The morning newspapers of Friday, April 19, all carried articles stating that Israel was unlikely to retaliate for the massive Iranian rocket and drone attack against it on April 13.
However, in the small hours of Friday morning, before the Friday newspapers had been distributed, it was reported that there had been a rocket and aircraft attack against an Iranian air base in the province of Isfahan, attributed to Israel.
As the hours passed, information started to spread – at first anonymously – that what had been attacked was the defense system around the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz in Isfahan.
Iran seemed inclined to downgrade the gravity of the attack, apparently to avoid a further escalation in the situation. But we must wait and see where all this will lead.
The news broadcasts in Israel on Friday night at midnight and Saturday morning at 7 were almost identical and said very little of the previous day's events. The headlines in both were that five persons had been killed in several traffic accidents in various locations in Israel on Friday.
The only addition in the morning news concerned an attack in Iraq on a pro-Iranian militia camp near Baghdad; both the US and Israel denied having been involved. Who was responsible remains a mystery, and we were left with a blurred picture of the events and how they all interrelate or do not interrelate with each other.
Unanswered questions on hostage crisis
The hostage issue is also one in which more is unknown than is known. We know that there are 133 Israeli and Israeli-related hostages in the Gaza Strip and that they have been there since October 7 and a few before. We also know that none of them will be participating in a Passover Seder. We do not know how many of them are still alive.
What is also unknown, and merely a matter of speculation, is why Israel hasn’t gotten back more than the hostages it has received from Hamas or released on its own, and whether the government is responsible in any way for this grim reality.
Could we have received another ten hostages at the end of the previous round of returns? And could we have received 20 live hostages these days, after Hamas announced that it does not have in its possession 40 live hostages who are in the category of women, children, elderly, wounded, or seriously ill hostages, who, according to the Paris understandings of February should have been returned in the first round of a new deal? The government refused to settle for only 20, though these 20 might not survive much longer.
It is no wonder that most of the families of the remaining hostages are becoming increasingly radical in their verbal expressions and actions. Life for them has turned into a daily hell as hope runs out, at least if the government and he who stands at its head can show more compassion for all those directly involved – dayenu.
The other day, I watched a TV program about the life and death of Yoni Netanyahu – the prime minister’s older brother, who was killed during Operation Entebbe in Uganda in 1976, in which 105 hostages from an Air France flight that had been hijacked to Entebbe were released from their German and Arab captors, an operation that Yoni had commanded.
In this program, Benjamin Netanyahu describes the personal anguish of the experience for himself and even more so for his parents. Listening to him, I couldn’t help wondering why he seems incapable of demonstrating more empathy for the hostages and for the hostages’ families, who have had no news about their loved ones for a long time and have no idea whether they are still alive.
And then there are tens of thousands of evacuees from the areas bordering on Lebanon, whose situation seems much worse than that of the evacuees from the Gaza border area. It is said that many, if not a majority of these evacuees will never return to their homes on the northern border – certainly not before Hezbollah is pushed back from the Lebanese border with Israel to where UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006 determined it should withdraw, and the Lebanese Army and an effective UN force are installed to ensure the peace between Lebanon and Israel.
Anyone who viewed Itai Anghel’s film on Channel 13 last Thursday, on the Hamakor program, about the current fate of Metulla —the northernmost town in Israel—which until just over six months ago was a quiet resort and is now almost completely deserted, could not help but feel distressed.
Besides some armed forces, the only inhabitants of Metulla today are a local emergency standby squad in charge of an operations room and a few eccentric individuals holding on relentlessly. The town has a good deal of physical damage and a general sense of desolation.
Metulla is one of numerous towns, kibbutzim, and other forms of settlement in this situation, and no one knows how long it will last or what sort of solution will be found. Security Council Resolution 1701 cannot possibly work as currently worded.
In general, among the many causes for the sense of unsettlement and instability in Israel today is the lack of clarity regarding the northern front. There is constant sporadic fighting going on between Israel and Hezbollah. Still, at any time, the fighting could deteriorate into a full-scale war – with or without the direct involvement of Iran.The Americans would like to resolve this situation diplomatically, but from what we know, no formal talks are taking place at the moment.
The situation regarding the Gaza Strip also seems to be in limbo, and the only development appears to be that the quantities of humanitarian aid entering the Strip have been growing constantly. However, due to the total deadlock regarding negotiations on the release of the hostages, with the withdrawal of most of the Israeli armed forces from the Gaza Strip, with more question marks than answers regarding the prospect of an Israeli land operation to occupy the city of Rafah on the border of the Gaza Strip with Egypt, which would enable Israel to finish off what remains of the organized Hamas fighting forces and infrastructures; with the Hamas political branch considering departing from Qatar and possibly moving to Turkey, or elsewhere; and with total unclarity about the future administration of the Gaza Strip – the situation appears to be pretty grim.
For Israelis, growing animosity abroad, involving the spreading of various forms of boycotts on Israel; a gradual deterioration of the Israeli economy, as well as the reduction of Israel’s credit rating by S&P several days ago; and, last but not least, the poor performance of the government, with no elections in sight, all add to the sense of instability and uncertainty.
Despite everything, hopefully, most of us will manage to celebrate the Passover Seder peacefully with our families tonight. Hopefully, for those of us who cannot do so next year, things will be better – not worse.
The writer worked as a researcher in the Knesset for many years and has published extensively journalistic and academic articles on current affairs and Israeli politics. Her most recent book, Israel’s Knesset Members—Comparative Study of an Undefined Job, was published by Rutledge.