«Israel» Fears War with Palestinians amid Escalating Tensions

Local Editor

The "Israeli" Occupation Force [IOF] Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot warned of the danger of deterioration - perhaps even to the point of war - which has grown significantly. The intelligence branch and the chief of staff, who is beginning his fourth and final year at the helm of the "Israeli" army, are concerned about two possible scenarios.

The first would be the result of a reaction by one of the entity's enemies to an "Israeli" show of force. The second would stem from a flare-up on the Palestinian front.

The first scenario, which the army terms "the campaign between the wars," might happen when the "Israeli" entity tries to prevent rivals from obtaining advance weaponry they might want to use during a future war, according to Eisenkot.

Most of these "Israeli" attacks occur under the radar, far from the entity's borders. The previous "Israel" Air Force commander, Gen. Amir Eshel, stated last August that there were nearly 100 such attacks under his five-year command, mostly on Syrian and Hezbollah arms convoys on the northern front of the "Israeli" entity.

Foreign media reported that the more the "Israeli" entity carries out such attacks, the higher the chances of confrontation with other countries and organizations get, increasing the danger of a significant retaliation.

A similar thing is happening on the Gaza border. Work on the barrier against cross-border operation tunnels is advancing, while the "Israeli" entity is simultaneously developing and implementing more sophisticated methods to locate these tunnels.

A few days beforehand, there was a report about an "Israeli" aerial attack - apparently on a cross-border operation tunnel - next to the Gaza border. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the demonstrations to protest US President Donald Trump's recent recognition of al-Quds [Jerusalem] as the so-called "Israeli" capital were dying down, out of a seeming lack of public interest.

Then, on Tuesday evening, Rabbi Raziel Shevach, from the illegal settlement of "Havat Gilad", was killed in a drive-by shooting operation near Nablus. The "Israeli" army responded by surrounding villages and erecting roadblocks around Nablus, for the first time in two years. The IOF moves were acts of collective punishment the chief of staff would normally rather avoid, but they were approved on a limited basis due to the murder of an "Israeli" settler.

"Israeli" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that the "Shin Bet" security service is close to solving the murder, but at the time of writing it was still unclear who did it. Hamas and Islamic Jihad released statements praising the operation, while, in a rare move, Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades took responsibility for the operation.

Source: Haaretz, Edited by website team