The Decibel - New attacks threaten to push Israel-Hamas war beyond borders

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Tensions in the Middle East have heightened in the last week, not just because the war in Gaza continues, but because of four events that have happened in the last week in the region.The Globe’s Senior International Correspondent, Mark MacKinnon, explains what has happened and how it’s ratcheting up geopolitical pressures.Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail]

Sunday marks three months since the October 7th attack by Hamas. That resulted in 1,200 Israeli deaths and the launch of Israel's military offensive in Gaza. Since then, more than 22,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Authority. Nearly 200 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives, and there are still over 100 people believed to be held hostage in Gaza. Bombings and ground fighting are still a daily reality for the nearly 2.3 million people in Gaza. The war shows no signs of abating. And now, tensions all around the Middle East are ratcheting up after four events that took place this week in four different places outside of Gaza and Israel. And this has sparked fears, again, that the region is on the brink of a wider conflict.

The Globe's senior international correspondent, Mark McKinnon, is on the show today to talk about what has happened and how it all plays into the Israel-Hamas war. I'm Mainika Raman-Wilms, and this is The Decibel from The Globe and Mail. Mark, thank you so much for being here again. Thank you, Mainika. So we are speaking Thursday morning Toronto time. And up until now, there have been a few events that have happened in the Middle East region, Mark, that have caught your attention really in the last week. Can you go through those? What are those events?

Yeah, really, since New Year's Eve, there was a clash involving U.S. helicopters and Houthi rebel boats off the coast of Yemen. That was on Sunday. On Tuesday, there was a major assassination of a Hamas leader in Beirut. Wednesday, there was a massive explosion, two explosions really, outside of the Qasem Soleimani shrine in Iran. And then just a few hours ago, today on Thursday, there was an apparent U.S. missile strike, or the U.S. is being blamed for a missile strike in Baghdad that killed another pro-Iranian militia figure.

And we're going to get into all of these events and look at how they can affect things here. But just to start, Mark, why are these events significant? Like, why did they catch your attention? The reason why I think it's important to pay attention to what really are four incidents in four different countries, none of which are Israel and Gaza, is that the fear has been since October the 7th, since the awful Hamas attacks in southern Israel and the launch of this war in Gaza, which has seen upwards of 20,000 Palestinians now killed. The larger fear has been that the countries that stand behind these forces, I mean, Israel is able to carry out this operation in Gaza

because it has the military support and financial support of the United States, and Hamas is linked to Iran, as are these other groups, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the popular mobilization forces in Iraq. So you're starting to see behind this very deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas and the Gaza Strip, there is a, the larger framework is this stare down between the United States and Iran, and that is starting to become more violent. Okay, so let's actually look at these events in a little bit more depth here.

Starting then with the incident in Baghdad. What happened there, Mark? I mean, this is just breaking news, really. But what's happened is that the leader of, one of the leaders, the name actually hasn't been given, of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which is an Iraqi militia that is allied with pro-Iranian political forces in Iraq, if you can follow all that, which has been blamed for attacks on U.S. military positions that was killed today. And the PMF, as they're known, has been carrying out for a while now attacks on the remaining U.S. troops in Iraq, trying to conclude this withdrawal. When the Americans withdrew from Iraq three years

ago, they left behind 2,500 troops, I think at last count, who were supposed to be there as military trainers. Iran and its allies would like them completely gone. And since October 7th, since this war in Gaza began, there has been a series of attacks on American troops in Iraq, in Syria, around the region. Now it looks like the Americans are starting to seriously hit back. Okay. So that's the most recent one. The next incident we'll look at is the one on January 3rd. These were the bombings in Iran. What happened there? Again, still quite unclear, but we know that two bombs went off near the shrine of Qasem Soleimani on the fourth anniversary of his death. So this

is a very significant event where people would be gathering at the shrine of this revered figure in the Islamic Republic, Qasem Soleimani having been the commander of the Quds Force, which is sort of the extraterritorial operations arm of Iran's Republican guards, and really the second most famous and renowned figure in the country after the Ayatollah. So an important day, a symbolic day, and someone planted two bombs in the crowd of mourners. I think at last count, the death toll was just revised down, but it's still more than 80 people killed. And I think that still makes the deadliest attack on Iranian soil since the 1979 revolution there. All right. So we talked about the attack in Baghdad and then the bombings in Iran. Let's move on to the third event you mentioned, Mark, the drone attack in Beirut that killed a Hamas leader.

