The War Between Israel and HAMAS

What Does It Mean for Ukraine?

Ivan Sichen

In October 2023, during the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, there was another attack by Islamic extremists from the HAMAS movement on Israel from the territory of the Palestinian Authority. Its scale is the largest since the so-called Yom Kippur War in 1973 between Egypt and Syria on the one side and Israel on the other. It would seem that there is no connection between the Russian-Ukrainian and Arab-Israeli wars. However, in reality, this is not entirely true. All of them are the consequences of Russia’s imperial policy, which it implements both openly and covertly, but mostly in a military way. Although, one way or another, Moscow will always lose and will continue to lose. In the 1970s, Moscow and its supporters lost the war with Israel. Now Russia is suffering setbacks on the front with Ukraine. And Israel is successfully repulsing the attack of HAMAS.

Analysts and experts always ask a quite reasonable question: why did this or that high-profile event take place at a particular time, and what was it connected with? The same question can be asked about the new Islamist attack on Israel. The answer to it is quite simple. It is only necessary to look at the military and political processes that are taking place around the aggravation of the situation in the Middle East, as well as to identify those who are interested in this.

Let’s immediately reject the option of the HAMAS movement’s autonomous attack on Israel. At this time, this is unlikely. Of course, HAMAS, like other extremist organizations and most of Islamic countries in the region, is always in confrontation with Israel and attacks it with all the forces and means at its disposal. But for the Islamist attack, which happened in October 2023, HAMAS clearly lacked such forces. According to various sources, from 2.2 to 5.5 thousand missiles were launched towards Israel. Besides, Islamist armed groups broke into Israeli territory and even seized a military base there. According to historical experience, an operation of this scale can be organized and carried out only at the state level, but not by the forces of any individual terrorist or other group.

An example of this is the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Syria against Israel in 1973, which was an interstate armed confrontation. At the same time, both sides received assistance from outside: Egypt and Syria — from the USSR, Israel — from the United States and the United Kingdom. They were massively provided with weapons, and military advisers were sent there. Moreover, at Moscow’s demand, which Washington and London actually agreed to fulfill, UN peacekeeping forces were withdrawn from the zone of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a result, conditions were created for Egypt and Syria to attack Israel.

It looks like it’s happening now. According to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Moscow maintains close relations with HAMAS, in particular, continues to supply it with weapons. Since the spring and summer of 2023, the volume of supplies to the Islamists has most likely increased, including with the participation of Iran, another enemy of Israel and partner of Russia. And then Russia and Iran pushed HAMAS into a new massive aggression against Israel. Again, it is clear why this was done. The activities of Moscow and Tehran were aimed at:

• firstly, to divert the world community’s attention from Russia’s war against Ukraine, switching to the aggravation of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This topic is of particular importance for Moscow after the final failure of its hopes for “the world’s fatigue from Ukraine”, as demonstrated by the meetings and negotiations of the G7 leaders, the NATO and EU summits and the 78^th session of the UN General Assembly, which took place this year;
• secondly, to reduce the USA’s ability to provide military assistance to Ukraine by creating a situation where Israel, in turn, will also urgently need such an assistance. Thus, Russia is trying to weaken Ukraine’s military potential, disrupt the counteroffensive of the Defense Forces of Ukraine and provide opportunities for a seizure of the initiative at the front. Moscow counts on the allied obligations of the United States and the United Kingdom to Israel, which forces them to support it, in fact, at any cost;
• thirdly, to provoke an increase in world prices for oil, which is the main export resource of Russia and Iran, and also plays a critically decisive role for the Western economy. Moscow and Tehran have always been interested in this, especially in the face of external sanctions that reduce their revenues;
• fourthly, to undermine the positions of Israel and the United States in the Middle East. Both countries are the main adversaries of Iran and rivals of the Russian Federation in the region. After the critical aggravation of relations between Russia and the United States, as well as Washington’s threats to impose new sanctions against Tehran for military assistance to Moscow, their interest in achieving such a goal has increased significantly;
• fifthly, to broaden the basis for strengthening cooperation between Russia and Iran on the basis of the fight against common enemies. As in the previous case, this is due to the intensification of the confrontation between Moscow and Tehran with Washington;
• sixthly, to discredit the United States in the international arena as the world’s leading power, which failed to guarantee the security of its ally — Israel — and stability in the Middle East. Besides, Moscow is trying to deepen the contradictions in the US Congress on the basis of some congressmen’s negative attitude to the prospects of increasing financial assistance to foreign states.

At first glance, Russia and Iran have achieved what they wanted. Israel is involved in a large-scale conflict with the HAMAS movement and suffered significant losses. At this, Tel Aviv declared itself in a state of war with Islamic extremists, which focused attention of the world community on the situation in the Middle East. And Israel’s allies and partners were forced to respond to developments in the region, both in the political and military spheres.

