By Maryam Qarehgozlou
The Israeli intelligence apparatus was completely taken by surprise and failed to avert the unprecedented military operation launched by the Palestinian resistance, says a commentator.
In an interview with the Press TV website, Tehran-based senior journalist and political analyst Mohammad Ghaderi said the “complex, large-scale, surprise operation” carried out by the Palestinian resistance on Saturday represented a “humiliating intel failure” for the occupying regime.
He said it was the first time that Gaza-based resistance groups launched coordinated massive land, air, and sea strikes and the first time that Palestinian fighters managed to breach the Gaza border fence and penetrate into the territories occupied by the Israeli regime.
“The operation called Israel’s bluff and practically shattered the myth of the Israeli regime’s invincibility as it used to boast about its powerful intelligence network,” Ghaderi stated.
“On the military front, the regime was unable to deal with the scale of the operation and its much-hyped Iron Dome was overwhelmed by the volume of rockets launched from Gaza.”
The operation was launched in the wee hours of Saturday morning by Hamas in coordination with other resistance groups, firing thousands of rockets into the occupied territories within minutes.
More than a thousand Israeli soldiers and settlers have been killed so far, according to reports, and hundreds of others, including senior Israeli military officials, are held as war prisoners in Gaza.
The death toll in the besieged coastal strip has also crossed the 1,000 mark, mostly women and children, as the regime has been indiscriminately firing missiles and rockets into civilian areas.
Ghaderi said the key message the operation conveyed to the Zionist regime is that it is quickly losing its deterrence power and has been pushed further on the path of eventual annihilation.
“The Israeli regime is not only grappling with internal turmoil due to dysfunctional cabinet, but recent events show that its intelligence infrastructure and military systems are extremely vulnerable,” he said.
Therefore, he hastened to add, while the regime is still reeling from the impact of the Al-Aqsa Storm, if other resistance groups join the operation, the regime will “definitely suffer a more crippling blow.”
Operation Al-Aqsa Storm has made sure that Israel can no longer “hit and run” by carrying out swift attacks and withdraw immediately after each time, while the world keeps silent, he stated.
“Waging a war on Palestinians for decades, their indiscriminate persecution, stealing their lands and homes, destroying their livelihood, imprisoning them and the ethnic cleansing have all led to the build-up of the deep-seated resentment that triggered the Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” Ghaderi said.
Moreover, the operation was a reaction to the recurring desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, settlement expansion plans, the systematic Judaization of Al-Quds, Israel’s refusal to swap prisoners with Palestine, incessant raids on refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, the 16-year blockade of Gaza Strip, and the normalization push with Arab countries, he stated further.
According to the Tehran-based international affairs commentator, the Israeli regime’s failure to heed warnings about the far-right cabinet’s policies against Palestinians also justified the operation.
“The adoption of controversial policies, like the judicial overhaul plan by the far-right Israeli cabinet, which is made up of Netanyahu’s Likud party and its ultra-Orthodox allies, plunged the country into months of unrest and prompted thousands of Israelis to stage anti-regime rallies for 39 weeks across the occupied territories and it casts a light on the entity’s political and societal divide,” he said.
“Netanyahu, who faces trial on corruption and fraud charges, seemed to have pushed for judicial changes in an attempt to circumvent his own legal problems, however, his plot backfired and led to one of the gravest domestic crises the regime has ever faced.”
At the moment, Ghaderi remarked, a significant number of Israeli military reserves are refusing to report for duty after the call-up of reservists to respond to the Palestinian multi-front operation, who claim that the regime’s policies are the main contributing factor to the current situation.
In a joint letter in July, more than 1,100 reservists, including fighter pilots, plane pilots, helicopter fighters, and drone operators, announced they would not serve in case Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet proceeds with its plan to restrict the influence of the regime’s apex court.
“Operation Al-Aqsa Storm is likely to have long-lasting repercussions for the Israeli regime,” the analyst said, adding that it has “exposed the regime’s military and intelligence fiasco” and “struck fear in the hearts of all Israelis living in the occupied territories.”
“It will result in a sharp jump in reverse migration of Israeli settlers as with the beginning of the operation a wave of settlers residing in settlements near Gaza fled towards airports to go back to where they came from,” he asserted.
On the other hand, resistance groups, especially Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah have gained more legitimacy with this operation, he said, paving the way for them to change the rules of the game in the region.
The operation has also disrupted plans of normalization between the Israeli regime and Saudi Arabia, Ghaderi stated, as the kingdom announced on Saturday that it had been warning of an “explosive situation as a result of the continued occupation and deprivation of the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.”
“With regard to the extreme violence Israel has perpetrated over the past few days by targeting and killing civilians, going back to the negotiating table with Saudi Arabia seems far-fetched for a long time,” he stated.
The operation is the beginning of the end for Netanyahu, Ghaderi said, noting that the embattled Israeli premier’s international allies will now be skeptical about continuing their support for him.
He hastened to add that the massive pro-Palestine rallies across the Islamic world as well as the US and other Western countries show the support for the resistance is swelling.
“It is obvious who the aggressors are and who the victims are and Islamic countries must be vocal in their criticism of the Israeli regime’s atrocities, Ghaderi said.
“The (Al-Aqsa Storm) operation was a defeat for the Israeli regime that cannot be reversed anymore; even settlers have lost faith in this regime.”