What do we know about that attack? So in terms of all these events that we're talking about that happened this week in the Middle East, this one seems to be the clearest in terms of what happened. Salih al-Aruri, a senior leader of Hamas, and five of his colleagues were killed in a missile or drone strike in a Hezbollah-controlled neighborhood of Beirut. And Israel is not confirming, of course, that it did this, but there's not really a mystery here because the Israeli government has declared that Hamas leaders, all of them, are dead men walking after the October 7th attack. You know, here's a senior figure. They obviously were able to track his location and to take him out. Obviously, though, deeply embarrassing for Hezbollah to have someone under their protection

killed like this. And anybody who's, you who's covered or lived through the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah worries that this has a spillover potential. Is there evidence of Israel's involvement in the attack? Or is it widely believed then that they were behind it? I don't think there's a mystery on this one. I think Israel is not going to confirm or deny it, never does. But in addition to having the motive and having declared not going to confirm or deny it, never does. But in addition to having the motive and having declared its intent to kill Hamas leaders, there's really

no one else that could have done this. They're openly celebrating this in the Israeli media. So this is not a surprise that someone like him was killed. It does send a very worrying message, I'm sure, to Hamas leaders in places like Qatar or Turkey, although it would be much, much more dangerous for Israel to attempt an assassination in those countries. What do we know about this Hamas leader, Mark al-Aruri? I'm wondering about the significance of this death. So he is someone that has been on the wanted list of both Israel and the United States for a long time. The United States considers him a financier of terrorism. Israel accuses him of masterminding attacks on its civilians, specifically in the West Bank. His role has been described as something like Hamas's ambassador to

Hezbollah and through Hezbollah to Iran. So a key person in this connection between Iran and its allies around the region, Hezbollah and Hamas in particular. And so, you know, whether he had any role in the October 7th attacks, you know, it's probably unlikely that he would have been involved in planning that military operation from what I understand of it from interviewing Hamas figures. It was a very closed circle of communication about that attack. People in Gaza knew this was coming down, but people even in the occupied West Bank or in Lebanon were probably out of the loop just to keep communication secure. But Israel would view him as having been a key

financier because of that role that he played in bringing Iranian money and Iranian weapons to the Gaza Strip. And you said this attack happened in Beirut, in a Hezbollah-controlled area of Beirut. So how has Hezbollah responded to this attack? So far, the way they have responded to this attack has been the same as they responded since October 7th, which is with some worrying statements about possibly escalating, warning Israel about the possibility of war. But so far, very calibrated response. We've seen a few rockets fired across the border into Israel. Nothing new about that, at least not since October 7th. In his speech yesterday, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, said two things.

One, he said he was going to say more on Friday, so this may yet unfold. But he also said to Israel that we are going to respond to this. We are ready for war, but the decision will be up to you whether there's a war or not. And so that implies that we're going to see an escalation beyond what we've seen before, but not a full-out Hezbollah attack on Israel. And then he's saying it's going to be back to you guys, and we don't want war, but we're ready for war is the message. And whether they cross

Israel's red line and whatever comes next will be the big question. And when we're talking about this possible retaliation, I guess, from Hezbollah, then I guess how serious of a threat could this be? Could Hezbollah's involvement be? Hezbollah is believed to have tens of thousands of missiles and rockets capable of hitting almost everywhere in Israel. And as I mentioned, the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah was absolutely devastating, mostly for southern Lebanon. A lot of Israelis were already living in evacuation centers. All the people who lived around the Gaza Strip and much of northern Lebanon have already been moved into evacuation centers, empty hotels around the country.

That's obviously expensive for the government to maintain. Those evacuation zones would need to be much, much bigger if Hezbollah got involved in this conflict. It can fire rockets, hit anywhere in the country, and really put a genuine strain on the missile defenses that have been so far so effective against Hamas's rockets and missiles. So that would be a major escalation on both sides. And so far, the signaling from Hassan Nasrallah last night

was that he doesn't want a war, but you're pushing us closer. What he does next, I think we're going to see very similar thinking on the Israeli side. Now, can we tolerate this without pushing back? At what point do you lose that deterrent capability that has been so important to Israel's security over the years? How much can it tolerate without punching back even harder? We'll be back after this message.

