Gaza: flashpoint for regional war? (redux)

The Iraqi government condemned air-strikes by the US military on its territory as “hostile acts” after the Pentagon said it hit sites used by Iran-backed forces. The strikes killed one member of the Iraqi security forces and wounded 18 people, including civilians, Baghdad said Dec. 26, calling the raids an “unacceptable attack on Iraqi sovereignty.” Washington said the strikes targeted three sites used by Kataib Hezbollah, part of the network of Shi’ite militias in Iraq, in retaliation for a drone attack the day before on Erbil airbase that wounded three US service members, one of them critically,. (Al Jazeera)

One day earlier, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was killed in a presumed Israeli air-strike in Syria. Seyyed Razi Mousavi was was slain in an strike on the Sayyida Zeinab area southeast of Damascus. Israel has carried out intermittent air-strikes in Syria for years, generally targeting Iranian-aligned forces, but the pace has picked up significantly since Oct. 7. (BBC News)

Israel meanwhile continues to trade cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Air-strikes on southern Lebanon were carried out Dec. 27 after Hezbollah rockets struck the largely evacuated northern Israel town of Kiryat Shmona. Senior Israeli minister Benny Gantz said: “The situation on Israel’s northern border demands change. The stopwatch for a diplomatic solution is running out; if the world and the Lebanese government don’t act in order to prevent the firing on Israel’s northern residents, and to distance Hezbollah from the border, the [Israeli military] will do it.” (Al Jazeera, ToI)

Amid all this, Yemen’s Houthi armed movement claimed responsibility for drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat and “other areas in occupied Palestine.” The Houthis are aso continuing to launch missiles on shipping vessels in the Red Sea. (Al Jazeera)

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is now fighting on “seven fronts”—Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. (PRI)