(Art direction and design: Jean-Dominique Lavoix-Carli)

Given the speed and political density of the historic sequence opened by the Gaza war, the first article in this new RTAS series covers only the period from 7 to 27 October 2023.

Introduction: A new war in a new Middle East

On 27 October 2023, Israel’s military launched a massive offensive against Hamas in Gaza. The Israeli offensive is the response to the 7 October formidable attack by land, sea and air by hundreds of Hamas commandos in the depths of Israel. That operation, the killing of 1400 Israeli people, and the taking of 237 hostages, destabilized the whole Middle East (Bill Hutchinson, “Israeli-Hamas conflict: time line and key events”, ABC News, 30 October, 2023). This dynamic expands globally. Adding to this explosive situation, the U.S. sent two carriers in the vicinity of Israel and Gaza, as well as military advisers to Israel (“U.S. Aircraft Carriers – What they bring to the Middle-East”, Reuters, 16 October, 2023).

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This conflict drives considerable and very powerful shifts, at the regional and international levels. Those became quite obvious between 12 and 14 October, when President Biden flew to the Middle East in order to meet Israeli president Netanyahu and other regional leaders. However, in a massive political shift, the Arab heads of states refused to meet him (Naheed Ibrahim, “Biden snubbed by Middle East allies as Arab world seethes over Gaza hospital blast”, CNN, October 23).

In the same time, the Chinese high level diplomat Zhai Jun toured the Middle East, was in contact with Arab leaders, as well as Israeli and Palestinian leaders, in order to prevent the emergence of a large-scale armed conflict in the Middle east (John Calabrese, “The war in Gaza as a major test of China’s Middle East diplomacy”, Middle East Institute, October 19, 2023).

Towards the Flame

This emerging geopolitical reality is the de facto context of the Middle East regional conflict, which opposes directly Israel to the Hamas movement, while having the potential to attract the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement, as well as Iranian forces in Syria, which would mean deeply implicating Iran.

As it happens, this highly volatile situation triggers political reactions of a new kind, especially the emergence of a possibly common position between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In other terms, this gigantic, multidimensional crisis reveals that the international distribution of power is rapidly and deeply shifting (Jared Szuba, “Pentagon warns Iran, Hezbollah to stay out of Hamas war with Israel”, Al Monitor, October 10, 2023).

Meanwhile, the American power appears to be losing political and military influence, despite a massive force projection in the region.

Among these novel trends, we may highlight that the Middle East is now pivoting towards China, which asserts its power at the global level. This could also mean that the Middle East is also becoming a powerful attractor for the rising China-U.S. great powers conflict (John Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Powers Politics, 2014).

The West and the Rest

As soon as 8 October, China intervened to urge a resolution of the conflict by asserting that:

“The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine. The international community needs to act with greater urgency, step up input into the Palestinian question, facilitate the early resumption of peace talks between Palestine and Israel, and find a way to bring about enduring peace.”  

Remarks at RPC Foreign Ministry Press conference, RPC Foreign ministry, 8 October 2023.

In the very same time, the U.S. took a radically different stance. The White House asserted its full political and military support to Israel, while threatening “any hostile third parties”, such as Iran, if they involved themselves in the Israel-Hamas conflict (“Statement from President Joe Biden Condemning Terrorist Attacks in Israel”, The White House, 7 October 2023).

However, during the following days, Beijing assumed a stronger and stronger stance in favour of the Palestinian “national sovereignty” and of a two-states solution, while actively promoting a rapid and diplomatic issue to the conflict (“China tells U.S that Beijing opposes ‘all actions that harm civilians among Israel’s bombing in Gaza’”, Islam Uddin, Anadolu Ajenci, 15 October 2023).

In this context, one must note that all the Middle East and Persian Gulf countries are now part of the Chinese Belt & Road initiative. As a result, this new geoeconomics and political reality deploys itself in the context of the Gaza war crisis (Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Saudi Arabia and the AI Arab Rise”, The Red Team Analysis Society, January 31, 2023 and Khoder Nashar, “China-Arab States Expo to commemorate Belt & Road initiative 10^th anniversary attracts major Companies”, Zawya.com, August 1, 2023).

