Aftermath of a suicide attack in Kabul: photo by Shah Marai / AFP, May 2015

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. Iran was the focus of their remarks to reporters: pool photo by Thomas Coex, 29 April 2018 




Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. Iran was the focus of their remarks to reporters: pool photo by Thomas Coex, 29 April 2018  

Mr. Pompeo has also met with NATO officials in Brussels, where expressed support for the alliance amid conflicting signals from Mr. Trump, and with the Saudi leadership, where he called for the country to end its feud with Qatar.

Fire and explosions on Sunday at what is believed to be a military base near Hama, Syria.: photo by Abody Ahfad Khaled, via Reuters, 30 April 2018 

Fire and explosions on Sunday at what is believed to be a military base near Hama, Syria.: photo by Abody Ahfad Khaled, via Reuters, 30 April 2018 

Missile Attack in Syria Reportedly Kills at Least 16, Raising Regional Tensions: Ben Hubbard, The New York Times, 30 April 2018

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The missiles struck after dark, hitting facilities in Syria where Iran and its militant proxies had set up camp, setting buildings on fire and causing an explosion so large that it shook the ground like a minor earthquake.

But neither the presumed attacker, Israel, nor the reported victims, Iran and its allies, said much as the dust settled on Monday. Both sought to manage the escalation in the battle between them that has been building for years in the shadows of the war in Syria.

The strikes hit a munitions storage site on Sunday, destroying a cache of missiles and killing at least 16 people, many of them Iranians, according to a conflict monitoring group and one of Iran’s regional allies. Other reports suggested higher death tolls.

Much more was at stake, however, as Iran and its foes in the region — Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — compete for power in the Middle East while trying to subvert their enemies’ plans.

The increased military action and heated language has raised worries that the increasing tensions could set off a new war.

“There is now so much friction between the sides that it is very natural that a single miscalculation across the board on one of these flash points could spiral out of control,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group.

Amplifying these tensions, he said, was the looming May 12 deadline by which President Trump has said he will decide whether to pull the United States out of the international agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has sought to preserve the deal, which gives it significant sanctions relief, while the United States’ regional allies have campaigned to have it scrapped to punish Iran for what they see as its destabilizing activities across the Middle East.

They appear to have clear support from the Trump administration in their efforts to confront Iran.

On a phone call hours before Sunday’s strike, Mr. Trump spoke by phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel about “the continuing threats and challenges facing the Middle East region, especially the problems posed by the Iranian regime’s destabilizing activities,” according to a statement from the White House.

The new secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who was visiting Israel at the time, said in a news conference with Mr. Netanyahu that American coordination with its allies was “critical to our efforts to counter Iran’s destabilizing and malign activities throughout the Middle East.”

“The United States is with Israel in this fight, and we strongly support Israel’s sovereign right to defend itself,” Mr. Pompeo said.

But it was not clear whether American officials were informed before the strikes took place.

The rivalry between Iran and its regional rivals cuts across the Middle East, from Lebanon and Syria to Iraq, Yemen and the Persian Gulf.

Analysts say that Iran, which has few powerful allies and shares a region with hostile countries that spend much greater sums on their militaries, has instead built relationships with proxy forces that can fight on its behalf. These include Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party; a variety of Shiite militias in Iraq; and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

This network allows Iran to project military strength abroad while deterring potential attacks on its homeland from Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s enemies argue that these activities increase instability in the region by undermining state structures and empowering militias that operate above the law.

In recent years, Iran’s greatest investments have been in Syria, where it has sent military officers to help preserve the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Israel accuses Iran of using the cover of the war to build a military infrastructure there that could be used in a confrontation with Israel.

Throughout the war, Israel has frequently struck convoys believed to be carrying weapons to Iran’s regional allies. In April, these attacks escalated. It first launched strikes on a Syrian military base, killing seven Iranians, including a top official in Iran’s drone program.

Sunday night’s attack appeared to be a further escalation, with a higher death toll.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain but monitors Syria through contacts there, said that the attacks killed at least 26 people, most of them Iranians.

