Israel invading Gaza could escalate the war into a larger regional conflict, experts say

• Israel's invasion of Gaza could turn the war into a regional conflict, experts said.
• "Escalations have a way of taking life on their own," a retired US Army colonel told Insider.

Israel's invasion of Gaza could escalate the war into a full-blown regional conflict, military analysts said.

"The trigger in our minds for all the dominoes to fall is for Israel to cross into Gaza," Dale Buckner, retired US Army colonel and CEO of the global security firm Global Guardian, told Insider.

"If Israel makes the decision that it's going to attack Gaza in some shape or form — whether that's from sea, air, or ground — then this escalates materially because now you have all the different cells that Iran backs throughout the region," he said.

Over the weekend, Hamas launched a surprise terrorist attack on Israel. Israel said 1,300 people were killed and more than 100 people were taken hostage.

On Sunday, Israel declared a state of war and a day later announced a "complete siege" of Gaza. Israel's retaliations have left more than 1,500 people dead as of Friday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Late on Thursday, Israel said that civilians living in northern Gaza needed to evacuate the area within 24 hours, suggesting that a large-scale attack could be imminent.

Buckner pointed to signs of escalations across Israel's borders that could tilt a possible Israeli-Hamas war into a regional conflict.

In the north, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets and shells against Israeli positions on Sunday in a contested region along the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

While in the south, Israeli forces have bombed the crossings of food, medicine, and fuel deliveries from Egypt into Gaza.

Having served as a US Army veteran for 24 years, Buckner said he knows "these escalations have a way of taking life on their own, and that's the risk here."

Israel's incursion into Gaza could create a "domino effect" that triggers all its neighbors in the region to join the conflict, Buckner said.

Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute, made a similar point to The Washington Post.

"This could easily get out of control," he told the newspaper, adding: "Everything is in place for a cascading series of events that will culminate in Israel attacking Iran."

Meanwhile, Amichai Magen, a visiting fellow in Israel studies at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, told ABC7 News that Iran could easily react.

"If Iran concludes that it is about to lose its southern proxy in Gaza, that Israel will eliminate or severely degrade Hamas in Gaza, it may very well open a second front against Israel in the north using Hezbollah and various proxies that it has built in Syria, even in Iraq and Yemen with Houthis," he said.

"This is potentially a very dangerous multi-front conflict that we may be facing over the next few days and weeks," Magen added.

The deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Mediterranean, meanwhile, can be seen as a message from the US to Iran and others in the region, Buckner said.

"We're seeing a modern aircraft carrier that's already placed itself in the Mediterranean within striking distance. I think that's messaging directly to Iran and others that we are there and will engage if required," he said.