Scaling wars

In other terms, the Israeli-Hamas war is taking place in a deeply and rapidly changing Middle East and world order.

This change is all the more important that the main ally of Israel in the region is the U.S. However, the White House and Pentagon’s warnings to “hostile parties” do not seem to deter the Hezbollah or Iran to be increasingly hostile to Israel (Jared Szuba, “Pentagon warns Iran, Hezbollah, to stay out of Hamas war with Israel”, Al Monitor, October 10, 2023).

So, this conflict is rapidly changing in scale and inserts itself in the dynamics that are transforming the Middle East.

In that regard, this war risks triggering a chain of interactive geopolitical conflicts at different scales. And, as David Kilcullen puts it, it may also reveal “how the rest learned to fight the west” (David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes, How the Rest Learned to fight the West, Hurst, 2020).

1. Radical War

From Massacre…

On 7 October 2023, Hamas launched a massive military and terrorist offensive in southern Israel. This offensive was defined by a long series of slaughters, acts of horror and of hostage taking. This military-terrorist sequence was prolonged through the massive use of social medias. Indeed, the Hamas militiamen used gopro cameras to record their attacks and the slaughters they commit, killing at least 1 400 people (Eric Cortellessa, “Oct. 07 revealed a Hamas new social media strategy”,Time Magazine, October 31, 2023).

Posting these videos online projects the terrible efficiency of the Hamas attack in the cyberspace. Hence, those streaming videos became a major and political dimension of this attack.

… To Hyper object

The use of social medias transformed the Hamas offensive into a performative action of global scale, which, by flooding social medias, mobilized and polarized public opinions in the Arab world, as well as in the whole world. (Matthew Ford and Andrew Hoskins, Radical War, Data, Attention and Control in the 21^st Century, Hurst Publishing, 2022).

Thus the Hamas attack became a global political “hyper object” that established itself as both a common but also divisive political reference (Ford and Hoskins, ibid).

Meanwhile, Israel prepared and embarked on its large-scale attack on the Gaza strip, while launching wave after wave of air bombing there. Thus, it reaches a global audience. But this audience divides itself through its very diverse and contrasted reactions, at the individual as well as at a collective level.

The video feeds of the Hamas attack, which show monstruous slaughters, that were both live feeds and recorded for subsequent internet posting, shock and enrage immense segments of the Israeli society, of Jewish people and friends and allies. The live feeds were generated either by Gopro cameras used by the Hamas militiamen, or by the activation of the smartphones of the victims by Hamas men while assaulting villages people and families, thus live streaming the horrendous last moments of these people. Afterwards, those pictures are used to create a continuous flow of edited videos that circulate on social medias. (Staff, “Hamas launched unique terror tact: live streaming horrors on victim’s social medias”, Times of Israel, 18 October 2023 and Dr Eitan Azani, Daniel Aberfeld, Hamas Media Campaign: Al Aqsa Flood, Reichmann University, October 2023).

Meanwhile, the video feeds of the bombings in Gaza also shock and mobilize Arab opinions as well as many people staggered by the issuing dreary conditions for the Gaza civil population.

Specifically in the Palestinian case, those collective emotions mingle with the painful problem of the Palestinian issue, still “unresolved” after almost 75 years of conflict (Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall, Israel and the Arab World, Penguin Books, 2014).

Those video streams feed collective reactions, such as the massive pro-Palestinian protests throughout Europe and the Middle East. All these reactions are interacting with the Hamas videos and expand its reach and its scale of hyper object.

And the more the Israeli bombing and attacks create victims, the more they reinforce the anti-Israeli protests (“Global protests in support of Palestinians, rallies for hostages trapped in Gaza”, Reuters, October 22, 2023).

However, Hamas undoubtedly prepared itself to the gruesome urban and subterranean battle. Those combats may be quite costly to the Israeli forces. Hence, it is quite possible that forcing the IDF to intervene into Gaza was one of the main objective of the slaughter/performative initial attack of the 7 October (Nathan Rennolds, “It’s a trap, warns UK warns UK spy chief, as Israel prepares for months of brutal urban warfare against Hamas in bombed-out Gaza”, Business Insider, 15 October 2023).

Thus, the Gaza war itself becomes a performative cyber and political battlefield on the global scene.

