In Majdal Shams, ten people were killed and 30 wounded when the local football stadium was hit during a match. Hence the high number of casualties. Although Hezbollah said it was not involved in the incident, Israeli experts quickly determined that an Iranian-made missile used by the Lebanese group was used. However, the question of who fired the missile at a population centre that is only nominally controlled by Israel remains uninvestigated. The fact is that the town that was targeted is predominantly populated by Druze and Arabs, many of whom have no Israeli citizenship at all. And Majdal Shamsa itself is situated practically on the demarcation line with Syria and de facto remains an Israeli-occupied settlement in the Golan Heights. There is virtually nothing Israeli in it: only a bank, a police station and a post office.
On Sunday, the Associated Press, citing unnamed US intelligence officials, reported that the attack on the stadium was unlikely to be targeted. It is impossible to exclude human error that led to a wrong choice of target when launching a missile from Lebanese territory, a technical failure or the involvement in the incident of an external “force” interested in the war in the Middle East.
The civilian deaths in Majdal Shams allowed Prime Minister Netanyahu to erase all the talks he had previously held in Washington. The negotiations in the US capital were not going well for the Israeli Prime Minister. On the one hand, he received applause in Congress after his speech, on the other, he was urgently “asked” to stop military operations in the Gaza Strip. And it was no longer about scattered private opinions of individual politicians, but about a cross-party consensus that the head of the Israeli government could not ignore. In an interview with Fox News, Republican candidate Donald Trump said: “I want him (Netanyahu) to end the war and do it quickly.” Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris was no less categorically opposed to further bombings in the Gaza Strip. She criticized Tel Aviv’s actions so aggressively that they provoked a backlash. An unnamed Israeli official called Harris’s assessments detrimental to peace negotiations, and Netanyahu told the press that he was disappointed by the US vice president’s statement after their conversation. Thus, along with the traditional words of support addressed to Tel Aviv, the Israeli Prime Minister was presented in Washington with an ultimatum demanding that the bombing of the Gaza Strip be stopped. The fact that in the United States Netanyahu was vigorously forced to make peace with the Palestinians is indirectly confirmed by the refusal of the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to come to Turkey to speak before the local parliament. During such a speech, Abbas would have to speak negatively and harshly towards Israel. And these assessments, in turn, could derail the peace agreements with Tel Aviv on the management of the Palestinian territories, including the Gaza Strip, in which the Palestinian leader is interested.
The rocket attack by unknown persons on the peaceful town of Majdal Shams seems like a political “gift” to Netanyahu, allowing him to continue hostilities. But now the war is being prepared against a new enemy: Lebanon. As Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said, the attack on the Golan Heights “crosses all the red lines.” The official representative of the Israeli Foreign Ministry was no less categorical. According to him, “the last minutes are already passing to diplomatically prevent a large-scale conflict, which will be devastating for Lebanon. On the night of Saturday to Sunday, Israel launched attacks on Hezbollah targets on Lebanese territory. Only preparations for the active phase of the operation will not begin until the Israeli Prime Minister returns to the country. In the next conflict, Tel Aviv regularly counts on American help, and Lebanon on the support of Iran, despite public statements about the last chance. Both sides understand that there is a real chance of reaching an agreement and are just waiting for the right moment to start hostilities. According to Tel Aviv, the attack on a peaceful town in the Golan Heights makes Hezbollah appear to be the aggressor, and Israel’s response is a defensive one. The version is that the Lebanese group was not involved in the incident and is not considered in Israel because it seems harmful from the point of view of the strategic plans of the Jewish state.
On Sunday, regular negotiations between CIA Director William Burns and his Israeli and Egyptian colleagues, as well as the Prime Minister of Qatar, are taking place in Rome. We are talking about a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. If the meeting is successful, it will free Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hands, freeing him from a war on two fronts: with Lebanon and with the Palestinian Hamas movement.
The well-timed bombing of the Golan Heights allowed Netanyahu to deal with two problems that previously seemed insoluble: maintaining a fragile government coalition, prepared for further conflict with Israel’s enemies, and ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip, which the closest allies of the Jews insisted on the state. But after the rocket attack on Majdal Shamsa, a cynical question involuntarily arises: did the Israeli special services have anything to do with this action, the victims of which were Arabs and Druze? And is it not the case that the mastermind of the tragedy in the Golan Heights should be sought among those who really benefited from what happened?