The last event that you listed off the top was the fight between the U.S. and some Houthi ships on December 31st, on New Year's Eve. So what went on there? So this has been the culmination, and we're seeing even more messaging since then. But since October 7th, these Houthi rebels who control the western part of Yemen in the south of the Arabian Peninsula have been attacking ships and occasionally even firing missiles towards Israel from their base. And what happened on New Year's Eve was American military helicopters engaged with four Houthi attack craft and sank three of them. And this was the first sort of real, you know, that we're aware of, sort of an incident where American forces inflicted a loss of life on the Houthi rebels.

Since then, there's been a statement from a group of 12 countries led by the U.S., but including Canada, Germany, Japan, Britain, and others, to the Houthi rebels saying, if you carry on these attacks on shipping, and there's been, I think, upwards of 20 ships have been attacked by missiles, by boarding parties in various ways. So this is the Houthi rebels attacking ships in the Red Sea then? Attacking ships that it sees as linked and sometimes very tenuously to Israel. So the Houthi rebels have carried out a succession of attacks,

the Americans with this military action on New Year's Eve and now subsequently with this formation of a group to protect shipping. But they've also directly warned the Houthi rebels, we're not just going to defend shipping in the Red Sea, we will take action against the areaouthi rebels, we're not just going to defend shipping in the Red Sea, we will take action against the area of Yemen that you control, which seems to open the way for military strikes of some sort against the Houthi rebels if this continues. So in Yemen, as in Iraq, as in Lebanon, we're seeing this sort of bubbling up of a conflict that began on October the 7th,

or at least in its most recent form began on October the 7th, or at least in its most recent form, began on October the 7th. And it's starting to curdle and curdle into something close to a regional conflict. And I guess just to clarify this last point about these ships, so the Houthi rebels were attacking ships that were just shipping goods, essentially, right? I mean, to our best of our knowledge, most of these were cargo ships, some of them having nothing to do with Israel, others with sort of an Israeli owner allegedly or on paper. But, you know, the vast majority were just in an effort to sort of drive up the economic costs for the West of supporting Israel. I think would be the real aim of the Houthi rebels, though they've not said it in such clear terms. So there is 12 percent, I think it is, of world shipping transits the Red Sea and the Suez

Canal. So it's a serious threat. And a lot of shipping companies are now deciding to avoid the Red Sea and go all the way around the heart of Africa, which is a much longer and more expensive journey. That obviously has passed some point of what the US has decided it can tolerate. And so we're seeing this escalation. So can you help me connect the dots here, Mark? We've talked about these incidents that have happened over the last week. What exactly is the fear with this situation in relation to Israel's war with Hamas? How are these connected? Well, I think the direct line that you can draw is that all of these forces say that they are standing up for the Palestinians, standing up for Hamas. You know, most specifically, the Houthis have launched their attacks on shipping out of solidarity with the Palestinians living in Gaza.

Hezbollah's sort of tit-for-tat battle with Israel had largely been on hold until October 7th, when it has resumed with a new ferocity since then, and although still under control, it sort of measured strikes on both sides and uh you know as we said earlier this the real framework that i look at this conflict through is that israel is able to carry this military operation in gaza because it has the support militarily financially diplomatically of the United States and other Western countries, but primarily the United States. And Hamas was able to rearm and to carry out the sort of attack it did on October the 7th because of its alliance with Iran. Hezbollah is funded and armed primarily by Iran, the Houthis by Iran. The popular mobilization forces in Iraq are affiliated with Iran. So you are seeing this,

you know, on the bigger chessboard, you know, if you look at Israel and Hamas have a genuine beef with each other, obviously, and would probably be having this fight anyways. But standing behind them throughout this conflict, the last three months, have been these bigger forces of Iran and the United States. Now those bigger forces are starting to hit each other in the face for want of a better metaphor. So this is where the concern about escalation comes up. But when we've talked about this before, Mark, when we're talking about the geopolitical situation around the war in Gaza, there's the argument of mutual deterrence that comes up, right? That it's unlikely for,

