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Will Israel ever get blowback for bombing its neighbours?

Will Israel ever get blowback for bombing its neighbours?

Al Jazeera6 days ago
In the last two years, as well as its war on Gaza and increasingly violent occupation of the West Bank, Israel has launched attacks on Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
The most recent attacks on Syria were launched this week, going so far as to hit the country's Ministry of Defence.
Of course, the Israelis point to their justifications for the attacks on Syria – principally, in Israel's telling, to defend the Syrian Druze minority. A US-brokered ceasefire has taken effect, but whether it holds remains to be seen.
In Lebanon, Israel claimed it wanted to stop the threat posed by Hezbollah.
The attacks on Iran, it said, were to end that country's attempt to build a nuclear bomb.
And in Yemen, Israel's bombing was a response to attacks from the country's Houthi rebels.
Explanations aside, the question becomes whether the Israelis can continue to act in a manner that has many around the world, and particularly in the Middle East, seeing them as the aggressor.
Impunity over relationship-building
The Israeli argument is that all these conflicts – and the more than 58,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza – are necessary because Israel faces an existential battle that it has no choice but to win.
The Israeli government, in its current far-right makeup, at least, does not seem to care if its neighbours do not like it. Rather, it seems to care that they fear it.
And as the most powerful military force in the region, with the backing of the most powerful military force in the world, the Israelis feel that they can largely do what they want.
Israel is taking advantage of a weakening international order and a moment of flux in the way the world is run, particularly with the United States under President Donald Trump openly moving towards a more transactional foreign policy.
Western countries had previously attempted to maintain the idea of a liberal international order, where institutions such as the United Nations ensure that international law is followed.
But Israel's actions, over decades, have made it increasingly hard to maintain the pretence.
The world has been unable to stop Israel from continuing its occupation of Palestinian land, even though it is illegal under international law.
Settlements continue to be built and expanded in the West Bank, and settlers continue to kill unarmed Palestinians.
Human rights organisations and international bodies have found that Israel has repeatedly violated the rules of war in its conduct in Gaza, and have accused the country of committing genocide, but can do little more.
Taking advantage
No other power wants, or feels strong enough, to take on the mantle the US is arguably vacating.
And until the rules get rewritten, it increasingly feels like might equals right. Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, is taking advantage.
Supporters of Israel's actions in the past two years would also argue that those predicting negative consequences for its attacks have been proven wrong.
The main perceived threat to Israel was the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, and the argument was that these countries and groups would strike Israel severely if the latter went too far in its attacks.
Israel did escalate, and the reaction from Iran and its allies was, in many cases, to choose to stand down rather than risk the total devastation of their countries or organisations.
Iran did attack Israel in a way that the country had not experienced before, with Tel Aviv being directly hit on numerous occasions.
But some of the worst-case scenario predictions did not take place, and ultimately, the direct conflict between Israel and Iran lasted 12 days, without the outbreak of a wider regional war.
In Lebanon, Israel can be even happier with the result.
After an intensified bombing campaign and invasion last year, Hezbollah lost its iconic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and much of its military capacity, as well as some of its power in Lebanon. It is now, at least in the short term, no longer much of a threat to Israel.
Israeli hubris?
Israel seems to believe weak neighbours are good for it.
Much as in the case of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, the perception is that there is no real need to provide an endgame or next-day scenario.
Instead, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated, Israel can maintain chaos as far away as possible from its borders, as long as it maintains security inside.
But the current situation in Syria is an interesting example of what can go wrong, and when Israeli hubris may go too far.
Netanyahu has maintained that Syria south of Damascus must remain demilitarised.
His first argument was that this would ensure the safety of the Druze minority, thousands of whom also live in Israel and demanded that Israel protect their brethren following violence involving Bedouin fighters and government forces.
The second argument was that the new authorities in Syria cannot be trusted because of the new leadership's past ties to groups such as al-Qaeda.
After Israel's bombing and some US prodding, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa agreed to withdraw government security forces from the Druze-majority province of Suwayda on Thursday, warning that while Israel 'may be capable of starting a war', it would 'not be easy to control its consequences'.
By Friday, it had become clear that thousands of Bedouin – and other tribal forces – were headed to support the Bedouins in Suwayda after reports of massacres against them.
Al-Sharaa, presumably with the acquiescence of Israel, announced that Syrian government forces would deploy in Suwayda to end the ongoing clashes there, and a new ceasefire was declared on Saturday.
As it happens, the presence of a strong state with control over its territory may be more effective than allowing anarchy to reign.
Blowback
If anything, Israel's actions in Syria will increase its regional isolation and raise eyebrows among countries that could have been seen as potential allies.
Saudi Arabia has emphasised its support for the new Syrian government, and Israel's behaviour will add to Riyadh's feeling, post-Gaza, that any 'Abraham Accords' normalising ties cannot happen in the short term.
For many countries in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf, Israeli hegemony, especially with the rise of messianic far-right forces in its government, leads to war, expansionism, chaos, and security risks.
And Israel's short-term military gains run the risk of blowback elsewhere.
Iran's military capabilities may have been heavily damaged in its war with Israel, but Tehran will likely seek to shift tactics to undermine Israel in other ways in the years to come, while improving its defences and potentially focusing on achieving a nuclear weapon.
As mentioned, the opinions of regional countries may not be the highest priority to the current crop of Israeli leaders, as long as they continue to have US support.
But that does not mean that – in the long term – Israel will not increasingly face blowback for its actions, both diplomatically and in terms of its security.
Domestically, constant wars, even if beyond Israel's borders, do not provide a sense of long-term security for any populace.
The percentage of military reservists answering call-ups has already reportedly been decreasing. In a country where the majority of the military personnel are reservists who have jobs, businesses and families to take care of, it is difficult to maintain a permanent military footing indefinitely.
That has contributed to an increasing divide in Israel between a dominant ultranationalist camp that wants to fight first and ask questions later, annex Palestinian land, and force regional acceptance through brute force, and a more centrist camp that – while perhaps not prioritising alleviating Palestinian suffering – is more sensitive to international isolation and sanctions, while attempting to hold on to a 'liberal Zionist' image of Israel.
Should current trends continue, and the ultranationalist camp retain its dominance, Israel can continue to use its military power and US backing to yield short-term successes.
But by sowing chaos around its borders and flouting international norms, it is breeding resentment among its neighbours and losing support among its traditional allies – even in the US, where public support is slipping.
A more isolated Israel can do what it wants today, but without a long-term strategy for peace, stability and mutual respect with its neighbours – including the Palestinians – it may not be able to escape the consequences tomorrow.
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‘Horrors upon horrors': How US Congress responded to mass hunger in Gaza
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  • Al Jazeera

