Watan-In an analytical report on the conflict scene in the region, political analyst Hisham Malham stated that after more than a hundred days of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and after the United States’ attempts to contain the conflict and avoid involvement, Washington found itself launching attacks against the Houthi rebels. This led to the reclassification of the “Ansar Allah” organization as a specifically designated global terrorist group.
This is Washington’s latest attempt to cut off funding for the group, armed and trained by Iran, and to punish it for its “terrorist activities,” including “unprecedented attacks against ships sailing in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, as well as against forces deployed in the region to defend the security and safety of commercial navigation,” said Malham, a non-resident researcher at the “Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.”
Regarding the Houthi rebels and the Red Sea conflict, a statement from the U.S. State Department mentioned that if the Houthis cease their attacks, the United States will reconsider this classification. Former President Donald Trump had classified the Houthis as an international terrorist group just days before the end of his term, but President Biden overturned this classification at the beginning of his term to avoid hindering humanitarian aid access to Yemen.
The disruption of international navigation in the Red Sea, one of the world’s major shipping lanes, raised concerns about the return of inflation to the markets and the interruption of supplies to vital factories in Europe.
Malham pointed out in his report that since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas, specifically since the Israeli invasion of Gaza, President Biden has pursued a two-pronged policy: providing almost unconditional military and diplomatic support to Israel, including accepting its main goal of destroying Hamas and eradicating it from Gaza if possible. At the same time, there is an effort to contain the conflict and prevent it from spreading to the Lebanese-Israeli front.
In this context, Washington sent aircraft carriers with supporting ships to the eastern Mediterranean as a clear warning to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran not to get involved in the fighting. In the weeks following Israel’s occupation of Gaza, U.S. officials, as well as political and military leaders in Iran and Hezbollah, reiterated on multiple occasions that they do not seek to expand the scope of the conflict.
Avoiding Escalation of Combat
Despite the escalating military tension on the Lebanese-Israeli border, including artillery and missile attacks from both sides, and the displacement of tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israelis from border areas, Hezbollah and, to some extent, Israel, have shown restraint in qualitatively escalating the fighting or violating established rules and agreements to keep tension high on the border. At the same time, they aim to prevent an explosion and a shift to a comprehensive war, as happened during the destructive war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, which lasted for more than a month.
However, this relative “restraint” on the Lebanese-Israeli border does not eliminate the possibility of unplanned incidents undermining the “rules of the game” and leading to unintended qualitative escalation. This is particularly true since the ongoing tension between Israel and Hezbollah has resulted in increasing losses for both parties, according to Malham.
The situation has led to Israeli threats, specifically from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Gallant, in several instances, including an interview with The Wall Street Journal, stated that Hezbollah, which monitors events in Gaza, “realizes that we can do in Beirut what we did in Gaza.” Gallant threatened that if an agreement is not reached to return 80,000 Israelis to their homes in northern Israel, from which they evacuated, “Israel will not hesitate to resort to military action.”
Despite more than a hundred days of fighting, during which Israel turned much of Gaza into barren land and killed over 23,000 Palestinians, Hamas remains capable of launching rockets against Israel, and its field leaders, beyond Israel’s grasp, continue to lead the fight against it. All of Israel’s attempts to eliminate the hostage threat have failed.
This military reality has led some military analysts to question the seriousness of Israel’s threats to open the northern front against Hezbollah. Hezbollah possesses significant combat experience (due to previous confrontations with Israel and its involvement in fighting in Syria), as well as military and technological capabilities that far surpass those of Hamas. Unless Israel hopes to exploit U.S. presence in the region and involve the United States in a fight against Hezbollah, and possibly Iran.
Hisham Malham continues in his report on the website of the “Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington” that some military analysts inside and outside Israel say that the fatigued Israeli occupation army, after a long battle against Hamas, is not in a military position to open a second front against a stronger enemy than Hamas.
However, the military developments in the region stretching from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and up to the Gulf, during the hundred days that have passed since the war, have shown that there are new facts and challenges that may not be within the capability of a single country, even if its name is the United States, to contain the conflict for a long time. This could result in the outbreak of fighting on more than one front in this vast region, involving U.S. forces, despite Washington’s attempts to avoid such an outcome.