According to official reports from representatives of the US administration, Washington is working quickly to supply Israel with the necessary weapons and ammunition in order to strengthen its ability to defend against terrorism. According to experts, such actions of the White House will help strengthen Tel Aviv’s military capabilities, but will require significant expenditures from the US budget. At the same time, the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, in order to demonstrate support for Israel and put pressure on its opponents, decided to strengthen their military presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. As a result of the above-mentioned steps of Washington and London, their forces in the North Atlantic, where they are actually directed against Russia, are weakened to some extent.

Against this background, Russian President V. Putin openly used the armed conflict between HAMAS and Israel to discredit the United States on the world stage. Commenting on the events in the Middle East, he called them “a consequence of the failure of American policy in the Middle East”. According to him, “the United States ignored the decisions of the UN Security Council and tried to monopolize the process of settling the Arab-Israeli confrontation, but did not care at all about finding solutions acceptable to both sides, and trampled on the interests of the Palestinians”. Referring to the above-mentioned statements, he called to “more actively involve Russia” in dissolving the problems of the Middle East region.

At the same time, Moscow has not managed to achieve its strategic goal, which once again demonstrates Russia and its partners’ inability to compete with the civilized world. Despite all the Kremlin’s efforts to support the Islamists, Israel maintained control of the situation, launched Operation Iron Swords and repelled the HAMAS attack. During the operation, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the General Security Service (Shin Bet) eliminated a number of leaders of the movement and struck at its military infrastructure. Building on the successes achieved, units of Israel’s security forces began raids on the territory of the Palestinian Authority in order to find and eliminate extremists. Thus, the foundations were laid for the failure of another Russian adventure.

And the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany not only did not stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, on the contrary, they increased. According to US Defense Secretary L. Austin, Washington’s support for Israel in the fight against HAMAS will not interfere with military cooperation between the United States and Ukraine. The NATO leadership has a similar position. At the same time, a number of practical steps were taken in this direction. In this regard, the most important is the continuation of the USA’s programs for financing military cooperation with Ukraine. Currently, the White House is considering the possibility of combining such programs for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan into one package. This should increase the chances of US Congress approving aid to Kyiv despite opposition from some Republicans.

US President Joe Biden is in favor of reserving $24 billion for Ukraine, which should mainly be used to strengthen its defense. Due to problems with the adoption of the state budget, which is the result of the traditional contradictions in the US Congress with the approach of the presidential election, this issue temporarily remains unresolved. Therefore, in September 2023, the Biden administration announced that only $200 million was allocated for the needs of Ukraine. However, this is a fairly significant amount that will be spent on the purchase and production of: AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missiles; ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS); TOW anti-tank missiles; 155-mm and 105-mm artillery rounds; ammunition for small arms; demolition munitions for obstacle clearing; anti-drone systems and electronic warfare equipment. It is important that the Biden administration also approved sending first ATACMS missiles to Ukraine in this security assistance package.

The United Kingdom also plans to allocate a new $122 million military aid package to Ukraine. It will help Ukrainian troops clear minefields, maintain its vehicles, and shore up defensive fortifications to protect critical infrastructure.

Another of these packages is provided by Germany. It will include: additional Patriot and IRIS-T air defense systems; vehicles, weapons and equipment for special task forces; 155-mm ammunition; Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks; Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns; protected transport and ambulance vehicles.

Indicative were the results of the next meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group (in the so-called Ramstein format) on October 11, 2023, with the participation of representatives of more than 50 partner countries. The participants of the meeting pledged not to stop financial and military assistance to Ukraine and approved relevant plans. Within the framework of the event, a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council was also held.

As for Russia, it not only failed to implement its plans, but also suffered image losses. The entire civilized world has once again seen the true nature of Putin’s regime, which is adventurous and terrorist in nature. Consequently, the Russian Federation fails to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council. At the same time, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recognized Russia as a dictatorship and called on all member states of the Council of Europe to recognize V. Putin as illegitimate after the end of his current presidential term in 2024.

In general, all these facts allow us to draw the following conclusions:

• the use of terrorist methods (no matter what scale they are) for political purposes no longer yields results but only harms the organizers of terrorist acts, not to mention their perpetrators;
• every act of terrorism by Moscow, both against Ukraine and other countries, worsens Russia’s position in the world, increasing its international isolation. It can still win some battle, but it will definitely lose the war against whomever it starts one;
• despite the aggravation of the situation in the Middle East, attention to Ukraine does not decrease, our country continues to be provided with financial and military-technical assistance.