As the first anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israeli soil approaches, things are going badly in the Middle East. The State of Israel has intensified its offensive against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, using pager explosive attacks (!) and missile strikes. Hezbollah is not far behind. Since the attacks of October 7, 2023, the militia, instrumentalized by Iran, has multiplied provocations and missile attacks against Israel, forcing its population into an exodus to the north of the country.
As guns rage and bombs rain down, the chances of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel fade. The fate of the hundred or so hostages still held by Hamas hangs in the balance. And the death toll rises. The IDF campaign in the Gaza Strip has so far claimed 41,000 lives, mostly civilians, according to estimates by the Gaza Health Ministry.
At the time of the provisional assessment, Hamas survives, despite the assassination of its leader and 17,000 fighters, according to the Israeli army. This terrorist group has never cared for the blood of its own people. It is still standing, despite the insane promises of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who prophesied its extermination. The sadistic and merciless attack of October 7, a veritable pogrom on Israeli soil that left 1,200 victims, has had its effects. The rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia is on ice. And Israel has responded to the affront with such harshness that Hamas, or any other terrorist group sharing the same deadly ambitions, will have aspiring martyrs for decades to come.
In the name of a legitimate right to defend itself from attacks on its population and its national sovereignty, Israel has embarked on an interminable campaign, without realistic objectives or a coherent plan for the “post-Gaza”. Some senior Israeli officials think no less.
This campaign is now spilling over into Lebanon in a dizzying escalation. Last week, covert operations turned the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah’s leading figures into small bombs that exploded in a coordinated fashion, killing nearly 40 people and wounding 3,000, including civilians. It was a prelude to an air campaign that has already killed nearly 350 people and shows no sign of abating. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that the “center of gravity” of Israel’s campaign to eradicate Hamas is now shifting north, causing chaos and confusion among a population held hostage by Hezbollah.
The last direct confrontation between Israel and Lebanon, in 2006, lasted more than a month and took more than a thousand people in Lebanon and more than 150 in Israel. From one conflict to another, one constant remains, and that is the impossibility of militarily eradicating either Hamas or Hezbollah, two useful puppets of the Iranian regime. These bearded fundamentalists are the source of many evils by their refusal to recognize the right to exist of the State of Israel and by their harmful influence in the affairs of their neighbors. (in Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq).
This constellation of destabilizing forces that have unleashed anti-Semitism in its most fanatical expression inspires no sympathy, especially since they regularly use civilian populations as human shields. However, they do not exempt the State of Israel from showing restraint and gradation in its response. The addition of civilian victims weighs on the international support that Israel enjoys in addition to delaying the imperative search for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
In the last thirty years, we have lost track of the insults, slander, lies and deceptions by which the Oslo Accords were trampled and symbolically put to death. The principle of a two-state solution, one Palestinian, the other Israeli, with the promise of security in exchange for territory, remains the foundation of a lasting peace in the Middle East, however utopian it may seem.
The deadly Hamas and the far-right coalition in the Knesset, whose messianic ambitions are unleashed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, are sowing the seeds of discord by sending each other to annihilation. In a multipolar world, in which there is no longer a “superpower” capable of silencing the guns by the sheer force of its influence, the immediate future of the Middle East – and that of the world – looks bleak.