Many Palestinians are praising Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel, seeing in the attack a rare moment of forceful response to the country’s months-long assault on Gaza, according to Reuters.
“For the first time, we saw some rockets that didn’t land in our areas,” said Abu Abdallah, 32, a Gaza resident who spoke to the media using a pseudonym. “These rockets were going into the occupied Palestine… We are hopeful that if Iran or any other country enters the war a solution for Gaza might be nearer than ever.”
“We have been slaughtered for over six months and no one dared to do anything,” said Majed Abu Hamza, a 52-year-old refugee from Gaza City who is a father of seven.
A flurry of drones and rockets swept across Israeli territory Saturday in an unprecedented direct strike from Iran’s military on Israel. Israel claimed that, with the support of US and UK forces, it was able to intercept the majority of the strikes.
But video on social media appeared to show a significant attack on Israel’s Ramon military airbase in the Negev desert. The Nevatim airbase was also reportedly struck as well as an alleged intelligence site in the occupied Golan Heights. The Lebanon-based Hezbollah also fired dozens of rockets towards Israel.
Iran’s attack was in retaliation for an apparent April 1 strike by Israel on Iran’s diplomatic consulate in Syria, which resulted in at least 16 deaths. A senior Quds Force commander in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was among those killed, as well as seven other Iranian officers.
Observers suggested the highly-provocative action was designed to provoke an Iranian response, pulling the United States into an expanded conflict with Iran. But an anonymous US official Thursday suggested Washington would tolerate a measured retaliatory strike by Tehran.
US President Joe Biden has since claimed the United States will only pursue a “diplomatic response” to the Iranian strike.
“Whoever decides to attack Israel, dares to attack Israel at a time when the whole world acts in its service, is a hero in the eyes of Palestinians regardless of whether we share their ideology or not,” said Abu Hamza.
Much is often made in Western media of the division between Sunni and Shia Islam in the Muslim world, but Iran’s Shiite-led government has made solidarity with the predominately Sunni Palestinians a central tenet of its philosophy since the country’s revolution. Iranians overthrew the country’s US-backed Pahlavi dynasty in 1979, establishing a regime that denounced Western interference in the Middle East.
Iran’s principled anti-imperialism has drawn respect throughout the region as US-supported regimes in other countries are often viewed as little more than Western puppets.
Some Palestinians criticized Iran’s strike however.
“Curtains down on the face-saving piece of theater... The Palestinian people are the only ones who pay the price with their flesh and blood,” said West Bank resident Munir al-Gaghoub on social media.
The value of Iran’s attack may be primarily symbolic; the country usually relies on allied movements in the region to confront Israel militarily.
The precedent of direct Iranian strikes on Israel may eventually prove important, establishing yet another front Tel Aviv must deal with. The refusal of the United States to involve its armed forces in the conflict means Israel will continue to face a steady deterioration of social, military, and economic conditions, ultimately resulting in a strategic defeat according to former US Middle East intelligence analyst Paul Pillar.