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Smokes rise amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, in Tyre, southern Lebanon on Sept. 23, 2024.
Israel pummels Lebanon with airstrikes
We feel like a broken record — but tensions are rapidly escalating between Israel and Hezbollah. Following Sunday’s rocket attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah, Israel on Monday pounded Lebanon with hundreds of airstrikes. Lebanon said over 270 were killed — marking the deadliest day of conflict in the country since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Israel’s strikes may be only meant to degrade Hezbollah’s ability to conduct further attacks, but the scale raises questions as to a possible future ground incursion.
“We do not wait for a threat, we anticipate it,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday, noting how Israel was changing “the balance of power in the North” and urging Lebanese civilians to evacuate targeted areas.
We’ll be watching to see how Israel follows up on today’s strikes, and how Hezbollah responds, after nearly a year of exchanges — a tit-for-tat catalyzed by the war in Gaza. Despite the hostilities, both sides maintain that they aren't seeking a wider conflict, a prospect that has raised anxiety in Washington. They are expected to continue exchanging fire, though likely in a way that avoids sparking an even bloodier conflict.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon on Monday said it’s sending additional troops to the Middle East.
Sharon Hertzman hugs her son Omer at Sheba Medical Center after she was released by Hamas militants this weekend.
Hamas and Israel signal they are open to extending four-day truce
Since Friday, 58 hostages have been released by Hamas in exchange for 117 Palestinian prisoners released by Israel. On Sunday, Hamas freed the latest group of 17 hostages, including 13 Israelis, three Thai nationals, and one American girl, Abigail Mor Edan, who turned four while in captivity. In turn, Israel released 39 male prisoners, all of whom were minors. The exchange was delayed by several hours due to allegations by Hamas that Israel made “several violations of the agreement,” including not delivering enough aid to northern Gaza and not releasing Palestinian prisoners in a specific order.
While photos of emotional family reunions have been heartwarming, a big question remains: What will happen after the four-day truce expires Tuesday morning?
Over the weekend, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden that Israel would resume its campaign in Gaza “with full force” once the truce ceases. But he also said the pause would continue if Hamas freed 10 additional hostages each day as originally agreed.
For its part, Hamas has said it will seek to extend the deal by releasing more hostages. There remain an estimated 40 women and children who were not part of the first set of exchanges, though some are being held by other groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US was “working with all sides on the possibility that this deal gets extended to additional hostages beyond the initial 50.”
Most analysts don’t believe the truce will hold very long. “I can’t see [it] lasting more than a week,” said Miri Eisin, head of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism. “The IDF wants to dismantle Hamas’ terror capability and military capability, and the only way to do that is through a systematic and careful ground operation.”
Viewpoint: How Israel-Palestine conflict became a real “Holy War”
The Israel-Palestine crisis is often described in biblical terms: “war in the holy land;” “Muslim v Jew;” or “the new Crusades.”
But while it has always had religious overtones, the ongoing conflict was originally about land: who had a right to it and who didn’t. It pitted Palestinian claims to the right of incumbency against Israeli assertions to the right of settlement and sovereignty.
Sadly, that distinction – land over faith – may no longer be valid.
Nearly 30 years ago, the Oslo Accords laid the foundations for a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The agreement was signed by leaders of the Israeli Labor party and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat.
To be sure, neither of these groups was shy about espousing maximalist ideas. The PLO had long refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and had used violence to advance its aims. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously asserted that there was “no such thing” as the Palestinians.
But in the end, Labor Zionists and Palestinian Liberation fighters were driven chiefly by worldly, nationalist ideas. This left them ideological room to make concessions. That room for compromise underpinned the Oslo Accords.
Sadly, since then conflict has evolved into a clash between religious zealots on both sides, backed by secular right-wing extremists.
On the Israeli side, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, one of the architects of Oslo, by a Jewish religious extremist in November 1995 may have marked the death knell for compromise.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s subsequent rise to power, and the Israeli government’s drift to the political and religious right ever since, ensured the territorial compromise envisaged in the Oslo deal could never be implemented as originally intended. The government that Netanyahu formed late last year was the most right-wing in Israel’s history, with senior cabinet figures who openly espoused – and worked toward – a territorially expansionist “Land of Israel” agenda.
Meanwhile, the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority proved corrupt and impotent in the face of Israeli intransigence, and the lack of progress elevated more radical Islamist groups like Hamas, which Israel had once viewed as a convenient counterweight to Arafat’s long-dominant PLO.