‘Horrors upon horrors': How US Congress responded to mass hunger in Gaza

Washington, DC – The images of emaciated children coming out of Gaza have moved some of Israel's staunchest supporters in the United States Congress to decry the humanitarian situation in the besieged Palestinian territory ravaged by Israeli-imposed starvation. Some Democratic lawmakers pointedly condemned Israel over the past few days, slamming the US and Israeli-backed GHF food distribution mechanism that has led to the killing of more than 1,000 Palestinian aid seekers. But others issued vague statements calling for aid to enter Gaza without directly blaming Israeli policies. 'This is the reality: Having already killed or wounded 200,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the extremist Israeli government is using mass starvation to engineer the ethnic cleansing of Gaza,' progressive Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement late on Friday. He accused the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of carrying out an 'extermination' campaign in Gaza. 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The Trump administration has been talking up US support for the GHF operation – which the United Nations and rights groups have described as a 'death trap' and 'human slaughterhouses' – and falsely blaming Hamas for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. 'This cannot continue,' Van Hollen said. Congressman John Garamendi suggested that Israel's 'dangerous and wilful failure to enable humanitarian aid' in Gaza amounts to genocide. Only a handful of progressive congressmembers have accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, of an effort to destroy the Palestinian people. But leading rights groups and UN experts have concluded that the Israeli military campaign is genocidal. 'Israel has the ability and the means to deliver adequate food to the Palestinians,' Garamendi said in a statement. 'They also have the obligation under international law to deliver it; it's the choice of Prime Minister Netanyahu not to feed Gaza.' It must end. 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My full statement on the humanitarian crisis and the urgent need for peace in Gaza👇 — Grace Meng (@RepGraceMeng) July 25, 2025 Throughout more than 22 months of war, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to enter Gaza – but far below the needs of the population. And since March, Israel has tightened its blockade on the territory, making the deadly GHF sites nearly the only source of food for Palestinians. Hamas also denies rejecting ceasefire deals. Instead, the group says it is seeking a permanent end to the war, while several Israeli officials have said that Israel will proceed with its military campaign in Gaza even if a short-term truce is reached. Congressman Adam Smith called on Israel to take the 'steps necessary to alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe' in Gaza, but he focused his criticism on Hamas, echoing unfounded Israeli arguments about the group blocking ceasefire deals and stealing the aid. 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'The starvation and death of Palestinian children and civilians in an ongoing war zone is unacceptable,' Jeffries said. 'The Trump administration has the ability to bring an end to this humanitarian crisis. They must act now.' Statement on the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza. — Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) July 26, 2025 For his part, Congressman Tim Kennedy underscored that Trump has failed to deliver his promise of ending the war on Gaza. 'His strategic and moral failure has led to deteriorating conditions, with new reports and images of mass starvation of Palestinians,' Kennedy said in a statement. Trump's Republican Party has been largely silent about the worsening hunger in Gaza. But Congressman Randy Fine – a close ally of the US president – appeared to at once endorse Israel's starvation campaign in Gaza while dismissing it as 'Muslim terror propaganda'. 'Release the hostages,' he wrote in a social media post earlier this week. 'Until then, starve away.'

