WarSclerotic

Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei met with Ziad Nakhala, the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Iran on Monday. The meeting is the latest attempt by the Iranian regime to involve itself in Palestinian politics. Khamenei said that a Palestinian state would eventually be established in Tel Aviv and sought to highlight Palestinian “resistance” while contrasting it with the “defeat” of Arab countries in the region.

The important meeting is with one of  the smaller Palestinian terrorist groups, but buttresses the long-term support and connection between the Iranian regime and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Ziad Nakhala was chosen to lead PIJ in September 2018. He was celebrated by Turkey’s Anadolu as living a “lifetime of resistance” when he was chosen. According to the Turkish media biography he was born in 1953 in Khan Yunis and served time in Israeli prison. Released in a 1985 prisoner deal, his house was damaged in the 2014 war in Gaza. Al-Nakhala replaced Ramadan Shallah, who had run the group since 1995. When he was chosen, he was appointed along with a group of other unnamed men to PIJ’s “politburo,” according to Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s media channel.

Nakhala has been central to the group’s policy for decades and shows up on US State Department cables in 2008 and 2011 in relation to two attempts at ceasefires in the Gaza Strip, in which Hamas sought Egyptian mediation to relieve the siege of Gaza imposed by Israel after Hamas came to power. Some sources believe that PIJ is controlled by Iran. In October PIJ fired dozens of rockets from the Gaza Strip, allegedly after orders from Tehran.

Tehran considers Nakhala and a visit with his group an important event, even though PIJ is a relatively minor player on the Palestinian scene. It is the one real frontline group Iran has in Gaza that Tehran thinks can pressure Israel at its behest. Khamenei stressed that the Palestinian people would eventually achieve victory through “resistance,” in his discussion. He claimed that in the last conflicts “the Zionists regime begged for ceasefires.” PIJ reported to Iran about its activities and preparations, claiming that in any subsequent war with Israel it could fire “thousands of missiles” that would reach Tel Aviv and other areas. Khamenei was happy, saying that eventually a Palestinian government would arise in Tel Aviv.

In an interview with Al-Alam media in Tehran, the PIJ leader went further in his claims, arguing that in any new war with Israel that “all the axes of resistances will participate.” He claimed the Palestinian Authority had stalled in its march towards statehood and that the “resistance,” by which he meant Hamas and PIJ, were in very good condition today. He also said that in the next conflict Iran and Hezbollah will support the Palestinians. This was an important assertion, because it appears to represent a threat to launch a multi-front war against Israel. The comments were reported in Tasnim news agency. The meeting was also highlighted in English on Iran’s PressTV and also Khamenei’s Twitter, where he claimed that “as along as resistance exists, the decline and perishing process of the Zionist regime will continue,” paraphrasing what he told the PIJ leader.

The meeting in Iran included at least eight men, at least several of whom appeared to be PIJ senior leadership. It was not entirely clear how they had arrived in Iran or where they would continue on to after the meeting.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday at a press conference Israel’s efforts exposing the tunnels in the North has destroyed Hezbollah’s surprise plan for the next war. However, the IDF is already preparing for the next confrontation with the Shiite organization and is not merely satisfying itself with defensive tactics.

According to the report on the IDF website, the battalion, which was named “Gates of Fire” and given the number 9300, held a training program during the past month in which it practiced a wide range of scenarios it may encounter during a war.

“The establishment of the battalion “Baram” constitutes an important milestone in the defense of the northern border of the state of Israel, and another significant step for us to ensure that “good will overcome evil,'” Col. Roy Levy, commander of the Baram brigade, said on the IDF’s website.

According to Levy, the battalion was established to meet two main goals.

“The first is defensive – we’re engaged in a ‘war with time.’ In recent years, Hezbollah has intensified its battles in Syria, has acquired more sophisticated weapons, and has openly said that it plans to invade our territory,” Levy elaborated. “We have to be prepared for the time it will choose to attack and be prepared to defend ourselves and attack them in return.”

“We are  facing an enemy that intends to attack  settlements and outposts,” Levy added. “The soldiers will have to act quickly, drive them out from Israeli territory and prepare for the second mission – attacking key areas and severely damaging Hizbullah’s first line of defense in Lebanon.”

This report was translated from Maariv Online.

US President Donald Trump is allowing the US military four months to gradually pull out of Syria, the New York Times reported Monday night.

The announcement is a significant shift from Trump’s previous remarks saying he wanted the troops to pull out within 30 days. There are currently 2,000 United States troops in Syria.

The New York Times report quoted anonymous administration officials who said that Trump had backtracked from his sudden order two weeks ago.

