Since the end of 2023, Israel's military operation against Gaza has been going on for half a year, and the tiny Gaza has been plowed from north to south by tens of thousands of Israeli troops.
Until April 2024, Palestinian data released showed that the conflict in Gaza had killed more than 30,000 Gaza civilians and injured 70,000, including a large number of women and children, and as many as 13,000 children under the age of 15 alone.
The international community has repeatedly and strongly demanded the withdrawal of its troops, but Israel has no intention of ceasefire, and the UN Security Council resolution on a mandatory ceasefire has not been adopted for half a year - the proposal put forward by China and Russia has been vetoed by the United States, and the American proposal has been vetoed by other countries.
What's going on?
It turned out that in March 2024, the "Ramadan Ceasefire Resolution", that is, Security Council Resolution 2728, was finally adopted, but Israel has not moved. It was not until early April that the representative of China sternly warned Israel in the Security Council, and the next day Israel announced its withdrawal from Gaza.
Israel's withdrawal has received positive international reviews, but the United States has lost all its popularity.
At that time, the Arab countries, the American countries, China, Russia, and France were already very dissatisfied with the United States' protection of Israel. Ironically, Israel is also unhappy with the United States, because the Americans did not vote against Resolution 2728 when it voted on it.
So, on April 5, when China's chargé d'affaires to the United Nations, Dai Bing, warned Israel of a ceasefire, why did Israel start withdrawing 48 hours later? What was the immediate cause of Israel's withdrawal?
After the Israeli army withdrew, it counterattacked Rafah, what kind of medicine was sold in the Israeli gourd?
[a]
The pressure of the "Ramadan ceasefire" was intense, and Israel announced the withdrawal of its troops
On March 22, 2024, the U.S.-proposed ceasefire resolution in Gaza was vetoed by China, Russia and Algeria and failed to pass.
Prior to this, the United States had vetoed four Gaza ceasefire resolutions proposed by other countries in a row, and Arab countries were already furious. China, Russia, and even France are dissatisfied with the United States' protection of Israel.
Of the five permanent members, Britain is the only one who likes to abstain and not get involved in this trouble. The reason why the United States vetoed the resolution was that "these resolutions harm Israel's rights and interests."
For example, other countries have demanded that Israel open humanitarian corridors, deliver relief supplies, stop dismantling infrastructure, stop evicting residents of Gaza, and investigate the massacre of civilians, all of which the United States sees as harm to Israel.
In the U.S. resolution vetoed by China and Russia, the U.S. did not want a ceasefire at all, but went to great lengths to set conditions for a ceasefire - Hamas must release all Israeli hostages, otherwise ceasefire negotiations will not take place.
Interestingly, after the United States vetoed ceasefire resolutions one after another, when the news reached its country, the Biden administration seemed to be roasted on a fire. Anti-Israel demonstrations have erupted in the United States, especially at universities, and the public is outraged by the government's brainless pro-Israel actions.
As a result, at the end of March, the United States abstained from voting on Resolution 2728 for the first time.
Eventually, a ceasefire resolution was adopted, and Israel remained unmoved.
The next day, Israel announced that the "98th Assault Division," the main force of the Gaza offensive, had withdrawn from Gaza, leaving only 3,000 Israeli troops in Gaza, and the all-out offensive was basically over.
In fact, Israel's withdrawal was not completed overnight.
You know, at the end of 2023, there will be more than a dozen local brigades and tens of thousands of people joining the fighting. It is not until early 2024, after completing a sweep of the core of Hamas in northern Gaza, that Israeli forces begin to withdraw.
After that, Israel withdrew most of its troops, leaving two divisions to continue fighting.
Finally, when the "Ramadan Ceasefire Resolution" was introduced, Israel withdrew its troops at the urging of China, which made the United States breathe a sigh of relief, after all, at that time, the moral pressure since the start of the war had made the United States miserable.
And because Israel withdrew its troops after the warning issued by the Chinese representative, there are many voices on the Internet that Israel is intimidated by China's strength. But in fact, is that really the case?
[two]
The United States pressed the pause button, and Israel also bleed
In fact, what Israel is most afraid of is the coercive order of the United States.
After the Ramadan ceasefire resolution was introduced, the Biden administration sternly urged Israel to withdraw its troops, because the more trouble Israel provoked, the United States could be set on fire.
It turned out that just before the withdrawal, on April 1, Israeli warplanes launched missiles to bomb the Iranian embassy in Syria, but fortunately, the Iranian ambassador was not among them and survived.
But the current number one of the Quds Force, General Zahedi, as well as General Rahimi and four other Iranian staff, were killed.
As soon as the news came out, the United States was on the verge of a great enemy.
After all, this move offended Iran and Syria at once, and the bombing of the embassies of other countries is naked state terrorism.
Before the incident, Iran had been holding back the fire in its belly for a long time, and if it didn't do well, it would let the Middle East get out of control. And after the incident, it was the United States that suffered the most.
Therefore, Biden criticized Israel in his speech, and the White House felt that the situation was wrong, so it hurriedly stepped on the brakes.
Soon, the Biden administration diplomatically pressured Israel to rein in its actions, and according to foreign media reports, the dialogue between the two sides was very unpleasant, as evidenced by Israel's cancellation of government groups' plans to visit the United States, while the United States restricted arms sales to Israel.
Later, the return of Israeli troops to their homes seemed to be a victory for the Eastern countries, but the Arab countries did not think highly of the withdrawal.
Because in this Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the vast majority of casualties caused by the Israeli offensive, especially civilian casualties, are caused by air strikes, and the ground offensive is only a tail-sweep, and the deterrent effect of the air force is self-evident compared with that of the army.
