Gaza War: Where do Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah go from here?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is entering a new chapter
Hamas’ attack on Israel last October defied logic. After decades of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, a rational actor could have easily predicted Israel’s overwhelming response to such an assault. Hamas should have understood that it could not count on Arab countries for support, given that most of them would be happy to see the group’s destruction. One of the only allies willing to come to its aid militarily was Hezbollah. However, Hezbollah’s lackluster response was not enough to relieve Hamas and only enraged Israel further by forcing Israeli civilians to vacate the border area. Both Hamas and Hezbollah realize that a reckoning is coming but continue to choose to delay the inevitable.
Hamas’ Suicidal Attack
The defeat of the Arab armies in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War created an Islamic awakening that led to the Muslim Brotherhood’s resistance against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It believed that it could destroy Israel and install a Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Motivated by this conviction, former members of the Muslim Brotherhood founded the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza in 1981. Six years later, the killing of four Palestinian laborers by an Israeli truck driver sparked the first intifada, leading the Muslim Brotherhood’s Gaza branch to transform into the Islamic Resistance Movement, also known as Hamas. For years, Hamas carried out indiscriminate knife attacks in the West Bank but stepped up its military activity following the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron, which was perpetrated by an Israeli religious extremist. Hamas then launched a spate of suicide bombings against soft Israeli targets. It continued to believe that it was just a matter of time before it would defeat Israel, despite evidence to the contrary.
Israel proposed to Hamas through a third party years ago a long-term cease-fire and an end to the blockade of Gaza. It also offered economic incentives, including access to water and electricity and even cash payments. Hamas rejected the proposal, despite the poor economic conditions Gazans had to endure, including a youth unemployment rate over 60 percent.
Following Hamas’ October attack, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau expressed his astonishment at the Palestinian Authority’s position on Gaza’s plight – which he described as shamefully nonchalant. He also expressed disappointment at Hezbollah’s token border operations on Israeli positions, saying he expected much more. But given that Hezbollah did not come to Hamas’ aid in any of its previous wars with Israel since 2008, it’s surprising that the group would expect much else. Notably, Iran ordered Hezbollah’s involvement in the campaign, just as it directed Yemen’s Houthi rebels to target international shipping in the Red Sea.
For Palestinians, there is no doubt that the Gaza war will result in a humanitarian catastrophe. Israeli politician Benny Gantz said Hamas had two options if it cared about Palestinian civilians: surrender or release all Israeli hostages. Short of that, according to Gantz, Israel will continue its operations throughout Gaza, including in Rafah, the southernmost town on the strip.
Hamas and its leaders are aware of the anger among average Palestinians in Gaza who blame it for their suffering and for not calculating the consequences of its attack on Israel. Hamas today is at a crossroads. Its military wing cannot continue to act defiantly and must admit that it made a fatal mistake by failing to anticipate Israel’s reaction. But either way, its fate is sealed: The group will be eliminated, and a more radical and revolutionary wing will splinter from it.
Hezbollah’s Poor Judgment
Meanwhile, Hezbollah finds itself trapped between Israeli demands to retreat farther north of the border and calls from Lebanese groups to disarm. It’s now facing an existential crisis amid growing political strains home and Israeli reprisals in Syria and southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is repeating the error it made in 2006 when it decided to raid northern Israel and kidnap Israeli troops to deflect attention from local pressures to disarm. This time, it’s facing a deep political crisis in Lebanon and cannot guarantee the election of a friendly president. Christian groups have been
pressing Hezbollah to disarm, threatening to federalize the country if it doesn’t cooperate. It chose instead to engage in tepid support of Hamas, assuming that Israeli reprisals would be modest.
Hezbollah was born in war and cannot function outside of war-like circumstances. Since 1985, Hezbollah has pursued a state modeled after Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s example, which stood in contradiction to Lebanon’s confessionalbased power-sharing system. It sought legitimacy through anti-Israel sentiment, often threatening the country with war. Its dominance over security and domestic military affairs enabled it to control government decisions and influence those aspiring to political and administrative positions. It paid little attention to state affairs, focusing instead on consolidating its mini-state. It became involved in politics out of necessity after the Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon in 2005.