A new level of information strategy

If the ground attack by Hamas is a large scale asymmetric and low-tech tactical sequence, it roots itself in an information strategy (For a strong development about information warfare: Hélène Lavoix “Information warfare and the War in in Ukraine”, The Red Team Analysis Society, May 24, 2022). This multi-domain strategy inserts the Hamas production of images in the global information / on-line streaming video infrastructure. Thus, the Hamas “streaming strategy” becomes a “global attention capture” strategy (Ford and Hoskins, ibid).

Giant rivers of streaming

Retroactively, the protests are filmed by dozens of thousands of people as well as by TV reporters. Thus, they create new “affluents” of the online streaming giant “rivers” of images. Those are conflictually interpreted by crowds and individuals all around the world.

As a result, this installation and the full use of the interactive power of the social media matrix at the global, national and personal levels of the Hamas-Israel war becomes a mammoth driver of political emotions at the global scale (Lawrence Freedman, The Future of War: a History, Penguin Books, 2017, and David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes, How the Rest Learned to fight the West, Hurst, 2020).

This strategy then is prolonged by the flow of images, commentaries and interpretation of these online video streams at a global scale. Indeed, those video streams hybrid themselves with the explosive content of the political and affective collective memories of the Palestinian history “versus” the Israeli and Jewish history.

So, the information war strategy of the Hamas triggers an enormous and emotionally turbo-charged “conflict of interpretation” of these video streams, that infuses and immerses through constant dialectics the different levels of political and military decision-making processes (Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis by Kenneth N. Waltz, New York, Columbia University: 1959).

Being a small giant power

Thus, in itself, this performative/political efficiency becomes a driver of the Israeli political-military decision-making process. In effect, it infuses the public opinion with the images of the attack. Those images trigger very painful emotions in the population. They are also being deeply humiliating for the Israeli security and defence forces. This way, the Hamas performative strategy fed the massive scale of the Israeli war preparation against the Hamas in Gaza (Tariq Dana, “Israel Palestine war: this humiliation has shaken Israeli psyche to its core“, Middle East Eye, 10 October 2023”).

The power of this military/terrorist/ performative strategy is growing by the day. For example, on 17 October 2023, the bombing of the Al Arabi Hospital in Gaza and its hundreds of victims came with the downloading of videos of the burning hospital and of the wretched Palestinian victims.

As of now, the only certainty is that a missile hit the hospital and killed and wounded hundreds of people. But, during the minutes following the strikes, the competition for interpretation started.

Hamas rapidly accused the IDF to strike at Palestinian people, while the IDF soon counter-reacted by asserting that the missile hitting the hospital was very probably a misfired missile sent by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad ( Paul Brown, Joshua Cheetham, Sean Seddon, Daniele Palumbo, “Gaza Hospital: what video, pictures and other evidence tell us about Al-Ahli hospital Blast”, BBC Verify, 19 October 2023 and “What is Islamic Jihad, The Organization that Israel Holds responsible for the Bombing of the Gaza Hospital?”, The Statesman, October 18, 2023).

In other words, on the information / social media plan, the Hamas and the Israeli Government are, at the very least, an equal impact power. So, this way, if Hamas remains a small non-state actor hidden in the Gaza urban dystopian battlefield, it also becomes a political performative hyper-power on the international scene.

The Hamas strategy forces each and every government, in the Middle East and elsewhere, to quickly align itself on one side or on another of the world scale “conflict of interpretation”. 

2. From the cyberworld to the political word

If the installation of the Gaza war in the cybersphere becomes a political force multiplyer for Hamas, it also has a political weakening effect on the U.S., the principal ally of Israel.

Indeed, for instance, on 13 October, a civil convoy left north Gaza. A strike killed at least seventy people while dozens of others were terribly wounded. The event was recorded and the videos quickly uploaded.

Hamas asserted that IDF stroke deliberately at Palestinian civilians, while the Israeli authorities accused Hamas of using civilians as “human shields” (Paul Brown & Jemimah Herd, “Strike on civilian convoy fleeing Gaza: What we know from verified video”, BBC Verify, 16 October 2023, and “70 Killed after convoys of evacuees in Gaza hit by Israeli airstrikes”, NBC News, Updated October 2014).

