By Athena Papakosta

Aeolus’ pouch in the Middle East has opened. According to the American newspaper “Wall Street Journal”, Iran helped plan the bloodiest attack on Israel in 50 years. As the newspaper wrote, citing its senior executives HamasTehran gave the green light to launch the attack at a meeting in Beirut last Monday.

Iran denies, with its leadership, however, publicly supporting the attack by the Islamist groups Hamas and Jihad and even celebrating them with fireworks. “This victorious operation will certainly facilitate and accelerate the collapse of the Zionist regime,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Tehran maintains a long and close relationship with Hamas, a key partner in the “Axis of Resistance”. For a number of years, he has been financing and supplying weapons to the Islamist organization. But is this enough proof that Iran has a direct connection to the October 7th attack?

The White House says it has no evidence to suggest direct Iranian involvement, with National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stressing that support for Hamas makes “Iran clearly complicit.”

Israel and Iran are sworn enemies. Experts cannot ignore the timing of the new flare-up in the Middle East and observe that Tehran had many and serious reasons for its geopolitical … survival in order to prevent the conclusion of a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia brokered by the United States America. Indicative, are the words of Iran’s supreme religious leader – just a few days ago – that “countries that bet on the normalization of relations with Israel will lose”.

Tehran has influence in the region and wants to maintain it. Lebanon is of particular interest since the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization operates in the southern part of the country. It is more powerful militarily than Hamas since it is considered the most heavily armed organization in the world.

Hezbollah is warning Israel against a ground invasion of Gaza but the question of “whether it wants to get involved in the ongoing war” remains unanswered as concerns about a wider geopolitical eruption in the Middle East grow.

In the last few hours there has been movement on the border between Israel and Lebanon. As the Israeli army announced, its troops “killed a number of suspected militants who infiltrated Israeli territory from Lebanese”. He even added that helicopters “hit the area”. For its part, Hezbollah claimed to have bombed two Israeli barracks in response to the death of at least three of its members during Israeli shelling.

Hizbollah’s action in the north, on the border with Israel, can short-circuit the Israeli armed forces in their operations in the south. And this is because a possible involvement of the Shiite organization will force Israel to keep its attention focused on two fronts, at the same time.

For now the hammering of the completely blockaded Gaza continues with the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu himself – shortly before the possible start of the ground invasion – warning that “our response will change the Middle East” confirming the further escalation but also the geopolitical consequences of the ongoing war.

The next day, however, will also depend on the attitude of the United States, which is now back in the region and warns “any other party hostile to Israel” will try to take advantage of the situation.