The IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate has prepared a report in the last few weeks which focuses on global trends, Iran, and Palestinian Arab terrorism. The report will be presented to the political echelon soon.
According to Israel Hayom, while Iran remains the most serious threat, it is no longer the primary focus of the Military Intelligence Directorate's report and is instead considered one part of a larger web of challenges facing Israel.
Global instability, stemming of the US-China rivalry and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is expected to continue and may worsen in the coming year. The report also noted demographic trends in the US which could negatively impact the US-Israel relationship if said relationship is not properly maintained and cultivated.
The global instability has affected the Middle East, with countries such as Egypt and Jordan facing food shortages and economic crisis as a result of the war in Ukraine,
With regard to Iran, the report focuses not only on the nuclear threat, but also on Iran's increasing attempts to encourage acts of terrorism by Palestinian Authority residents. Iran remains the sole financier of Islamic Jihad and the primary financier of Hamas in Gaza. Iran has failed to create another threat on Israel's border with Syria, but continues to attempt to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon. Of particular concern is Iran's attempts to supply Hezbollah with the same missiles and precision missiles which Iran has supplied to Russia and which have been used against Ukraine in recent months.
The Intelligence Directorate believes that Hezbollah will continue to be preoccupied with Lebanon's internal problems in 2023 and therefore be deterred from starting a war with Israel.
The Intelligence Directorate also estimates that Iran will continue to slowly advance its nuclear weapons program but refrain from taking the final step towards actually building a nuclear bomb.
The war in Ukraine was cited as a factor which has added further c. Russian President Vladimir Putin's implicit threats of nuclear attack have served to normalize the discourse of nuclear war in the international arena, and the attack on Ukraine, which gave up a massive nuclear arsenal in the 90s as part of an international agreement to which Russia was a party, has shown that it is not wise for countries to give up their nuclear weapons.
For the first time in many years, the Military Intelligence Directorate treated Gaza and the Palestinian Authority as the same issue instead of separate challenges. The primary concern is the day after Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who is in his 17th year in a four-year term and is 87-years-old. It is feared that Hamas and other terrorist organizations such as the Lions Den could fill the vacuum left by Abbas.