The Israeli reprisal was expected, but it stoked fresh fears of regional escalation as the Jewish state fights battles on two fronts — against Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza to the south and Hezbollah, a powerful Iranian proxy, in Lebanon to the north. The former conflict has been unprecedented in its scale and devastation, with Israel’s military flattening much of the Gaza Strip and killing tens of thousands civilians, according to Gazan health officials. The latter has yet to flare into a full-scale war, in part thanks to the wariness of the adversaries in both Lebanon and Israel, as well as the desperate diplomacy of the United States and its regional partners.
“Lebanon has been bracing for war since Saturday, when a projectile hit a soccer field full of children in Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. Israel immediately blamed Hezbollah, and vowed that it would pay a ‘heavy price,’” my colleagues reported. “Hezbollah denied it was behind the strike. On Tuesday, as the two traded fire, Israel said that a civilian was killed after suffering shrapnel wounds in one of Hezbollah’s rocket attacks.”
The Biden administration voiced support for Israel but expressed hope that tensions wouldn’t spiral further. “We do not believe that an all-out war is inevitable,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a news briefing. “We believe it can be avoided” through diplomacy. In an interview with Reuters, Lebanese foreign minister Abdallah Bou Habib condemned the Israeli strike on Beirut and cautioned Hezbollah, which has a deep footprint in Lebanese politics and society, about its next steps.
“Hopefully any response will be proportionate and will not be more than that, so that this wave of killing, hitting and shelling will stop,” he said.
As it braces for a new escalation, Israel also finds itself careening toward a clash closer to home. On Monday, far-right protesters and at least one Israel lawmakers participated in the storming of Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert. The cause of their ire was the Israeli military’s detention of nine reservists suspected of participating in the abuse of a Palestinian prisoner. Far-right demonstrators also broke into Beit Lid military base in central Israel, where some of these reservists were allegedly being held. Security forces cleared them out Monday evening but the disturbances spoke volumes of rifts growing within Israeli society and politics.
In the shadow of Israel’s war in Gaza, the country’s armed forces have picked up thousands of Palestinians from the territory. “Military detention camps such as Sde Teiman have served as an initial holding point for Palestinians detained in Gaza,” my colleagues reported. “After weeks, sometimes months, in detention, those who are later alleged to have militant links are typically transferred into the Israeli prison system; others are released without charge, often after weeks of abuse and interrogation, according to the testimony of former detainees.”
The stories that have emerged from inside these facilities have shocked rights groups. Reports detail frequent physical abuse, sensory depravation and even sexual assault. “The situation there is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo,” Khaled Mahajneh, the first lawyer to visit detainees at Sde Teiman, told +972 magazine, an Israeli publication, last month.
“After months of mounting international scrutiny and domestic legal challenges, in early June Israeli authorities announced they had begun transferring hundreds of Gazan detainees to other military-run facilities,” my colleagues reported. “The development came in response to a petition before Israel’s Supreme Court challenging the detention center’s legality and calling for its closure because of abuse and torture allegations.”
But many Israelis are opposed to such scrutiny, including top ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet. “I’m calling on the chief military prosecutor, get your hands off the reservists,” Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, wrote on social media. “Take your hands off the reservists,” posted Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, who oversees the prison system.
Footage from a Monday meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, saw some lawmakers bickering over the decision to censure soldiers alleged to have sodomized a Palestinian detainee, with one official suggesting that all punitive action is “legitimate” against Palestinian prisoners. “In essence, soldiers are in open rebellion for the right to rape prisoners, and more and more coalition politicians are joining them,” posted leftist Israeli journalist Haggai Matar.
The far-right agitations on Monday weren’t a unique occurrence, nor can their rage be solely pinned on the traumas Hamas unleashed through its hideous Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel. Far-right groups have assaulted convoys carrying aid to Gaza, while vigilantes from settlements in the West Bank — a hotbed of the Israeli far right — have long participated in attacks on Palestinian civilians in their midst. Figures like Ben Gvir and Smotrich, brought into power by Netanyahu, have encouraged such radical action. “In the past it could still be said that they were a handful or a minority, but today they are the government, they are the law, they are the face of Israel,” Israeli journalist Oren Ziv wrote.
Netanyahu condemned the scenes Monday — but his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, was sterner. “The backing and active participation of elected officials in riots at IDF bases, along with harsh statements against senior IDF officers, is a very serious and dangerous phenomenon that harms security, social cohesion, and Israel’s image in the eyes of the world,” Gallant said Tuesday. “This dangerous phenomenon must be dealt with decisively and immediately.”
The developments were the “closest I’ve ever experienced to state breakdown,” political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin noted, adding that the discord amounted to an indirect victory for outfits like Hamas and Hezbollah. “This is better than they ever dreamed.”
