Air strikes on Gaza Strip by the Zionist regime, which began on Thursday under the pretext of re-launching burning kites, did not last for more than three days. Facing missile responses from the Palestinian Resistance to these aggressions, Israel was forced to eventually accept the ceasefire. However, the aggression of the Zionists against Gaza within short intervals can be viewed from various aspects. The following note will discuss one of these aspects.

The recent clashes in Gaza, which began on Saturday, May 4th, with the Zionist regime’s air strikes, ended on Monday, with the mediation of Egypt and Qatar and the help of the United Nations, after the two sides agreed to a ceasefire.

This is the second short-term confrontation over the past seven months in Gaza after the November encounter when Israel planned to abduct Resistance leaders in Gaza but met a crushing response from Palestinian combatants: An answer that led to the resignation of Lieberman (Israeli Defense Minister) and compelled Netanyahu to move to early elections. The Zionists always had excuses for launching such attacks but the reality is that the root cause of these short-term conflicts should be sought in Tel Aviv’s domestic and regional goals, especially in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Zionist sources have announced that they attacked certain targets in these strikes and have claimed they had achieved all their goals in this operation! They claimed that the attacks had destroyed the Palestinian Resistance infrastructures, and more than 30 missile manufacturing industrial workshops were completely destroyed.

The Palestinian sources, however, have announced that the Israeli attacks have been largely against non-military targets and therefore more than 30 Palestinians were martyred and more than 150 others were wounded, most of them civilians, including women and children.

On the other hand, Israeli media, despite intense censorship have reported the deaths of 5 Zionists and wounding of more than 130 people in missile attacks of the Resistance.

It seems that one of the major goals of this war should be sought in the Zionist regime’s internal political conditions. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, was due to launch his cabinet after winning the recent elections but due to the right-wing parties concession demands he failed to set up his cabinet in due time (first 28 days). He has only 14 days to introduce the cabinet in the second deadline. By initiating this latest confrontation, Netanyahu is striving to make the situation insecure and bring himself out of the pressure of small parties blackmailing to be able to form his government in an insecure condition.

Regional developments, especially on the northern borders, and the strong presence of the Resistance Axis in Syria and Lebanon, constitute a very serious threat to Israel, and the regime insists on overcoming this threat, but the effective presence of the Resistance in this region has increased the likelihood of a war in the two fronts of Syria and Lebanon. It should be noted that both the Secretary-General of Hezbollah and the other components of the Resistance Axis have been transmitting very serious warnings to Israel. They have told the Zionists that they are fed up with Tel Aviv’s aggressive actions in Syria and Lebanon and that Israel will face a tough reaction from the Axis in the future.

In view of the high missile capability of the Resistance Movement and its growth in qualitative and quantitative dimensions, Israel sees itself highly vulnerable to these types of attacks and is, therefore, seeking to update its own missile defense system called the Iron Dome and eliminate its weaknesses as much as possible. The Iron Dome has been deployed in Israel in collaboration with the United States but has shown in several wars that it has many flaws and does not have the ability to withstand the volume of missiles fired by the Resistance.

Due to boosting Syria’s defense systems through Russia and upgrading of the existing systems, the cost of testing an Iron Dome missile in the Syrian region is high and will be dangerous particularly that the Syrian army has announced that its strategy against Israel’s aggression will change from defensive to offensive and in line with the same policy, it has fired missiles deep into Occupied Palestine.

Testing Lebanese Hezbollah is not basically on the agenda of the Zionist regime. Because Hezbollah has shown that its response is definite and tough. Lebanon’s defense minister, too, has officially warned Israel that, in any anti-Lebanese campaign, the country’s military is in the same position as Hezbollah, and Israel will witness reprisals by the Lebanese army.

Accordingly, only conflicts in Gaza can help Israel identify and remove the weaknesses of the Iron Dome and short-term conflicts against the Gaza Strip, like the recent confrontation, are taking place in this context. But each time there is a conflict, despite the previous pathology of the Iron Dome by the Zionists, the dome has been less effective than before, and this also reflects the fact that the Islamic Resistance has learned about the goals of the Zionists and by upgrading its missile capability, it is trying to maintain the upper hand in the equilibrium with Israel.

Analysts also point out that the Zionist regime by weakening and neutralizing the confrontation power of the Resistance in the Gaza Strip is trying to create some peace of mind from the southern borders at the time of war in northern Palestine. But field developments and circumstances indicate that Israel is far from reaching the desired security level, and the Axis of Resistance, in contrast, is in very favorable conditions.