Trump hinted to the widespread criticism he has received for his decision, which was against the advice of his top advisors and army commanders on Twitter on Monday, saying that “if anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria, which was an ISIS loaded mess when I became President, they would be a national hero. ISIS is mostly gone, we’re slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting ISIS remnants.”

If anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria, which was an ISIS loaded mess when I became President, they would be a national hero. ISIS is mostly gone, we’re slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting ISIS remnants……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2018

Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned the day after Trump announced his decision. Both Republicans and Democrats, as well as international allies, condemned his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, saying that the US would lose influence in the region, where the Syrian civil war, in its eighth year, is still raging.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had responded to Trump’s December 19 announcement by warning that Israel could escalate its fight against Iran in Syria.

He addressed the issue at a weekly government meeting in Jerusalem shortly after the annnouncement,

“The decision to remove the 2,000 US troops from Syria will not change our consistent policy,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to act against Iran’s attempt to establish military bases in Syria, and if necessary we will even expand our operations there.”

“I want to reassure the concerned – our cooperation with the United States continues in full force and is carried out in many areas: in the operational, intelligence and other security fields,” Netanyahu added.

Israeli officials have worked to calm fears that the move emboldens Iran and thus endangers Israel since Trump’s surprise announcement about Syria.

Resignation announcements in the wake of the decision by US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and the US top envoy leading the global coalition fighting ISIS, Brett McGurk, only served to underscore Israeli fears.

Mattis, who had been scheduled to visit Israel that week to discuss Iran, canceled his trip.

In Israel, top members of the Bayit Yehudi party, its leader Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told Army Radio the move was bad for Israel but did not impact its security. Trump, they explained, was still seen as a strong ally of the Jewish statute.

Bennett said that the impact of the crippling sanctions the US imposed on Iran were more effective in crippling Tehran’s aggressive behavior than the continued presence of US troops in Syria.

“We know how to protect ourselves,” Shaked said. The US withdrawal could lead to the transfer of more weapons to Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah from Iran, Shaked said, but “we will do everything we need to prevent Iran from gaining foothold in Syria.”

The withdrawal will also have a negative impact on the Kurdish militias in Syria, which have been leading the fight against the Islamic State, Shaked said. On Friday, Erdogan pledged to “eliminate” these Kurdish militias along with remaining ISIS fighters.

“The Kurds are great heroes,” she said, “and because of them, the West succeeded in its fight against ISIS. They are allies, and I hope that they will win in their battle against the Turks. I hope that the international community will prevent Erdogan from massacring the Kurds.”

Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.

A naval barrier meant to starve off Hamas infiltrations from the sea is nearing completion, seven months after Israel began the work.

The 200 meter sea barrier is made up of three layers including one below the sea level which is lined with seismic detectors and other tools, a layer of armored stone and a third layer in the form of a mound. In addition to the three layers, a six meter (20 foot) smart fence surrounds the breakwater in order to provide a final security measure.

The decision to build an upgraded naval barrier was decided upon after five Hamas frogmen (naval commandos) tried to infiltrate Kibbutz Zikim during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 armed with automatic weapons, fragmentation grenades and several types of explosives devices. They were engaged and killed by the IDF in a combined attack from the sea, ground and air.

Hamas has significantly expanded their naval commando unit in the four years since the last conflict, with hundreds of frogmen. The new barrier, which has been designed to withstand severe sea conditions and serve the defense establishment for many years, is aimed at preventing similar incidents.

The border with Gaza is Israel’s most explosive, hundreds of rockets fired towards southern Israel and nine months of violent protests along the Gaza-Israel security fence with Palestinians launching incendiary aerial devices and throwing explosive devices towards troops.

Thousands of Palestinians have taken part in the protests known as “Great Return March” which began on March 30 which has also seen naval flotillas from Gaza try to cross into Israeli waters. Over 220 have been killed and thousands more wounded by IDF fire.

In August the IDF destroyed a naval terror tunnel belonging to Hamas which would have enabled militants who would enter from a Hamas military post in the northern Gaza Strip to exit into the sea unnoticed, making it possible to carry out out terrorist acts against the State of Israel from the sea.

The route of the tunnel, which was operational but did not actually extend into Israeli waters, reached a depth of 2-3 meters and was 3 kilometers from the border with Israel, was identified by the IDF as part of a campaign against Hamas’s naval force in the past year.

The tunnel was destroyed on June 3rd by an air strike which was part of the IDF’s retaliation to the barrage of mortars and rockets from the Gaza Strip by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Also on Tuesday, the IDF and Defense Ministry decided to expand the Gaza fishing zone. The move was reported by Ynet news to be in response to the relative calm on the border.