Syria, Israel hold talks in Paris over conflict in southern Syria's Suwayda
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Syria, Israel hold talks in Paris over conflict in southern Syria's Suwayda

Syrian and Israeli officials have held talks in Paris mediated by the United States, according to a Syrian official, in the wake of an eruption of sectarian violence compounded by Israeli military intervention in southern Syria. The meeting on Saturday was held to address recent security developments around the southern Druze-majority city of Suwayda, which has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks between Bedouins and Druze fighters. Israel intervened in the conflict, striking government buildings in Damascus and government soldiers in Suwayda province, saying it was doing so to protect the Druze. The Syrian official told Al Jazeera Arabic that Damascus's delegation at the Paris meeting emphasised that the unity and sovereignty of Syria are nonnegotiable and Suwayda and its people are an integral part of Syria. It also rejected any attempt to exploit segments of Syrian society for partition, the official said. The source said the Syrian delegation held Israel responsible for the recent escalation and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the points they had recently advanced to during the unrest. 'Honest and responsible' Syria's state-run Ekhbariya TV, quoting its own diplomatic source, reported that the meeting did not result in any final agreements but the parties had agreed to continue talks aimed at maintaining stability. The TV source described the dialogue as 'honest and responsible' in the first confirmation from the Syrian side that talks had taken place. On Friday, US envoy Tom Barrack said officials from both countries spoke about de-escalating the situation in Syria during talks on Thursday. Hundreds of people have been reported killed in the fighting in Suwayda, which also drew in government forces. Israel, which carried out air strikes, during this month's violence, has regularly struck Syria and launched incursions into its territory since longtime former President Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December. Last week's fighting underlined the challenges interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa faces in stabilising Syria and maintaining centralised rule. Syria's government announced a week ago that Bedouin fighters had been cleared out of Suwayda and government forces were deployed to oversee their exit from the entire province. The announcement came after al-Sharaa ordered a new ceasefire between Bedouin and Druze groups after a separate US-brokered deal to avert further Israeli military attacks on Syria. The diplomatic source, who spoke to Ekhbariya TV, said the meeting on Saturday involved initial consultations aimed at 'reducing tensions and opening channels of communication amid an ongoing escalation since early December'.

Israel says it's distributing aid in Gaza, so why are people starving?
Israel says it's distributing aid in Gaza, so why are people starving?

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Israel says it's distributing aid in Gaza, so why are people starving?

