This past week has been full of critical events that have further destabilized, if possible, the already deteriorated situation in Lebanon and Palestine. Without armed actions having stopped in the Gaza Strip, the Lebanese front has been activated on an unprecedented scale, mainly through selective bombing actions aimed at decapitating Hezbollah’s command structure, weakening the support of the Lebanese population , prevent the supply of weapons from Syria and destroy its logistics. The most striking of these actions was the attack on the Hezbollah bunker in a southern suburb of Beirut. that Hezbollah leader killed and about twenty collaborators between leaders and security elements. Authorization for this action came from the Israeli Prime Minister while he was in the United States participating in the 78th United Nations General Assembly.
To date, the Israeli air force has attacked more than two thousand targets in Lebanon and Syria and has carried out a retaliatory action against the capital of Yemen, Sana’a, as a result of the launch from this country of a ballistic missile that aimed Tel Aviv and that was neutralized. The consequences for the population in Lebanon are massive movements of displaced people leaving combat zones and they are heading to the center and north of the country trying to avoid the consequences of the air attacks. A new humanitarian crisis is looming if the conflict is not stopped. The most affected are refugees from other conflicts such as the Syrians, who no longer have anywhere to go; They either live on the streets or return to Syria.
There is speculation about Iran’s possible entry into the war through direct actions against Israel. A dispassionate analysis of the situation does not go in that direction. For Iran to continue maintaining an active profile in the region and count as a power in the Middle East, it must, first of all, reconstitute the structure of its main pawn. Hezbollah is decapitated right now. It has lost almost all of its leadership, it has neutralized more than 3,500 command staff between dead and wounded, it is being systematically decimated in its base elements and its logistics by Israel’s air actions and it has a serious security compromise. in their ranks. This is probably the explanation why it has an arsenal of rockets, missiles and drones (more than 100,000) has not started a launch saturation campaign that would affect Israel much more than we are led to believe.
Hezbollah It is very weakened but not destroyed. If you have time and space it will be reconstituted. Another thing is how it will guarantee its ends and improve its chances of survival. An open war in Lebanon is in no one’s interest, not even Israel. It is likely that in a short time we will witness an indirect approach through gestures that can be interpreted as a de-escalation. One of these gestures could be withdrawing Hezbollah troops north of the Litani Riverdetach the peace talks for Lebanon from the outcome of the Gaza war, reach a ceasefire in Gaza with the release of hostages and stop Israeli air raids on Lebanon, although maintaining units with sufficient strength to undertake a ground invasion of the Lebanon.
Israel has recovered the regional deterrence capacity lost as a consequence of the strategic fiasco of last October 7, Iran has lost credibility among related movements due to the poor results of its retaliatory action against Israel on April 13 and the vulnerability that exhibited before the attack of Ismail Haniyah political leader of Hamas in Tehran on July 31. Hezbollah survives thanks to Iran, which is its supporter, financier, ideologue and strategist.; It will not do anything that is not previously approved in Tehran and, in any case, not until minimum coordination and accredited security are guaranteed in its command and control system.
Hamas remains, and its current leader, Yahya Sinwar, if he is still alive, has less incentive to prolong the conflict now that Hezbollah’s support is no longer guaranteed. The possible initiator of the de-escalation is probably in Gaza, and its multiplier in Tehran. The push to de-escalate has to occur because the perception of positive incentives that it brings outweighs the inertia of prolonging the conflict while waiting for who knows what. These positive incentives have to be able to be explained in the form of a story in which somehow everyone wins.no one appears defeated, each one achieves the promised objectives and no one has given up anything substantial. Today, it is very difficult and out of reach for most countries and actors, either due to lack of means or lack of will.
Meanwhile, internal opposition and discontent are growing in Israel; in Gaza, hatred, despair and the health crisis; in Lebanon, fear and the humanitarian crisis; and among the Arab population of neighboring countries, the resentment and sense of humiliation that do not bode well.
It seems that the world is convulsed by structural clashes between different political and economic conceptions and ambitions.and that the rupture zones that occur do not relieve the tension, but rather increase it. It is time to broaden the focus and look for ways out of the pressure that is accumulating before a miscalculation or excess of ambition takes us to a point of no return.
