With the Gaza war having reached its three-month mark, it has spread dangerously to Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and even Iran. On January 2, an Israeli drone strike on a Hamas office in Beirut, killed Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy head of the Hamas leadership located abroad. The next day, two explosions in Kerman, at the mausoleum of General Qassem Soleimani, former head of the Al Quds Force, killed 95 people who had gathered at the shrine to mourn on the fourth anniversary of his assassination. Though the Islamic State has claimed responsibility, many Iranians suspect it to be Israeli’s hand.
And, on January 4, the United States announced the targeted killing of the head of an Iran-affiliated militia in Baghdad that has been attacking American targets since the beginning of the Gaza war. These attacks have occurred amidst the ongoing skirmishes in the Red Sea’s waters over the last several weeks, with the Houthis targeting commercial shipping with drones and missiles and inviting strong U.S. retaliation. The Houthis have demanded that humanitarian assistance be provided urgently to the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza.
These attacks have escalated tensions in the already volatile region that is reeling from the death and destruction wreaked by Israel in Gaza since early October. Over the last three months, over 22,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, while nearly two million have been displaced, the largest displacement of Palestinians in history. An extraordinary humanitarian catastrophe faces the two-million strong Palestinian community in Gaza.