A few hours after this bombing and its transformation into a new social network hyper object, the king of Jordan refused to meet with U.S President Joe Biden, cancelling an emergency summit between the Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian and U.S. leaders (Naheed Ibrahim, “Biden snubbed by Middle East allies as Arab world seethes over Gaza hospital blast”, CNN, October 23). Thus, Abdallah of Jordan inflicted a massive blow to the political American influence in the Middle East, despite the mammoth U.S. presence and influence in the region since 1944 (Andrew Bacevich, America’s War for the Greater Middle east, A Military history, Random House, 2016).

Then, on 13 October, the Saudi Arabia Kingdom announced putting on hold the diplomatic talks about the normalization between Israel and the Saudi kingdom. This happened despite the huge pressure applied by the U.S. to keep the talks alive (Reuters and Ben Samuels, “Reports: Saudi Arabia freezes normalization talks with Israel amid ongoing war with Hamas”, Haaretz, October 13, 2023).

However, it is interesting to note the United Arab Emirates strongly condemned Hamas. As such, they were true to their political stance of fighting Islamist organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. As of this writing, while they denounce the Israeli ground offensive in Gaza, neither the UAE or Bahrain, have reneged on their signing of the Abraham accords, which aim at “establishing diplomatic relations between Israel and its neighbours in the region” ( Rachna Nuppal, “UAE, after Israel-Gaza conflict, says it does not mix trade with politics”, Reuters, October 10, 2023 and  “UAE condemns Israeli ground operations in Gaza strip”, Reuters, October 28, 2023). Since their start, those accords are strongly supported by the U.S (James F. Jeffrey, “The Abraham Accords: a three-year success now at crossroads”, Wilson Center, September 14, 2023).

On the opposite side, Qatar, which supports Hamas as well as the Muslim Brotherhood, strongly denounces Israel.

The “New” Middle East political and energy dynamics

While the IDF started striking Gaza, on 12 October Mohamed Ben Salman, acting ruler of the Saudi Arabia Kingdom and Ibrahim Raissi, President of the Republic of Iran, had their first phone call. They discussed the fact that both their countries, being regional powers, had a role to play to solve the crisis. Albeit, they also had to support the Palestinian cause (Amelie Zaccour, “ MBS’ “Balancing act” phone call with Iran’s president”, L’Orient Today, 13 October 2023).

A Tale of Two Theocrats

On this occasion, the Crown Prince emphasized that the Kingdom is making every effort to engage with all international and regional parties to halt the ongoing escalation.

He asserted the Kingdom’s opposition to any form of civilian targeting and to the loss of innocent lives:

“[Mohamed Ben Salmane] stressed the necessity of adhering to the principles of international humanitarian law and expressed deep concern for the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and its impact on civilians. HRH The Crown Prince also underscored the Kingdom’s unwavering stance in standing up for the Palestinian Cause and supporting efforts aimed at achieving comprehensive and fair peace that ensures the Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.”

“HRH Crown Prince receives phone call from Iranian president”, Saudi Press Agency, 12 October 2023.

In itself, this call between the two regional leaders signals the seismic geopolitical shift happening in the Middle East/Persian Gulf region. Implicitly, this conversation reinforces the dynamics of reconciliation that the two countries cultivate under the aegis of Beijing.

End of an Era, Dawn of a new one

It also reveals how quickly the two major oil producers of the Persian Gulf are aligning their positions. And they do so in the midst of this major strategic crisis, while being major energy suppliers of China. Indeed, since 2015, China imports 25% of the Saudi oil, while Asia as a whole represents 79% of Saudi crude oil exports (“Saudi Arabia”, U.S Energy Information Administration, Last Updated 11 October 2023).

In other terms, the very foundation of the Saudi-U.S. relationship based on the “oil vs security” strategic relationship, dating back to 1944, is deeply altered. Indeed, because of the U.S. shale revolution, the U.S. imports of Saudi oil have dramatically fallen (Michael Klare, Blood and Oil, the dangers and Consequences of America’s growing dependency on imported oil, Holt, 2005). They went from an all time high of 2.244 thousands barrel a day in 2005, to a paltry 392 thousands barrel a day in July 2023 (“Petroleum & other liquids”- U.S Energy Information Administration, August 2023).

