Passover and the season of fleeing to the bomb shelters

New events and developments taking place in the northern front, after dozens of rockets were fired at Israeli targets from Lebanese territory in an unprecedented manner, after years of calm had prevailed on that front. What has changed on that front? How can one know who is behind the firing of these missiles? Are there specific messages behind the event? These questions can be answered considering the recent developments in the Palestinian Territories, specifically the escalating aggression in Al-Aqsa Mosque, which moved the scene to more escalation in the West Bank, Gaza and the territories occupied in 1948. This then extended to Lebanon, the northern front, heating both the northern and southern fronts.

We can say that stirring the northern front and opening a new front against the enemy and firing rockets from it is one of the gains and benefits of Operation Sword of Jerusalem, which served as a source of inspiration for other fronts. This is a noticeable success for the Palestinian Resistance in its ability to ignite new fronts against the Israeli enemy, create a new equation that increases the extent of the security threat against the enemy, and imposes dangerous challenges that would put it in a state of unprecedented confusion, after it tried to calm the northern front over the years and neutralised it, pushing it out of the circle of action and influence only for it to return and become at the forefront of the scene after these missiles began raining down on Israeli targets during the Passover holiday, turning this holiday into the season of fleeing towards the bomb shelters.

In addition to this, on the one hand, these developments reveal the extent of the great coordination and close cooperation between the Palestinian Resistance and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, and show the extent of the Resistance’s sophistication and its ability to deter the enemy in new ways and methods by surprising it with a missile response from another front outside of Palestine. After it was in a state of alert and anticipation regarding the settlements surrounding the southern front, the Resistance responded with an attack that went against the enemy’s calculations and its security and military predictions and was disappointed after its absolute failure to anticipate an attack from a front outside Palestine.

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On the other hand, what happened on the northern front clearly shows that the attack on Al-Aqsa Mosque is motivation to ignite the various fronts and that the matter is no longer limited to the Gaza Strip or the West Bank and the territories occupied in 1948. It also indicates that the conflict has entered a completely different phase that requires the enemy to recalculate because the area and magnitude of the attacks are expanding and all of the fronts have become active in the event of any aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque. In any case, it cannot succeed after this in isolating one arena from another or neutralising one front from another. Today, the scene has changed, and Lebanon’s missiles are drawing a new map and course of action.

This new equation imposed by the Resistance after activating the northern front and directing missile attacks at the enemy’s front is the biggest challenge it will witness in 2023, and perhaps the most dangerous challenge it will have faced in the past years. This is what shocked the enemy at the horror of what happened and prompted it to wait several hours in order to revise its calculations before responding to these missile attacks. The enemy leadership appeared in a state of confusion after the security institution failed to anticipate the attack and failed, in terms of intelligence, to read the intentions of the Resistance. This also takes us back to Operation Sword of Jerusalem in 2021, when the Resistance succeeded in firing missiles at settlements in Jerusalem, going against all of the enemy’s predictions, and dealt the enemy a harsh blow that forced it to admit that it failed to predict the intentions of the Resistance in Gaza.

This article first appeared in Arabic in the Palestinian Information Centre on 9 April 2023

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.