Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: As Israel continued relentless air strikes on the Gaza Strip and its tanks and armored vehicles made brief forays into Northern Gaza before returning to their base on the 20th day of its all-out war against the Sunni terror outfit Hamas, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East threatened to escalate further after the United States carried out strikes in “self-defense” against two Iran-linked facilities in Syria.
The strike at targeted sights in Syria came as a retaliatory action after the US and its coalition troops were attacked by Iran-backed forces in Iraq and Syria at least 19 times over the past week. Terror groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah are all backed by Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said at the United Nations on Thursday that if Israel’s offensive against Hamas did not stop, the United States would “not be spared from this fire.”
The US strikes in Syria followed a direct warning earlier from President Joe Biden to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against the strikes on American troops, the White House said on Thursday.
The US military struck two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, the media reported.
“The precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against US personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17,” he said in a statement.
“There was a direct message relayed. That’s as far as I’m going to go,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, declining to say how it was delivered.
In his statement, Austin sought to distance the strikes against facilities used by the IRGC in Syria from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas members in Gaza.
“These narrowly tailored strikes in self-defense were intended solely to protect and defend US personnel in Iraq and Syria,” he said.
“They are separate and distinct from the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and do not constitute a shift in our approach to the Israel-Hamas conflict,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army said on Friday its ground forces continued “targeted raids”, backed by fighter jets and drones in Gaza, as it prepared for a fool-proof land invasion of the Palestinian enclave, home to 2.3 million people. Most of them have fled to the southern part of the Strip since Israel’s retaliatory strikes started after the Hamas invasion on October 7, which has left nearly 9,000 people dead on both sides.
“During the last day, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ground forces, accompanied by fighter jets and UAVs, conducted an additional targeted raid in the central Gaza Strip,” an army statement said.
“The IDF identified and struck numerous terror targets, including anti-tank missile launch sites, military command, and control centers, as well as Hamas terrorists,” it said, saying troops “exited the area at the end of the activity.”
The army conducted a similar ground operation using tanks and infantry on Wednesday night in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. The latest incursions came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated earlier this week that Israel was “preparing for a ground offensive.”
On October 7, throngs of Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 224 more, according to Israeli officials.
In retaliatory Israeli air and artillery strikes, at least 7,028 people have been killed in the Palestinian enclave, including 2,913 children, according to figures released by the Hamas-controlled health ministry.
The fatalities in Gaza are the highest there since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory in 2005.
According to Palestinian officials, around 1,650 people are still buried under the rubble of the Gaza Strip. The World Health Organization (WHO) has received estimates of some 1,000 unidentified bodies buried under the rubble in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Russia defended its decision to invite a Hamas delegation to Moscow, saying it is trying to maintain contact with all the sides in the conflict.
Under pressure from not only Israel and the West but also from back-channel diplomacy of the Middle East nations and other countries, Hamas said a ceasefire is needed before it could free hostages.
According to a Russian newspaper Kommersant report, quoting a Hamas delegation member to Moscow, the outfit needed time to locate all the hostages its various Palestinian factions took from Israel to Gaza on October 7.
“They seized dozens of people, mostly civilians, and we need time to find them in the Gaza Strip and then release them,” said Hamid a member of the Hamas delegation that visited Moscow.
Alongside war, international aid also continued to pour in from Egypt into Gaza. Eight more aid trucks carrying food, medicine, and water are expected to cross into the Gaza Strip on Friday, a senior United Nations official said.
“We have gotten in approximately 74 trucks. We’re expecting another eight or so today,” Lynn Hastings, the U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told reporters in Geneva.
Despite massive preparations for an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, however, many Israeli people do not want it. Almost half of Israeli citizens want to hold off any invasion of Gaza. A recent poll published on Friday indicates a dip in support for a planned ground invasion into the Palestinian enclave as a part of Israel’s 3-phase retaliatory move.
Asked if the military should immediately escalate to a large-scale ground offensive, 29 percent of Israelis agreed while 49 percent said “it would be better to wait” and 22 percent were undecided, the poll published in the Maariv newspaper said.
Pentagon on Thursday said around 900 US troops have been or are being deployed in the Middle East amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. They are not heading to Israel but to support regional deterrence efforts as well as further bolster US force protection capabilities.
“I can confirm that since our initial Force posture announcement approximately 900 troops have been subsequently deployed or are in the process of deploying to the US Central Command area of responsibility these include forces that have been prepared to deploy orders and which are deploying from the continental United States,” Brigadier General Pat Ryder said during a press briefing.