Hezbollah’s transition from militant group to Lebanon’s dominant political entity was a massive challenge to the group. During the presidency of its ally, Michel Aoun (20162022), Hezbollah tried to control the joints of the deep state without success. It is doctrinally incapable of integrating into the state system, which would require it to dissociate ideologically from Iran and accept Lebanon’s sovereignty. Today, the decline of Iran’s regional project, in addition to
Lebanon’s economic collapse and disintegration of its social fabric, has contributed to the challenges facing Hezbollah. However, its biggest obstacle remains its inability to withstand existential pressure from all directions, especially after it decided to open another front against Israel to support Hamas. Given the rapid regional and local changes, the crisis for Hezbollah will not end. The dramatic transformations in the region and plans for postwar Gaza will cast a shadow on Hezbollah’s future.
On Lebanon’s southern border, the group is bidding its time, hoping international pressure on the Israelis will enable it to maintain its presence there. Israel is demanding that Hezbollah withdraw to the Litani River, some 30 kilometers away from the border. U.S. President Joe Biden has limited ability to influence the Israeli government’s actions in the area. Domestic pressure is mounting on the government to secure the border with Lebanon and return 80,000 citizens to their homes, which they vacated following the outbreak of fighting in the north.
Hezbollah continues to try to convince average Lebanese, especially Shiites, that the balance of power with Israel is shifting in its favor. However, its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, realizes that this narrative is inconsistent with reality; the military gap between his group and Israel is more profound than ever. Hezbollah dreads an all-out war with Israel and is doing its best to avoid it. But it lacks the courage to end its attacks on northern Israel, even though they have no impact on Israeli operations in Gaza.
Israel’s Quandary
Israel initially viewed Hamas and Hezbollah as at worst nuisances and at best convenient distractions that helped to bolster Israeli solidarity amid chronic political divisions. However, Hezbollah’s deadly raid that precipitated the 2006 Lebanon war and Hamas’ attack last October changed Israel’s perception of the two groups. It now sees them as existential threats.
Israel’s need to be ready to fight on several fronts and rotate army units to keep the economy going has revived the divisive issue of conscription. There’s growing debate over a government resolution passed last summer ordering the Israeli military not to draft members of an ultra-Orthodox group known as Haredim. The Sephardic Haredim, who constitute about 13 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, enjoy exceptional privileges, even though they refuse to serve in the military. They believe they support the army through their prayers and devotion to studying the Torah. Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has even warned that the Haredim would emigrate from Israel if forced to join the military, a statement that was heavily criticized by secular Israeli Jews.
Israel will continue its war against Hamas until it eliminates the group as a military organization. But it will not enjoy peace, even if all Arab countries establish diplomatic relations with it. Peace with Arab rulers is one thing; peace with the Arab people is another. Israel managed to defeat the Arab armies that abandoned the Arab-Israeli conflict and to convince the Palestine Liberation Organization to give up its armed struggle. But their abandonment of the conflict led to the emergence of political Islam, which has shown unprecedented ferocity in confronting Israel.
Israel does not have a clear postwar plan and does not know the full implications of its operation in Gaza. However, it seems inevitable that a new Palestinian, though not necessarily Islamic, phenomenon will emerge that will be more extreme than Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian organizations that worked against Israel between the 1950s and the 1970s were secular. This includes the radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was founded by George Habash, a Palestinian Christian, shortly after the 1967 war. In 1968, the PFLP hijacked an Israeli passenger plane to Algeria, and in the 1970s, it carried out a spate of violent attacks inside Israel. Thus, despite getting closer to winning a decisive victory against Hamas and closing a long chapter in the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, Israel is likely on the verge of opening a new one.