 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, we look at the developments in Palestine and Israel. Following the violence that happened over the past couple of days, which began with an Israeli operation in Gaza. To talk more about this, we have with us Prabir Burqasar, Adrian Chief NewsClick. Hello, Prabir. Prabir, so let's start with the operation in Gaza that happened on Sunday. An Israeli defense force team was intercepted near Khan Yunus village, and during a senior Hamas commander was killed. The Israeli forces managed to escape, although one soldier died. And after that, the Israelis also provided a lot of cover fire for the soldiers to escape, and it was followed by an escalation from both sides. So how do you see this operation in the developments after that in the context of the region right now? You know, it's interesting to see what Israel believes its rights are there over Gaza. It has attacked it will in the past. It's bombed whenever it wanted. It has had assassination attempts taken out quote-unquote people that it didn't like. This has been a pattern in the past, and recently when the protests took place on the Gaza border again, they had snipers posted to the borders by Israeli forces and really killed a number of people. So this escalation has been going on back and forth for quite some time, more or less one-sided by the Israeli armed forces. And sometimes there have been retaliation from Gaza in terms of rocket attacks. Of course, in the Western media it has always been that as if Gaza rocket attacks come first, the Israeli retaliation takes place. It's always retaliation from Israel attacked by Gaza. Even if you see the newspaper headlines in the various Western media, this is almost a pattern of what is also said here. In this particular case, there seems to have been an operation which could be, was an intelligence operation, was not an assassination attempt. And this led to seven Palestinians being killed. And also one Israeli armed forces officer being killed, apparently left in the colonel. The trail of events, the trail of events that we can talk, we see, seems to be that there was a vehicle which had entered. And this is about three kilometers inside the border. And there it was intercepted by some of the Hamas armed forces. And at that time the firefight took place in which the Hamas commander was killed. And then they tried to withdraw to the border at a three kilometer long chase as it were took place, trying to extract the team, intelligence team. It seems there were drone firing, drone missile fires that were there, artillery fire, and also aircraft missiles which were trying to cover the retreat of this vehicle, trying to extract the vehicle. It is in this operation really the Palestinian soldiers, Palestinian armed commander as well as others died. This was a significant escalation because this is in the aftermath of, supposedly, stepping down of the tensions between Israel and Gaza, in which they have recently allowed fuel to come, food to come in, and also allowed 15 million to be transferred by Qatar to the administration in Gaza, so that back salaries could be paid. So it's a very surprising development that in the face of this kind of, shall we say, stepping down of tensions, and particularly after shall we say the border fireings that took place, this seems to be either a rogue operation inside Israeli government or the Israeli government certain sections deciding that there was enough ground under the current scenario to try and do some intelligence gathering operations inside Gaza. Whatever may be the reason, this is certainly sent back to the, shall we say, reducing of tension, I will not call the peace process, there wasn't, there isn't any peace process at the moment in Gaza, but at least reduction of tensions which is supposed to have taken place after this. I think the important issue really is what happens after this particular incident. Palestinians, because missiles were fired inside Gaza, the Palestinians inside Gaza, all the forces, it's not just the Hamas, all the forces have come together and they did retaliate by launching some rocket fire in the areas around Gaza, particularly Ashkelon which is on the northern end of the Gaza, and also in other areas. This is the first time that roughly about 400 missiles were launched in spite of the iron dome. It appears that two-thirds of these missiles did land inside these areas. So the iron dome was penetrated quite significantly, about 100 missiles were apparently intercepted which would mean if anything between 360 to 400 missiles were fired, rockets were fired, at least two-thirds to three-fourth of those got through. This is a very, very significant development because it means that the protection that Israel has been able to claim for itself through the iron dome, anti-missile, anti-rocket technology is no longer sufficient to protect them. So this is a very significant development in military terms for the Hamas and particularly for the Gaza. Of course the retaliation was extremely brutal. Six major buildings collapsed. The Al-Aqsa television station was raised to the ground but that Gaza people knew there would be retaliation. For the first time they believed that this is something significant that they're able to hurt Israel. The issue is really not that Israel would hurt them disproportionately. They are saying we are 2 million people cooped up in 360 square kilometers. We have no jobs, food is at risk at any point. So they are at a stage where they believe any protest is worth it and if we lose lives, lose property, we are okay with it. So the significant part of it is they were able to inflict military damage on Israel for the first time and therefore Israel's population now finds even in Gaza which has much less shall we say capability than what for instance Hezbollah has in Lebanon that they are still exposed to certain retaliation which will hurt Israel. This is something quite new and I think in that sense the other important development is the fact that all the factions inside the Gaza came together for this resistance. So Gaza is no longer the soft target it once was where Israel could walk in, wreak whatever damage it wanted and withdraw and claim that they were only retaliating and this is only self-defense. I think now self-defense will also operate even if the disproportionate force on both sides. Self-defense will now operate on both sides. I think that's a significant development. And moving on to Israel we see that in the aftermath of the attacks and the missile firing the ceasefire was negotiated very quickly and this caused a lot of controversy in Israel and the Defense Minister Libman resigned saying that Israel had surrendered to Hamas because of this. And right now Netanyahu and Libman's party is also withdrawn