Bottom Line Up Front:
* Israel’s military successes against the leadership and military forces of Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas have not, to date, accomplished the full range of Tel Aviv’s strategic objectives.
* Both Hamas and Hezbollah are reconstituting their top leadership structures and will likely remain closely aligned with Iran and other members of the “Axis of Resistance.”
* Hezbollah’s decentralized military wing remains willing and able to cause significant damage inside Israel.
* Hezbollah’s remaining leaders appear ready to accept UN Security Council Resolution 1701, but Israeli leaders might press for broader disarmament of the group.
One year of war (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-october-7/) against the Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip and four weeks of a major offensive against Lebanese Hezbollah have severely damaged both groups and decapitated their leaderships. However, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government has not fully accomplished its core objectives either in Gaza or against Hezbollah. Both groups either resist Israel’s demands and vow to continue retaliating for Israeli operations against them. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have “deep benches” of political and military wing leaders who can fill the void left by the deaths of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-september-30/) , respectively. In many cases, successor leaders in militant groups are often harder line and less amenable to compromise than their predecessors. The scale of Israel’s expected retaliation against Iran, along with Iran’s
potential response, could also significantly influence the strategic decisions of its proxies, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah.
Of the two groups, Hamas has been the most severely weakened, particularly after last week’s killing of Sinwar (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-october-18/) , mastermind of the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The greater effect on Hamas, as compared to Hezbollah, is largely due to Israel’s deployment of large numbers of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground troops into Gaza in order to achieve several stated goals: an end to Hamas rule in Gaza and its threat to Israeli security, and the release of remaining Israeli and foreign and dual national hostages. Yet, the IDF military advances have come at great cost in lives lost among the Gaza population, almost all of which have been displaced by successive evacuations that have not sufficiently kept civilians away from the fighting.
Whether Israel can accomplish its remaining objectives in Gaza might depend on who is elevated to the leadership of Hamas following the killing of Yahya Sinwar last Wednesday. No successor has been named to date, but all the leading choices say they would follow the same policies as Sinwar. Khalil al-Hayya (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-august-6/) , Sinwar’s deputy who confirmed the leader’s death in a video, vowed in his comments to continue to insist, as Sinwar did, that any agreement to release remaining Israeli hostages would require a complete IDF withdrawal from Gaza. Although he is based outside Gaza, Al-Hayya, who has been Hamas’s chief negotiator with Egypt, Qatar, and indirectly the U.S. and Israel, is close to Iran and Syria. Like Sinwar, he supports armed struggle and rejects any alteration of Hamas’ charter to engage in negotiations on a permanent Israeli-Palestinian settlement.
Another leading candidate, Khalid Meshaal, is perceived as somewhat more amenable to regional pressure to distance Hamas from Iran. However, if selected, he will be under pressure from Hamas commanders in Gaza to resist compromise and avoid deviating from Sinwar’s strategy. It is also unclear if Meshaal has the full trust of Iran and its so-called “Axis of Resistance”, dating back to tensions resulting from the Syrian civil war. Sinwar’s brother, Mohammad, remains at large in Gaza and experts assess he likely is now in charge of Hamas’ military wing, although the group’s militia units are scattered, dispersed, and even more decentralized than they were earlier in the conflict.
Israel has begun a ground incursion into southern Lebanon to accomplish what Netanyahu and his associates say are more modest objectives: to force Hezbollah units to cease operating south of the Litani River (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-june-17/) and pave the way for the 65,000 Israelis displaced by Israel-Hezbollah rocket and artillery exchanges to return to their homes. A somewhat larger number of Lebanese on the northern side of the border have been displaced as well, alongside more than 1.2 million who have fled Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut and elsewhere in response to Israeli attacks on Hezbollah leaders and commanders there.
However, whereas almost all Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket fire from Gaza into Israel has halted, Hezbollah has been able to continue missile and armed drone launches into Israel, particularly the large northern city of Haifa (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-september-23/) . A Hezbollah drone attack on an army base in the central Israeli city of Binyamina killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven on October 13 – the deadliest strike by the militant group since Israel began its ground invasion. Israeli officials claimed a Hezbollah drone attack on October 19 on the city of Caesarea represented an attempt to assassinate Netanyahu at his vacation home there.
Yet, perhaps because Israel’s objectives in Lebanon are more limited than they are in Gaza, the prospects for quieting the Lebanon-Israel border (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-june-28/) seem realistic. Even before the killing of Nasrallah, U.S., French, and Arab negotiators asserted they were close to achieving a ceasefire agreement between the two antagonists. Through their air strikes on Beirut, Israeli forces killed not only Nasrallah but also his likely successor, Hesham Safieddine, just days later. Some reports suggest that, in the aftermath of Nasrallah’s death, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF), which helped create Hezbollah’s military wing in the 1980s, has had to take control of the group to try to keep the group’s command structure intact. The highest-ranking Hezbollah leader still alive is Naim Qassem, formally Nasrallah’s deputy, who is considered more pliable and less charismatic than Nasrallah.
In public comments in mid-October, Qassem supported efforts by Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Shia ally of Hezbollah, to secure a truce. Qassem dropped the conditioning of a ceasefire on an end to the Gaza war, seemingly paving the way for a breakthrough. And, on Sunday, caretaker Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Makati stated Hezbollah had agreed to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1701 (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-august-26/) . That decision ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and “calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.” In addition, the resolution calls upon Israel to withdraw all of its forces from southern Lebanon and for Hezbollah not to operate between the Litani River and the Lebanon-Israel border. The resolution has been largely ignored by Hezbollah, Israel, and the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
However, Hezbollah itself did not confirm a pledge to uphold Resolution 1701, and it is unclear whether Mikati’s comments represented a new movement toward a ceasefire.
A key question for global diplomats is whether the Netanyahu government might become emboldened by some of its recent successes to press its advantage on the battlefield and increase its demands at the negotiating table. Doing so would seemingly ensure that the regional warfare will be prolonged, no matter who Hamas and Hezbollah select as their new top leaders. On the Lebanon front, there is speculation among experts that Netanyahu and his allies might yet demand Hezbollah’s complete disarmament – a requirement Hezbollah is certain to categorically reject. Others speculate Israel might demand Hezbollah units not operate from points further north of the Litani River, a goal that presumably would require the IDF to expand its ground offensive. Another option could include the reinstitution of a “security zone” in southern Lebanon similar to what Israel maintained during 1982-2000 (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-october-1/) . However, it is not clear that this latter option would
produce more lasting results than the earlier security zone operation, which resulted in significant Israeli casualties and enabled Hezbollah to justify itself as a legitimate “resistance movement.”
Diplomats (https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2024-february-20/) involved in the efforts to defuse the violent conflict are arguing to their Israeli counterparts that Israel’s most effective option is to support negotiations on a ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon – outcomes that would include a return of the hostages still held by Hamas, Hezbollah redeployment to points north of the current border, and the return home of displaced Israelis to northern Israel. Yet, many experts speculate that Netanyahu and his closest associates see an opportunity to deliver Hezbollah and, by extension, Iran, a “knockout blow” that removes any future threat from Israel’s northern border. Whereas global diplomats insist that maximalist goals in Lebanon are unachievable, it is possible that Netanyahu and his team, based on successes to date, will ignore their foreign partners’ advice.
