The current situation is that Israel believes it has established military superiority over Hezbollah and eliminated the much-feared threat of a massive missile/rocket attack on Israel numbering in the thousands, which could overwhelm Israeli missile defences. It is now prosecuting the dual aims of destroying Hezbollah's stockpiles of munitions, including using bunker-busters to hit missile storage sites far underground, and destroying the organisation's membership. The elimination of Hezbollah's leader Nasrallah was a long-held Israeli ambition, and they have also wiped out a large chunk of the organisation's leadership, along with numerous military ground commanders (including the death of the commander for the border sectors, which has left Hezbollah forces on the ground unsure of how to respond) and liaisons with Iran's Republican Guard Corps. Additional targets in Lebanon and Syria have also been hit.
Israel has now widened its targets to include Houthi sites in Yemen, where it has started hitting weapons storage and launch sites. Russia has threatened to transfer more advanced cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles to Yemen via Iran, and Israel is ensuring that does not happen.
Israel apparently now believes it can act with impunity, it has inflicted the largest series of crushing defeats on Hezbollah in the organisation's history and it believes it can either destroy the organisation or weaken it so decisively it will not be a threat again for years, if not decades.
The key response now is from Iran. Iran's mass missile and drone strike on Israel was a bit of a flop, but people are still divided on whether it was deliberately a flop (to keep a full-scale Iran-Israel war breaking out) or a genuine attempt to inflict mass damage on Israel that failed due to Israel and its allies (including several Arab states, which rattled Tehran) intercepting the strikes. Iran has been bizarrely low-key in its response to the current campaign, with the newer, more moderate President apparently convincing the hardliners to not intervene in a way that leaves Iran in a state of war with Israel. He may also be signalling that Iran wants to move away from its support for Russia, noting that recent Iranian munition deliveries to Russia have lacked launchers, meaning they cannot be used. Russia can now produce Shahed drones natively, so the need for Iranian help has diminished anyway.
Iran being willing to sacrifice Hamas was one thing, as Hamas was a "useful idiot" organisation at best and the two had significant differences of opinion and ideology (Iran and Hezbollah being Shia and Hamas being Sunni). Iran being willing to let Hezbollah be destroyed is a much more significant move: Hezbollah is Iran's main proxy in the region and provides significant military forces and resources for attacking Israel and taking part in the civil war in Syria. If Iran gives up on Hezbollah, that means giving up on Iranian power projection in the entire region.
The Arab states hate and fear Iran far more than they care about the Palestinians (as Saudi Arabia has basically said directly), or even hate Israel (the Arab street's opinion is different, of course) and it's clear now that they will support or look the other way any Israeli action that weakens Iran. It looks like at the moment that Iran is not going to do anything to help Hezbollah, which is a big surprise, and emboldens Israel to go further. A ground invasion of Lebanon cannot be ruled out.
All of this boosts Netanyahu and makes any ceasefire or permanent peace plan proposed by the US or other allies unlikely at best.
This post has been edited by Werthead: 29 September 2024 - 07:08 PM