this area is a nagging fear. On Sunday, two Hezbollah members told Reuters that the terrorist group’s military activity was aimed at “fixing” Israeli troops in the area, “but not opening a new front.” This strategy forces the IDF not to concentrate all its forces and attention on Gaza, and looks like a diversion, while a ground operation is expected in the enclave. It poses a diffuse threat which keeps the Israeli army under pressure in several areas.
In Syria, Shiite militias may also have come into play in recent days. Rocket fire from this territory was thus intercepted by the “Iron Dome” on Sunday, above the Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1967. Several similar alerts have been recorded since October 7. Are these Syrian fighters affiliated with Iran? Or exiled Palestinian factions in Syria? The origin of these shots remains unknown at this time.
But on October 21, several Israeli media outlets reported the arrival in Syria of General Esmail Ghaani, successor to Qassem Soleimani at the head of the Al-Quds force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A sign of Iran’s desire to open a new front in Syria, if the situation were to worsen in Gaza?
Since 2011 and the start of the Syrian civil war, Israel has carried out around a hundred airstrikes on its neighbor’s territory, to prevent Iran from establishing itself at its gates. On October 12 and 14, the IDF again bombed Syria, this time targeting the airports of Damascus and Aleppo. According to Joel Rayburn, director of the American Center for Levant Studies think tank, these strikes aim to prevent Tehran from exporting weapons to Syria. “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has long used airliners for military transports to Syria,” recalls the ISW in its daily bulletin.
Also read: In northern Israel: “The Gaza holocaust will look like an appetizer compared to what will happen here”
In Iraq, Iranian-backed militias have not yet struck Hebrew territory. But the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” claimed responsibility for several attacks on Iraqi military bases housing American troops on Telegram. Since October 18, this group bringing together several Shiite factions has carried out nine drone and rocket attacks against the bases of Aïn al-Assad and al-Harir, as well as on a military camp near Baghdad airport. , without causing damage.
Through its Iraqi “proxies”, Iran is trying to dissuade the United States, Israel’s main supporter, from providing significant aid to the Jewish state. From the first days of the war against Hamas, Washington sent munitions to its ally and deployed two carrier groups in the Mediterranean. On October 20, Iraqi Hezbollah demanded that Americans “leave” Iraq, “otherwise they will taste the fires of hell.”
Faced with this threat, the United States on Sunday ordered the evacuation of non-essential personnel from its embassy and consulate in Iraq, “due to increasing security threats to United States personnel and interests.”
Also read: Israel-Hamas conflict: how Iran can activate its relays in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to widen the war
On Thursday, October 19, three surface-to-surface missiles and several drones “potentially heading towards targets in Israel” were intercepted in the Red Sea by an American destroyer. According to the Pentagon, they come from the Houthi rebels in Yemen, which their leader confirmed on October 22. This Shiite militia, backed by Iran, took control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014, sparking a war against government forces.