which means Prime Minister Netanyahu has a very slim majority and he now has the situation where he has to convince his other coalition partners as well as the people of Israel about the ceasefire protests are breaking out in various parts of Israel against the ceasefire for instance. So how do you see Netanyahu and the larger Israeli political situation right now? I think Israel facing a situation that it does not have impunity vis-a-vis the West Bank and Gaza is something quite new. So therefore the fact that it had to seek ceasefire you see it's interesting that they used rocket fire against Gaza. Gaza didn't ask for ceasefire because Gaza was still penetrating the iron dome was able to inflict more damage. So as a consequence though an uneven balance there was a balance of terror as it were on both sides. And therefore finally Israel had to agree to the ceasefire under duress because it could not protect its people as it claims with the iron dome. It was always claimed iron dome was impenetrable. So I think that is this new balance of terror as it were in Gaza is something which Israeli politicians are not willing to accept. So this is one part which is very clear. The second part of it is that we have moved the politics of Israel so far to the right that the balance over there is whether apartheid is okay we should continue with apartheid or should we go for complete elimination of the Palestinian population. And therefore a second number. This seems to be the debate between Libman, Naftali Bennett and Netanyahu. So for outside world we don't understand what is it that you are looking for? After all if there is a ceasefire in Gaza why should there be not a ceasefire? Do you want really war over there to continue? What is the end objective then? This is not explicable unless you look at the fact that Israel has moved so far away from what any normal state would behave. That its debate is something that we don't understand. We think it's about whether there should be an apartheid state or not. Israel has been an apartheid state for quite some time. So that's never the discussion. The discussion was will West Bank ever be given up the status of a state? And what the last legal changes that were made in the Israeli constitution meant that there is no other population in this larger Israel. That is the right of cell determination. So Palestinian statehood is not on the table. So that was the real issue. Therefore apartheid is not only something which is de facto there. They declare de jure that we are now an apartheid state and you live with it. But since that is not really a stable solution. Therefore I think what we are seeing, breakout between Libyans, Netanyahu, Naftali, Bennett and so on, is how do you deal now with the West Bank Palestinian population? And if we can eliminate them, quote-unquote eliminate them via Nagba, a second Nagba, then Gaza is the only problem we'll be faced with and we don't really care. So I think that's the basic issue and if Gaza can resist, then it's a setback because the Palestinian people then will feel that they have an ability or a right to resist. And if they do resist in some sense, I think it changes the politics of Palestine completely. So I think that's the battle that is going on. Yes, Netanyahu is not in a happy place. His party has lost some seats in the recent elections and in this election today, probably he will lose more seats, but that's really not the issue. Between extreme right, how far to the right does Israel's politics go? This is really not an issue for me because I believe that there is no chance of the polity, shall we say, rational polity itself today in Israel in the short run. So what you're looking at is how much more right can Israeli politics go and it seems it can go to any extent. And moving on to the larger region. So the recent series of developments, how do you see them as affecting Israel's capability to deal with its neighbors and for its strategic ambitions as a whole? If you see the region, and we have discussed this earlier as well, that after the 2006 war, its ability to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon has been limited. It's been threatening war against Hezbollah for the last 12 years, but it is really not in the position to do so because Hezbollah has got enough rocket fire to be able to strike deep into Israel. So that is one problem that Israel has had with Lebanon. In Syria we know recently after its attack on Syria, we found that the S-300s have been now deployed. Given that, it's very unlikely that they will be able to strike Syria at will, which they were doing earlier. So we have already closed out Lebanon, we have closed out Syria. And now if also Gaza, which is really the last remaining part which they could bully at will, if that also goes and after this recent exchange, it does appear that Gaza has now the ability to at least hit Israel. If that happens, then Israel will still be the most dominant military power in the region, but it will not have the ability to hit anybody it wants at any time and get away with it. What it is becoming is the sense of impunity with which it dealt with the Arab countries is going to go. What it is going to be the first among equals and this is something which is not to Israel's liking at all. Of course it has got nuclear weapons, it can never be eliminated in the region nor is it something which anybody is asking for. This I think is their biggest anger against Iran because it basically blames Iran for the kind of missile technology, rocket technology which has come first in Lebanon to Hezbollah and now in Gaza. That this technology transfer as it were to resistance forces inside both these places and shoring up Assad's forces in Syria. This is what really has upset, it shall be said, the dominant position of Israel as a sole military power which could enter any country and if you will beat them up whenever it wanted. It always had a problem with Egypt because Egypt was big enough that even if it lost the war, it could come back and again threaten Israel. But that's not true for any other country in the region. The position that Israel enjoyed, the one of complete impunity, I think that is the one which is weakened. And for Israel, that for the Israeli right particularly, so gawling because it means that its ability to create a second nagba, push the Palestinians into the surrounding countries, maybe resisted then because that means that also its ability to impose its will on its neighbors. The second part is what is now weakening. Therefore Israel is having an existential crisis, not in terms of its existence, but in terms of being a superior power which can as it were impose its will on any of its neighbors. Thank you Praveer. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching NewsClick.