for example, for Hezbollah or Iran to launch a full-scale attack because of the repercussions of it, because there would be this giant might that would retaliate. So do you think that still holds true at this point? I think it does largely. I think certainly Hezbollah does not want to wage a war against Israel because it remembers what happened in 2006 and the damage the country sustained and also the damage that it sustained to its own reputation for bringing Lebanon to such a disaster. Israel, I don't think, wants an expansion. There are factions within the Israeli government that think this is the time to deal with Hezbollah while you're dealing with Hamas, but it's also limited Hezbollah. But I think most of the country realizes

it would be a disaster to have to be blocking missiles from two directions, to be fighting on two fronts, to have your economy completely shut down. Iran, you know, simply can't fight an open war with the United States and doesn't want to. So, you know, everyone's testing each other's red lines here. Everyone's trying to land the biggest blow they can short of instigating a conflict. And, you know, I think to a certain extent that, you extent, that leads us back to how this all started. I think Hamas probably thought on October the 7th that it would attack Israel, and Israel would respond the way it always did, within the usual red lines with several days of bombing. And this has been, I think, a surprise for them. So these things can get out of control

if you cross the line of what's acceptable and what the other side can tolerate. So it's a dangerous moment. I agree that still nobody wants this wider conflict, but also no one wants to look weak. Is that true? You just mentioned there that nobody really wants this wider conflict. I guess I wonder, are there any parties that would actually be served by this conflict escalating and growing wider? I mean, obviously, it would help Hamas to have, you know, Israel distracted and fighting on other fronts. Obviously, it, you know, it would arguably help Russia if it saw sort of a, you know, the Middle East go up in flames. And instead of Russia just being ostracized by Western countries, the West might turn to Russia and ask it to use its influence on countries like Iran to sort of resolve the situation.

Then Russia can in turn ask for concessions in Ukraine. On the overall, like I said, it's a lot of chest beating, a lot of countries that don't want a war but also don't want to look weak, that don't want to be seen by their own populations as having let the other side get a shot in. How will we know, though, Mark, if this conflict has spread into a wider conflict? Like, is there a sense maybe that it has already spilled over because we've been seeing all these events of the past week? So far, we're still at a point where all sides are restraining and posturing. I think the real sign that the regional conflict has begun, that Iran is directly in conflict with Israel and the United States, would be if Hezbollah and Israel start trading genuine blows across the border. If Hezbollah starts launching a large number of missiles and rockets at Israel, and if Israel is sending ground troops into Lebanon, then clearly we're in a different phase.

We're in a regional war. And at that point, all bets are off about how other actors behave, what happens in Syria, where there are pro-Iranian forces and other forces that are backed by the West and by Turkey. Places like Iraq, where there are American troops on the ground, but surrounded largely by a hostile population. Iran itself, which has internal dissent that might try and seize the moment. So you can see how this could spread. But I think the trigger will be the Israel-Lebanon border. And just lastly here, Mark, I guess I want to go back to the Israeli offensive in Gaza. So what impact, if any, might these events have on future negotiations there between Hamas and Israel? That's really important because certainly from an Israeli perspective, the conflict there can't end as long as Hamas is holding Israeli hostages.

And the last count I saw anyways was there were 129 Israelis held hostage in Gaza, some of whom they believe may have died during the offensive. But Hamas would be still holding their bodies. held hostage in Gaza, some of whom they believe may have died during the offensive. But, you know, Hamas would be still holding their bodies. If you want to talk to how to get to the end of this, that count is very important. After the death of Mr. al-Aruri this week, Hamas said he was a central figure to the negotiations and sort of blaming Israel for what it said would be a collapse in the negotiations over hostage releases. He was the Hamas leader that was killed in Beirut. Yes, exactly. And so, you know, that was sort of the immediate signaling from Hamas was these

negotiations are now, you know, died with Mr. El-El-Eli. You know, the signaling from other parties to those negotiations from Qatar and from Egypt is no, no, no, we're still working on this. At the same time, the Israeli offensive is continuing. We're at this moment, we're no closer to seeing the end of that conflict. You know, whether or not Mr. al-Ali's death set that back, as Hamas is claiming, is yet to be seen. Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to walk us through this today. Thank you, Meenaka. Since we spoke with Mark, the Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the double bombings in Iran on January the 3rd. That's it for today. I'm Menaka Raman-Wilms.

Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, and Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer. And Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.