As multiple Israeli sabotage and assassination operations inside Iran have shown, Tehran’s aggressive plans are just not working, writes Oved Lobel.
Earlier this month, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhala toured Iran to meet his patrons, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Hossein Salami.
At this time, Israel conducted a substantial operation, dubbed ‘Breaking Dawn’, against the group closer to home.
Following the arrest of Bassam al-Saadi, a key PIJ leader in the West Bank, Jerusalem received intelligence of a major PIJ terror operation being prepared in Gaza.
Acting pre-emptively, it assassinated a top military leader in Gaza, Tayseer Jabari, who was overseeing the attack plans.
After PIJ fired some 1100 rockets at Israeli cities in response, around 200 of which fell inside Gaza and caused significant Palestinian casualties, Israel hit other key PIJ leaders, workshops and weapons storage sites.
By the time a ceasefire was reached under Egyptian auspices on Sunday evening, Israel claimed to have wiped out the entirety of PIJ’s senior military leadership.
PIJ is effectively an organ of Iran’s IRGC, having split from the Muslim Brotherhood in favour of the pan-Islamic ideology of then-Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the 1980s.
Read the article by Oved Lobel in The Daily Telegraph.