In this context, it is not surprising that Saudi Arabia aims at keeping its rank as energy power. To do so, it orients itself towards China, its main customer that also happens to be a major power. In the very same time, Beijing actively supports the reconciliation of Saudi Arabia and Iran (Adam Pourhamadi, Irene Nasser, Simone Mac Carthy, “Saudi Arabia and Iran agree on reopening embassies during Beijing talks on resumption of diplomatic ties”, CNN, April 6, 2023).

Indeed, this will secure China’s relationship with major energy suppliers while turning China into the centre of Middle eastern politics. So, de facto, the Saudi-Iran reconciliation contributes to strongly reduce the influence of the U.S. in the Middle east.

This state of affairs expresses the new depth of the relationships between each of these Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf countries and China.

The Return of Bashar

For instance, in July 2023, Syria was reinstated as a member of the Arab league after an 11 years suspension.

Syria joined China’s Belt & Road initiative in January 2022. Then, in September 2023, Bashar El Assad went to China for a state visit at the invitation of President Xi Jinping. Now, all the Middle East/ Persian Gulf countries are part of the Chinese Belt & Road initiative (“Syran President Bachar el Assad is in China on his first visit since the beginning of the Syria war”, AP, 21 September 2023). In other terms, the invitation of President Bashar El Assad by President Xi Jinping is a way to reinstall Syria on the international scene.

Thus, China confers to civil and international war torn Syria since 2011 a status of equal importance as to other members of the Belt & Road, despite the intense pressure and sanctions initiated by Washington to limit the regional and international reach of the Assad regime.

Meanwhile, on 24 August, the 2023 BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit took place in South Africa. It ended with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates integrating the organization. Thus, this integration creates a new geopolitical and geoeconomic common space between main Middle eastern and Persian Gulf countries and world powerhouses as China, India and Russia (Samantha Granville, “BRICS Summit: is a new bloc emerging to rival U.S leadership?”, BBC, 24 August, 2023.

Xi, Vladimir and the Belt…

Then, between 16 and 18 October, the Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomed in Beijing the high-level delegations of the 130 countries attending the Summit celebrating the 10 years anniversary of the Belt & Road initiative.

President Xi Jinping presented Russian President Vladimir Putin as a considerably important guest. President Putin was given the title of “friend” of China. Meanwhile, Russia is at war with Ukraine, as well as with NATO (Tessa Wong, “ Vladimir Putin Feted at Xi Jinping’s Global Belt & Road summit”, BBC, 18 October, 2023).

As it happens, on the eve of the summit, the two heads of state signed a mammoth bilateral trade deal. These agreements include a 12 years massive grain import-export 70 million tons of grains package. This will dramatically improve the Chinese food security as well as the Russian agricultural perspectives.

This China-Russia development happens while the trade and energy relations between the countries keep on increasing despite the trains of western sanctions imposed to Russia since February 2022 (Arvin Donley, “Russia signs grain export deal with China”, World-Grain.com, 18 October 2023).

… and the war (with U.S.)

The summit was also taking place in the context of the trade and technology war between the U.S. and China. Indeed, two days before the Summit, a new set of rules banning the export of U.S. microchips in China was put in place.

This new U.S. microchips ban includes 22 countries developing AI partnerships with China. Saudi Arabia, that develops a giant relationship with Beijing in the fields of energy and artificial intelligence, is on the list of countries banned by the United States. (Alex Wyllemins, “US expands chip export ban to China”, Radio Free Asia, 17 October 2023, and Jean-Michel Valantin, “China, Saudi Arabi and the Arab AI Rise”, The Red Team Analysis Society, January 31 2023).

And so, it begins!

Then, on 21 October, Chinese warships reached the Mediterranean Sea. They started patrolling the area where, since 10 October, two of the most powerful U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have been navigating, in order to support the Israel war effort (Tara Copp, “The U.S is moving quickly to boost Israel’s military. A look at what assistance is providing”, AP, 15 October 2023).

In the same timeline, the Pentagon sends weapons systems, men and high ranking military advisers in Israel. The U.S. political and military authorities also put on high alert U.S. embassies and the numerous military bases in Qatar, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Jordan. In the meantime, the Pentagon installs anti-missiles weapons systems in Israel (Luis Martinez and Benjamin Siegel, “US surging air defense and other munitions to Israel, Official says” ABC News, 9 October 2023).

