The Zionist regime’s assassination campaign that began last Tuesday morning was a failed attempt by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to score a quick political victory. The goal was clearly to isolate the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, assassinating top officials, that would then lead to limited fighting over a number of days, however, this quickly failed and the united resistance factions won the conflict before firing a single rocket.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, three leaders of the PIJ movement were killed in their homes, along with their wives and children, while they slept at night. Khalil Bahtini, Jihad Ghanem and Tariq Ezz Ad-Din were the PIJ officials who were killed. It quickly became clear that the Zionist regime was targeting solely the PIJ movement and warned Hamas not to get involved from the get go.

The Israeli Regime’s Goals And Calculations

The far-right coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been in a perpetual state of crisis since the beginning of its reign late last year. Benjamin Netanyahu managed to seize power once again, only with the aid of the Religious Zionism alliance; a combination of fanatical religious settler parties that ran under one banner for the Israeli Knesset. The two leading Religious Zionism officials, Itamar Ben Gvir - now Israeli security minister - and Bezalel Smotrich - finance minister for the entity - were given large powers which transcend the traditional roles that they occupy as ministers.

With the backing of the Religious Zionism alliance, Netanyahu’s Likud party led coalition has pushed for legislation that will overhaul the Israeli supreme court, sparking mass civil disobedience between members of the Zionist public. The Israeli PM was forced to postpone the planned legal system amendments, after week in week out demonstrations threatened to escalate into a general strike. Yet, this was not the only problem burdening Benjamin Netanyahu, as ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich have been exhibiting their racist and religious fanatic views on behalf of Netanyahu’s regime, leading to unnecessary quarrels.

These fanatics base their decisions on emotion and dogmatism, in a similar way to Takfiri groups like Daesh and Al-Qaeda. Whereas, the likes of Netanyahu and many other senior ranking Zionist figures, play a machiavellian game and maneuver solely according to what seems politically viable. The reason why this context is key to understanding the recent escalation with the resistance in Gaza, is because it underscores the weakness of the Zionist regime at this time. 

The armed resistance movements in the West Bank, along with attacks from individual armed Palestinians, have ramped up since Netanyahu took office, with several prominent operations having taken place against Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers. In addition to this, the two last exchanges with the armed resistance groups in Gaza - during Ramadan and after the assassination of the PIJ movement’s West Bank spokesperson Khader Adnan - embarrassed the Israeli regime, which chose to launch insignificant strikes into open areas to avoid escalation.

After the Joint Room of resistance factions in Gaza announced their retaliatory rocket fire, in response to the murder of Khader Adnan, Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party lambasted Netanyahu for his “feeble” attacks on Gaza. Ben Gvir even boycotted Knesset votes over the failure of the regime to listen to his calls for assassinations and bringing down buildings in Gaza. The feud sparked between Likud and Otzma Yehudit, was the first public sign of the disintegration of the relations between Israeli coalition partners and served to weaken the Israeli PM’s rule. 

In addition to this, the Palestinian resistance had warned the Zionist Entity over the planned settler march that is scheduled to take place in Al-Quds on the 18th, which if Netanyahu is to cancel, could cause an even bigger split in his coalition. It is in this context that the decision was taken to carry out assassinations that were supposed to be low risk.

In 2019, the occupying regime had carried out the assassination of PIJ commander Baha Abu Atta, which led to days of fighting, during which PIJ was isolated and Hamas did not join the battle. In August, 2022, under the former administration of Yair Lapid, the Zionist military also carried out an operation that specifically targeted leaders in the PIJ movement - Tayseer Jaabari and Khaled Mansour - leading to operation ‘Unity of Squares’. Despite the failure of the Zionist Entity to isolate Hamas from PIJ last year, the Qassam brigades of Hamas served as advisors and fired air defense missiles, but refrained from entering the exchange with their full force. This allowed for the Zionist leadership to claim to their own people that they had secured a victory, which the majority believed.

Why Netanyahu Has Failed

Benjamin Netanyahu had probably hoped for a similar propaganda win as was claimed by Yair Lapid in August of last year, allowing for a PIJ response that would target various areas within the entity, but would not be so large as to inflict any significant blow. Like was the case last year, the Israeli military again cowered in fortified areas miles away from Gaza and allowed for the settlers to bear the consequences of their massacres. It is in this context that the resistance cannot engage in any direct action against the Israeli military on the ground, because the Israelis are simply too frightened to veer close to the besieged coastal enclave. This means that rockets are the only means available and this is what the Zionist regime was counting on.