The strikes hit munitions warehouses at the 47th Brigade military base in central Hama Province that Iran and its proxies used, destroying ground-to-ground missiles and causing large explosions, the observatory said.

The blast was large enough that it was picked up by earthquake monitors. The European-Mediterranean Seismological Center reported a disturbance in the area of the base with a magnitude of 2.6, it said, equivalent to a minor earthquake.

Other reported attacks struck a fire station, also in Hama Province, and the Neirab military air base near Aleppo. But no deaths or significant destruction was reported that those sites.

An official from the regional alliance that includes Iran, Syria and Hezbollah confirmed that the strikes near Hama had hit a storage site on the base and said they had destroyed 200 missiles and killed 16 people, including 11 Iranians. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

Neither Israel nor Iran appeared interested in publicizing the strike, which analysts said was probably an effort to diminish the chances that Iran would feel the need to retaliate immediately.

Israel’s military does not comment on individual attacks in Syria, and a spokesman declined to comment on Sunday’s attack, most likely because if Israel claimed responsibility it could put pressure on Iranian leaders to strike back. Israel’s security cabinet convened an emergency meeting on Monday, apparently to discuss the rising tensions with Israel’s northern neighbors.

A semiofficial Iranian news agency, ISNA, initially said that 18 of 40 people killed in the attacks were Iranian, but the report was later taken down and Iranian officials denied that any of their people had been killed.

That, too, could have been so that Iranian leaders would not feel compelled to respond immediately, said Amos Yadlin, the former director of intelligence for the Israeli military and now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.

“If there are no Iranian casualties, you are not committed to retaliation,” Mr. Yadlin said in a conference call with reporters on Monday.

But he said he expected that Iran would eventually respond to the April attacks, although it was not clear when, where or how.

“The Iranian retaliation is on its way,” he said.

Mr. Vaez, the analyst, said that his recent conversations with Iranian officials also suggested that Iran would eventually retaliate for Israel’s strikes on Iranian assets in Syria.

“They believe that this is a slippery slope, that there is a need to send a message to Israel that there is a cost associated with its pushing the envelope too far,” he said.

But influencing their decision on when to respond was their concern that any action taken now could push Mr. Trump toward withdrawing from the nuclear agreement, Mr. Vaez said, adding that Israel’s decision to strike on Sunday might have been intended to provoke an Iranian response for that very purpose.

“We are in a vicious cycle, and the reality is that the collapse of the nuclear deal will significantly increase all these tensions,” Mr. Vaez said. “All the parties will take the gloves off at that stage.”

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi of Jordan in Amman on Monday. “We do believe the Israelis have the right to defend themselves, and we’re fully supportive of that,” Mr. Pompeo said when asked about Gaza protests.: photo by Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 30 April 2018

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi of Jordan in Amman on Monday. “We do believe the Israelis have the right to defend themselves, and we’re fully supportive of that,” Mr. Pompeo said when asked about Gaza protests.: photo by Agence France-Presse — Getty Images, 30 April 2018

Pompeo and Palestinians Have ‘Nothing to Discuss’ Amid Gaza Crisis: Gardiner Harris and Isabel Kershner, The New York Times, 29 April 2018 

TEL AVIV, Israel — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to Israel Sunday in the midst of the worst crisis in relations between Israelis and Palestinians in years, but he did not meet a single Palestinian representative and mentioned them publicly once.

Instead, he will fly home Monday after seeing King Abdullah.

Israeli gunfire is taking a severe toll on the lower limbs of Palestinian protesters: image via Washington Post @washingtonpost, 28 April 2018

2018

They remind me of every malevolent in a hurry to get to the money driver on the freeway feeder. 

GAZA STRIP - Palestinians wait for travel permits in Khan Yunis to cross into Egypt from the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip , after it was opened for three days to allow humanitarian cases to pass. Photo @saidkhatib #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 28 April 2018

 

For Gaza Protester, Living or Dying Is the ‘Same Thing’: Iyad Abuheweila in Gaza and David M. Halbfinger in Jerusalem, The New York Times, 29 April 2018

Mr. Gerim, well within range, and resting between slinging stones, shouts back: “We want to return!”