Then, during the days following the bombing of the Gaza hospital, the Hezbollah or proxy militias of the Iranian “‘Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution’)” (IRCG) sent multiple missiles and drone attacks against U.S. military bases in southern Syria and Western Iraq. In retaliation, the U.S. Air Force bombed sites in eastern Syria.

On 20 October, in Yemen the Iranian-backed Houti rebels sent a salvo of missiles over the Red Sea, certainly towards Israel. The three missiles were taken down by the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Carney (Tara Copp and Lolita C. Baldor, “US Military shoots down missiles and drones as it faces growing threats in volatile Middle East”, AP, 20 October 2023). On 27 October, another missiles’ salvo failed to reach Israel (Michael Horton, “Houti missiles launches against Israel risk reigniting war in Yemen”, Responsible Statecraft, October 30, 2023.)

Those sites were said to be linked with the Iranian Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Then, on 27 October, two U.S F-15 fighter jets bombed other Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRCG linked sites in Syria. A few hours later, the Israeli government launched a large air and ground offensive in Gaza. (Lolita C. Baldor, “U.S fighter jets srike Iran-linked sites in Syria in retaliation for attacks on U.S troops”, AP, 28 October 2023 and Carla Babb, “Pentagon: 27 attacks target U.S forces in Iraq, Syria“, VOA, 31 October, 2023).

In other terms, the Pentagon involves itself at the regional scale in order to protect Israel from strikes from Lebanon and from Yemen. Both the Israeli military mobilization and the reinforcement of the U.S. military activity all over the Middle East activate a new level of anti-U.S. military activity in Iraq and Syria, where U.S bases have been installed since the U.S. Iraqi occupation between 2003 and 2010 and since the involvement of the U.S military against Daech as well as against the Assad regime in Syria since 2013. However, as expressed by the attacks, the very presence of the U.S. bases is strongly contested, both by states and by local or regional militant militias (Jason Burke, The 9/11 Wars, 2011 and The New Threat, The Past, Present and Future of Islamic Militancy, 2017).

3. Battleground : U.N

Tipping points

So, while the Israeli Defence force bombs Gaza and prepares itself for the ground war, the whole regional and international system rearranges itself at a very high speed. These dynamics are quite strongly expressed at the U.N., where the new international distribution of power is revealed under the pressure of the Gaza war and of its multidimensional cascading consequences.

For instance, on 26 October, the adoption of a resolution calling for an immediate and sustained humanitarian truce by the U.N Assembly took place.

Out of the 193 member states of the United Nations Organization, an overwhelming majority of 120 countries, including China, Russia, France and New Zealand, voted in favour of the resolution. 10 voted against, among them Israel and the U.S. 45 abstained, among them Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and Japan (“U.N Assembly adopts Gaza resolution calling for immediate and sustained “humanitarian truce”, United Nations, 26 October 2023).

The Israeli ambassador called the passing resolution a “day of infamy”. At this occasion, he showed photos of Hamas militants committing atrocities in Israel.

In other words, despite the U.S. support and the weight of the horrors inflicted by Hamas on the 7 October, the level of international support, thus the capital of international legitimacy, of Israel’s operation is very low.

From alliances to divergences

The U.N. votes also reveal important political divergences among members of U.S.-centred military alliances. Indeed, the vote reveals that the diverse member-states of NATO, AUKUS and the “Five Eyes” know new fault lines, given the different, or opposite stance adopted by their members in regard of the U.S. position. All of this happens in the midst of the world scale “performative war” that prolongs the Gaza conflict in the cyberspace.

The vote of this U.N. resolution unveils how the cascades of military and political consequences of the Gaza war from the regional to the international scales turn this conflict into a driver of the new 2023 Middle East dynamics. This regional conflict is also becoming an attractor of regional and of the U.S./China great powers competitions.

In other words, the Hamas-Israel war is a particularly dynamic matrix of the rapidly emerging multipolar world. It now remains to be seen how this regional conflict affects the international distribution of power. It will be especially important in regard of the Ukraine war.