Immediately after the assassinations were carried out, the Israelis began to claim victory, Israeli minister of war, Yoav Gallant, stated that “the goals of the operation have been achieved; the leadership of Islamic Jihad in Gaza has been eliminated.” The problem with their bragging, which also came from both Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich on social media, was that they had lied and severely miscalculated.

What happened next changed the entire equation. The Joint Room of Resistance factions announced they would respond, but waited for a day and a half, leaving the occupying entity to close down many areas, evacuate thousands of settlers and open bomb shelters throughout occupied Palestine. This began to cause frustration, not only from the Zionist public, but also within the Israeli political class itself, proving to them that their “deterrence capacity” had not been restored as the Netanyahu regime had tried to demonstrate after its assassinations. During this time, Israeli strikes continued, likely in an attempt to bait PIJ into responding, but failed.

When the response came, it targeted "Tel Aviv", which threw off many Israeli analysts who expected the first strikes to be limited and eventually extend in range. It was at this point that a ceasefire would have been favorable to the Zionist regime’s image, although they would have had to concede on the idea of restoring deterrence, it would have been sufficient for Benjamin Netanyahu to claim a small victory and make it believable. However, the Israeli PM and his fellow political leadership partners decided that they needed to demonstrate more, not allowing for the operation to look like it didn’t achieve what they claimed. The next step was to begin bringing down civilian homes to apply pressure on the resistance, which failed.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the occupation forces then assassinated Ali Hassan Ghali, the commander of PIJ’s missile unit leadership, with a suicide drone strike. Later on that day the Israeli regime also assassinated Ahmad Mahmoud Abu Daqqa, who was the second-in-command of the missile unit of PIJ’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades. This is where things began to go extremely wrong for the Zionist Entity, which was faced with a fierce rocket burst later that day, killing a settler and injuring many others. 

What was meant to be a quick surgical operation, turned into a messy ill-calculated massacre. Benjamin Netanyahu was then in a tough position, if he didn't finish strongly, he faced the possibility of exaggerating the feud inside his coalition, however, the only option to properly succeed was to launch an all-out ground war against the Gaza Strip, one that the regime was not prepared for.

The mere fact that "Israel" completely avoided Hamas, pretended they played no role in the PIJ response, then continued to only target the PIJ movement for days, proves that "Tel Aviv" no longer has any deterrence capacity. The Israeli regime fears the consequences of attacking Hamas and also Hezbollah to the north, which it avoids confronting with any significant force. Instead it attempted to isolate a movement that is weaker than Hezbollah and Hamas, with the hope that they would not get dragged into a wider confrontation. 

After rocket fire on settlements in the occupied West Bank and around al-Quds, the Israeli regime decided to carry out another assassination and began to bring down more civilian homes in Gaza. It was a desperate attempt to exhibit strength to their own people, but more importantly it was a means of pressure to bring the escalation to a halt.

After the ceasefire was announced, PIJ launched rockets towards "Tel Aviv" only minutes before the end of the battle, demonstrating that its ability to strike at the heart of the enemy had not been effected. Although on paper it would appear that the Israelis pulled off a blow, assassinating 6 senior PIJ movement officials and causing carnage inside the besieged coastal enclave, the result of the round was decided by the effectiveness of the propaganda victory. Netanyahu was unable to prove a restoration of Israeli deterrence power, the majority of Israelis polled by Hebrew Channel 12 responded by saying that there had been no change to the equation with Gaza and that deterrence hadn’t been restored. In addition to this, it was the Palestinian resistance which had the last say in the exchange and proved that the plot to drive a wedge between PIJ and other groups had failed. The Israelis also failed to change the rules of engagement.

Although there was a definite blow to the PIJ leadership in Gaza, those martyred have already been replaced, the rocket firing power the movement possesses was not significantly impacted and this round proved that without a ground invasion there are no options for the Israelis in Gaza at all. Not even against the second most powerful faction could Netanyahu pull off a believable victory, this in of itself nullified the usefulness of the Israeli attack entirely. Because Gaza was on the defensive, by preventing the attacker from achieving any of its intended goals proved to be a victory of sorts, especially when compared to what occurred last year in August.