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EXPERT COMMENT

Hezbollah and Hamas are weakened but Israel is overplaying its hand. A diplomatic solution requires Washington to exercise its leverage on Tel Aviv.

The intensification of violence between Israel and Hezbollah is at its root a contest of wills between Israel and Iran. Tehran wants to impose a new strategic reality on Israel by establishing military linkage and potential interdependence between the battlefields of Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Israel is countering Iran’s plan through brute force. The result has been strategic failure on both sides, along with tens of thousands of innocent people killed and immense human displacement and physical destruction.

Although armed groups loyal to Tehran have attacked Israel from Iraq and Yemen, the two main areas of confrontation are Gaza and Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Hamas and Hezbollah respectively. The first real application of Iran’s new military doctrine was Hezbollah’s campaign against Israel which it launched on 8 October, a day after Hamas invaded southern Israel and massacred 1,200 people. 

Hezbollah said then, and continues to say, that its attacks against Israel are in support of Hamas, following the Israeli offensive in Gaza in retaliation for the group’s 7 October operation.

So far, there is no clear winner, and there probably won’t be. Hamas’ military capacity is decimated, and Hezbollah has suffered losses like never before in its 42-year conflict with the Jewish state. Yet despite its tactical successes, Israel is nowhere near achieving strategic gains. Its northern region is almost entirely depopulated, its international reputation is in tatters for the killing and suffering of so many civilians, its economy is in serious trouble, and its domestic politics is in turmoil.

Absent a diplomatic strategy, continuing to pummel Hamas and Hezbollah – while politically useful for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – will not address any of Israel’s above-mentioned challenges. On the contrary, Israel’s reliance on the military instrument alone, as it is prone to do, will not make it safer. Decades, not just years, of confrontation with these resilient and determined armed groups can attest to that.

Click here to continue reading the full version of this Expert Comment on the Chatham House website.