Say what you will about root causes and immediate ones — about incitement and militancy, about siege and control, about who did what first to whom — one thing is clear. 

More than a decade of deprivation and desperation, with little hope of relief, has led thousands of young Gazans to throw themselves into a protest that few, if any, think can actually achieve its stated goal: a return to the homes in what is now Israel that their forebears left behind in 1948.

In five weeks of protests, 46 people have been killed, and hundreds more have been badly wounded, according to the Gaza health ministry.

With its 64 percent unemployment rate among the young, Gaza, under a blockade maintained by Israel and Egypt for years, presents countless men like Mr. Gerim with the grimmest of options.

They can seek an education in preparation for lives and careers that now seem out of reach, and hope for a chance to eventually emigrate. They can join groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad, devoting themselves to armed conflict with Israel in return for a livelihood and a sense of purpose and belonging. Or they can stay home, staving off boredom by smoking shisha, a tobacco-molasses mix, or stronger stuff, and wait for things to change.

Mr. Gerim considers himself neither a terrorist nor a freedom fighter. He is not much for prayer or for politics; he says he does not belong to Hamas or Fatah or any other faction. He is a young man with nothing to do, for whom the protests have offered a chance to barbecue with friends late into the night, sleep late most mornings, make himself useful while singing songs of love or martyrdom or an end to suffering, and lash out at a hated enemy all afternoon.

 

 Saber al-Gerim 22, center, in striped shirt, and other Palestinian protesters pulling apart a fence placed by the Israeli Army during a protest in the Gaza Strip last week.: photo by Wissam Nassar for The New York Times, 29 April 2018

 Saber al-Gerim 22, center, in striped shirt, and other Palestinian protesters pulling apart a fence placed by the Israeli Army during a protest in the Gaza Strip last week.: photo by Wissam Nassar for The New York Times, 29 April 2018

“It doesn’t matter to me if they shoot me or not,” he said in a quiet moment inside his family’s tent. “Death or life — it’s the same thing.”

The protests, with an outdoor festival’s schedule of fun and games, performances and creative programming — and carnage every Friday — is meant to build to a climax on May 15, the day Palestinians mark the Nakba, or catastrophe, of their flight and expulsion when Israel was established 70 years ago.

The protest, which grew out of a young activist’s Facebook page and was a grass-roots initiative before being embraced, organized and publicized by Hamas, the militant Islamist group that rules Gaza, has hardly scared the Israelis into altering their basic policy. Israel continues to treat the tiny coastal enclave like a deadly virus to be quarantined and, other than that, more or less tunes it out.

But it has been a success in one important respect: It has cast a light onto the unsolved problem that is Gaza, and reminded a world that had seemed to move on to more urgent crises that its two million people, deprived of clean water, freedom of movement and a steady supply of electricity, are sliding steadily into despair. 

Mr. Gerim is typical in another way: He does not think of Gaza as his home, but he has no idea what home is.

His grandmother, Haniya al-Kurdi, 80, was a little girl when her family left what is now Ashdod, Israel, in 1948. She has never been back, but has heard that there is a coffee shop next to where her home was. The closest anyone else in the family has gotten was in 2013, when Mr. Gerim’s sister, Sabreen, now 26, contracted cancer and was allowed to spend a year in Tel Aviv getting treatment. On the way there, her mother, Iktimal al-Gerim, asked their driver to point out Ashdod to them from the highway.

For Mr. Gerim, the family’s old property is an idea more than a place he can actually picture.

Israelis themselves he has had more experience with. When he was about 10, before the Israelis evacuated their Gaza settlements in 2005, Mr. Gerim climbed a tree outside his grandfather’s house to get a better look at the soldiers a few hundred yards away. Then he fell to the ground and broke his right hand.