This inexorable shift rightward and into religious territory has not only driven us toward the current stage of the conflict, it also makes it harder to see a way to peace even when the dust from the latest violence settles.
Hamas’ slaughter of Israelis on Oct. 7, and the rising number of Palestinian civilians killed in Israel’s response since then, will fuel fresh resentment, anger, and extremism on both sides. Voices arguing for uncompromising and maximalist solutions will find succor and support as never before.
For the Israelis, Hamas’ killing spree will take Israel's security mentality back decades, to a time when it saw itself encircled by existential threats it was determined to subdue. And while the Israeli electorate may yet hold Netanyahu and his right-wing allies to account for policy failures that allowed Oct. 7 to happen, the damage to Israel’s psyche will run deep. Calls for peace with the Palestinians on equitable territorial terms will not be something most Israelis will want to consider for a long time.
For the Palestinians, meanwhile, the rising civilian death toll in Gaza, and the specter of a possible mass refugee crisis, will stoke extremism, giving more credence to radical voices that claim that an equitable peace deal with Israeli is a pipedream.
On both sides, then, there will be little room for voices of compromise.
But this trend won’t be limited only to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel’s retribution in Gaza is already stoking popular anger across the Arab world – belying the notion, which had become popular in recent years among Arab and Western governments, that the Palestinian issue was no longer an important one for the so-called “Arab Street.”
As a result, Arab governments are now looking to placate popular anger by allowing avenues for protest in support of the Palestinian cause. It is no accident that in Saudi Arabia the Grand Mufti of Mecca was allowed – almost certainly with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed’s explicit permission -- to take a strikingly pro-Palestinian line in his first sermon following the Oct. 7 violence.
But that approach could easily spiral out of control in ways that pose threats to political stability, creating more fertile ground for precisely the kinds of Islamist and extremist ideas that governments across the region – particularly in Egypt, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia – have tried to crack down upon in recent years.
Theocratic Iran and its regional allies may stoke these fires as well, even if they still seem reluctant to be sucked into the current fighting for now. And their message will resonate with regional Islamist groups that have already shown their political potency.
All of this is something of a shock. Just a couple of weeks ago, it seemed that the Middle East, for all its problems, was moving toward greater stability and predictability. The desperate plight of the Palestinians was hardly improving, but the issue seemed contained, almost dismissed. A once unthinkable normalization deal was coming into focus between the Jewish State and Saudi Arabia.
The latest round of Israeli-Palestinian violence shattered those illusions. And with the nature of the conflict steeped more deeply than ever in maximalist, religious notions, the prospects for a lasting peace in the region look dim. There is always a chance that tragic war will lead to a fundamental recalculation on both sides, and that moderates will eventually win the day given the destruction that radicals have wrought. But don’t bet on it.
Raad Alkadiri is the managing director of Energy, Climate & Resources for Eurasia Group. He served as assistant private secretary to the UK Special Representative in Iraq from 2003-2004.
The McDougall Creek wildfire burns next to houses in the Okanagan community of West Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.
Hard Numbers: Canada fires, Israelis killed, Nicaraguan visas, Niger junta's plans … and where was William?
30,000: At least 30,000 households in British Columbia, Canada, have been told to evacuate, with another 36,000 homes on alert, as the province battles an unprecedented number of wildfires. Further north, 20,000 residents of Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, have also been ordered to leave their homes. Overall, 1,000 fires are burning across Canada in what is now the country’s worst fire season on record.
3: Two Israeli men were killed on Saturday in a suspected Palestinian attack at a West Bank car wash, and on Monday, an Israeli woman was shot and killed in Hebron. Since the start of 2023, Palestinian attacks against Israelis have claimed 30 lives while nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed in the worst spate of violence in the region in 20 years.
100: The US has canceled the visas of 100 Nicaraguan officials accused of restricting human rights and undermining democracy by supporting President Daniel Ortega’s regime. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the measures on social media, stating, “We call on the regime to unconditionally and immediately release Bishop Álvarez and all those unjustly detained.”
3: Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, the leader of the military coup in Niger, took to the country’s airwaves on Saturday to propose a three-year transition of power to civilian rule, without giving further details. Tchiani also warned that any attempt at military intervention by ECOWAS or other forces would “not be a walk in the park.”
1: Prince William, president of England’s Football Association, was heavily criticized for not attending the FIFA World Cup final between England and Spain, while Queen Letizia got kudos for making the trip Down Under with her daughter Sofia. Maybe it made the difference – the Spanish squad trounced the Lionesses 1-0.