Moreover, this time Israel has only withdrawn its army and handed over the ruined northern Gaza, but its air power is still active. Because in the far south of Gaza, Hamas rockets are still firing at Israeli soil.
After the withdrawal of Israeli troops, according to official Israeli data, Israel has achieved a lot of results in half a year's sweeps, eliminating more than 13,000 Hamas militants, sweeping more than a dozen militant strongholds, and blowing up hundreds of kilometers of tunnels.
Hamas was devastated, with dozens of relatives of its leader Haniyeh killed in the bombing.
At the time of the withdrawal, Israeli Defense Minister Gallant also said:
"Under Israeli military strikes, Hamas as a military bloc has completely ceased to exist."
Is Israel "retiring after a successful retirement"?
In fact, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is absolutely unwilling.
Netanyahu is a hardliner on the right, with war as the basis of his power, and protests from the government and the people have ensued after he has to retreat under pressure from the United States.
Speaking of which, although Hamas is a guerrilla organization, behind it now has Iran, Allah, and Houthi forces, all of which support Hamas, give people, weapons, and even participate in command.
In the street fighting in northern Gaza, the sniper rifles and Yassin rocket launchers of the Hamas guerrillas also inflicted a lot of casualties on the Israeli army.
Israel claims that 600 soldiers were killed and more than 3,100 were wounded, but even the Israeli media suspect that the overall Israeli casualties are close to 10,000.
Now Israel has been at peace for a long time, and now there are hundreds of thousands of regular troops, and tens of thousands of front-line army casualties are more tragic than those in the Middle East war.
Overseas military websites are rife with discussions about the decline in the effectiveness of the Israeli army, which was once made up of World War II veterans and first-generation Jewish immigrants who were still second-rate.
If the war exchange ratio does not achieve a huge advantage, then Israel is doomed to lose more and more in this war. What's more, the current Israeli military is not like the generation at the beginning of the founding of the country, who served the country with enthusiasm.
Nowadays, military personnel are social individuals, and pensions, medical expenses, and the recuperation of disabled servicemen are a huge burden, and the protests of civilian military families will become more and more turbulent.
[three]
Biden stopped arms sales to Israel, and Israel insisted on going its own way
When Israel withdrew in early April, the more than 100 hostages held by Hamas had not yet been rescued. As a result, Israeli representatives made contacts with Hamas in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, but with poor results.
In fact, Hamas has been rushed at this time, after all, the casualties of 100,000 civilians are a blood debt that cannot be washed away, and it is difficult for the people of Gaza to accept any peace talks with Israel.
After the withdrawal of Israeli troops, Hamas activities in Gaza also resumed, and Hamas rocket positions were established in the eastern part of the city of Rafah, the only southern communication route to the outside world, to continue to attack the Israeli army.
In late April, most countries viewed Israel's withdrawal positively as the first step towards peace in Gaza. But in early May, Israel's Defense Ministry announced that it was preparing a strike on the city of Rafah, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the claim.
This news has made the countries of the Middle East nervous, because the Israeli army has mobilized 300,000 reserves at the beginning of the war, and it is possible to reorganize and rotate for a month under the guise of withdrawing troops.
At the beginning of May 2024, Israel began to carry out intensive air strikes on Rafah, which had been bombed since February, but this time on a scale 10 times larger than the last time.
Rafah, Gaza's last city and home to 1.5 million refugees, would inevitably cause a humanitarian crisis if attacked.
Soon, the United States sternly warned Israel not to attack Rafah, but Israel did not listen.
On May 8, Biden directly ordered the United States to stop sending any ammunition to Israel, especially the guided bombs used by the F35.
Netanyahu turned a deaf ear, and the Israeli army continued to bomb. On May 9, Netanyahu even said that the occupation of Rafah was inevitable, with tens of thousands of Israeli troops attacking from three sides, and one million refugees in Rafah fleeing again.
At this time, from Israel to the United States, they have been rebuked by the international community, and the United States is thankless.
Since the resumption of the fighting between the Israeli army, more than 100,000 people have marched every day in Israel's Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and these people are not yet a group: some are for the war, some are against the war, and many more are just against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the United States, represented by Columbia University, protests have become white-hot, with police storming schools to beat and arrest students and professors, completely paralyzing schools, arousing the sympathy of many prestigious schools.
Voices on the internet are also beginning to turn, with more and more voices critical of Israel and even Jews, and the U.S. Congress has had to pass the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act to protect the Jewish community.
Commenting on the United States' refusal to sell precision weapons, the Israeli parliamentarian said: "Without guided weapons, we can only completely blow up the house." ”
When Israel attacked Rafah, the Lebanese Allah party in the north was firing rockets at full strength, Syrian forces were moving closer to the Golan Heights, and Iran's Quds Force was becoming more active.
Israel's worst fear, the Iranian-led "arc of resistance", is also tightening the siege, and the situation is not optimistic. Whether the United States wants it or not, once Israel gets into greater trouble, the United States will end up in the way of its Middle East strategy and oil status.
This era is no longer the Cold War period, and the United States cannot concentrate on the Middle East, because there are small flames in Ukraine in the north and the western Pacific in the east.
At the end of the year, the United States will have a general election, and Biden has not achieved good results in many key areas in Asia and Europe, and the campaign pressure is huge. And if Israel's sweep of Rafah causes an even greater humanitarian crisis, the Middle East could become a straw that crushes the United States.
Literature / Shogakuno
Resources:
1. "Half a year of war in Gaza, Israel has withdrawn!" However, ......", Zhang Tianlang
2. "Suddenly! Massive Israeli withdrawal, "withdrawal of almost all ground troops", anonymous