One hundred twenty-seven people, 85 of them children, have died from hunger or malnutrition as a result of Israel's siege of Gaza, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked all aid to Gaza in March, claiming that it was to pressure Hamas into accepting a ceasefire that Israel broke unilaterally later that month. This week, the Israeli government has blamed the United Nations for the situation, even accusing its aid agency of working with Hamas to restrict food from getting to people. This was not the first time Israel blocked aid from entering Gaza. In March 2024, Israel stopped UN aid convoys from reaching northern Gaza as it attempted to starve the population there into fleeing. In September, 15 international aid organisations said Israel was blocking 83 percent of Gaza's aid. In both instances, Israel denied blocking aid, blaming either UN inefficiency or Hamas for aid not reaching people in areas it has claimed to control for much of the war. So, what has Israel said, and does it accept that a man-made famine is under way in Gaza? Here's what we know. So is there no aid system in Gaza now? After receiving much criticism over the increased threat of famine that its siege had inflicted on Gaza, Israel, along with its US ally, backed the creation of the GHF in May. The GHF was intended to replace the UN and international aid agencies, which have operated some 400 aid distribution points across Gaza, with four erratically operated distribution points in Gaza's centre and south. Since May, the Israeli military and private contractors, understood to be American, have killed more than 1,000 people trying to access food at GHF distribution points. There are still some limited UN aid distribution operations, but they are so severely restricted that their effect cannot be felt. Does Israel accept that there's starvation in Gaza? It does not. On Friday, Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), which is responsible for coordinating aid into Gaza, contradicted the claims of numerous aid agencies, asserting that 'there is no famine in the Gaza Strip'. However, it said, there were 'pockets' across Gaza where people had 'issues of access to food'. So Israel claims that there's enough aid being distributed? Not so much. Israel claims that shortfalls are occurring because much of the aid lies 'rotting in the sun' because the UN has not distributed it. Israel's military radio, Kan, recently reported that the Israeli army has burned or buried some 1,000 trucks' worth of aid that it deemed spoiled or expired. David Mencer, a spokesperson for Netanyahu's office, told the BBC on Friday that the UN in Gaza is a 'billion-dollar racket' and accused the UN of working with Hamas to 'restrict … aid to its own people'. Mercer did not provide any reason as to why the UN might do that, or any evidence to back his claims. Is the UN working with Hamas? Not according to the UN itself. On Wednesday, addressing the UN Security Council, Israel's ambassador, Danny Danon, accused UN aid chief, Tom Fletcher, as well as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, of somehow being affiliated with Hamas. Danon provided no evidence. Responding in writing the following day, Fletcher said, 'I expect the Israeli authorities to immediately share any evidence that led them to make such claims.' In January 2024, Israel accused another UN aid body, the UN Relief and Works Agency, of working with Hamas. An independent review into Israel's allegations concluded in April 2024 that it had provided no evidence to support its claim. Is Hamas stealing aid? Not according to Israel's military and its principal ally, the US. Citing unnamed Israeli military officials, The New York Times reported on Saturday that the UN aid operation was relatively reliable and less vulnerable to interference than others, adding that there was no evidence Hamas regularly stole from the UN. An internal report by the US's development agency, USAID, in late June also concluded that there was no evidence of the systematic looting of US-provided aid by Hamas. So far, the only evidence of aid being systematically looted points to criminal gangs now partnering with Israel and the GHF. So, why isn't aid reaching people in Gaza? Months of Israel's siege have led to the effective breakdown of Gaza's society, with food convoys at risk of being overwhelmed by starving, desperate crowds, the UN says. To deliver aid to where it is needed, the UN would need the support of the Israeli military. On Wednesday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said half of the 16 food distribution requests submitted to the Israeli military had been refused. 'Bureaucratic … and other operational obstacles imposed by Israeli authorities; ongoing hostilities and access constraints within Gaza; and incidents of criminal looting, and more shooting incidents that have killed and injured people gathering to offload aid supplies along convoy routes' have limited efforts to deliver aid, Dujarric told reporters. What is the outcome of that? Starvation. As we noted above, 122 people, most of whom are children, have already died of starvation in Gaza. Death through hunger occurs over three stages. The first starts as early as a skipped meal; the second comes with any prolonged period of fasting when the body relies on stored fats for energy. The third, and often fatal, stage is when all stored fats have been depleted and the body turns to bone and muscle as sources of energy. It is, according to Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan, a British-Egyptian paediatrician and neurologist who has volunteered in Gaza, 'a very cruel, slow death'. Why have more children died than adults? Because their bodies are using less to do more. Children, especially infants and toddlers, have much less muscle and fat to draw on during famine, while their basic metabolism is working harder as they grow. The outcome is that they have a much-reduced buffer when food intake stops. What are the chances that Israel's siege might end? Nobody knows. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition has so far seemed immune to international outrage and internal dissent over its war on Gaza. It dismisses the accusations of engaging in crimes against humanity and disregarding international law as 'anti-Semitic' and 'blood libel'. In the minds of most analysts, the only power with the influence capable of restraining Israel in Gaza and the region is US President Donald Trump. However, predicting how the notoriously mercurial US president may behave is generally regarded as a job beyond the abilities of most analysts.

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