Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and other Related Conflicts in the Middle East (read the rules in the first post)
- Thread starter phrozenflame
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So much for Israel destroying 80% of Hezbollah's capabilities ...
Apparently Netanyahu's government is currently under fire by Israeli media and the opposition for lying about that.
It is not the only thing they are under public pressure now. “Total Surrender” the Israeli Media says. Gantz (fired defense minister) is complaining that Netanyahu isn’t giving any details on the conditions.
Apparently, Israel will leave Lebanon within 60 days and the Lebanese Army will start camping in the south.
"Haaretz reported that the proposal will include three stages: a truce followed by Hezbollah removing its forces north of the Litani River; an Israeli pullout from southern Lebanon; and finally, Israeli-Lebanese negotiations on demarcation of contested border areas".
"It said an international body led by the US will be tasked with monitoring the ceasefire, and that Israel expects to receive a letter from Washington affirming its right to act militarily should Hezbollah break the terms of the ceasefire amid no action by Lebanon’s military and international forces".
So if the terms of the ceasefire agreement are confirmed true then we would be looking at Israeli strategic victory, right ? Israelis would pretty much complete all of the objectives they've set out when they decided to invade South Lebanon.
"It said an international body led by the US will be tasked with monitoring the ceasefire, and that Israel expects to receive a letter from Washington affirming its right to act militarily should Hezbollah break the terms of the ceasefire amid no action by Lebanon’s military and international forces".
So if the terms of the ceasefire agreement are confirmed true then we would be looking at Israeli strategic victory, right ? Israelis would pretty much complete all of the objectives they've set out when they decided to invade South Lebanon.
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Israel also claimed a bunch of land in Gaza. It may be bad to hear, but Israel achieved a strategic victory even though the costs might have been a bit high.
Of course it's a victory. Land is limited, manpower is a renewable resource
As long as manpower losses are not terribly high, Israel would always hold its nose and go for the usual land-grap
People can clown Netanyahu all they want, but given his thinking of going for ethnic cleansing on Israeli enemies, he has achieved his goals. Next step on his plan, wait for Trump and use the US as cannon fodder to eliminate Hezbollah and/or Iran
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He would have achieved one of his objectives. Gaza still remains inconclusive, considering that strategic victory would only come if Hamas is exterminated, which is still far from happening.
I am not a denier to the point of saying that Hamas has not been seriously weakened, this has in fact happened, the fight against Hamas is largely over and that Hamas, having lost most of its fighters, was incapable of offering organized resistance.
Depending on the conclusion, one would expect Israel to achieve another of its strategic objectives, but this would only be concluded with the elimination of Hamas, because in the first and only rocket that is launched against Israel after the conclusions of the war in Gaza, Israel would have lost the war, because it did not achieve this strategic objective.
While this article suggests that Hamas can regenerate, it has lost 8,500 fighters, as opposed to the Israeli claim of 17,000, and its total manpower is 25,000-30,000. For every fighter killed, one more would be too seriously injured to fight—this ratio is typically 1:2, but I assume that poorer medical facilities in Gaza would result in more fatalities among the wounded. Furthermore, the death toll excludes those killed outside Gaza, those killed after September 24, and unidentified bodies. This would conservatively mean 10,000 dead and a similar number seriously injured. There would also be prisoners. These totals represent irretrievable casualties of close to 25,000, or 80 percent of Hamas’ pre-war strength. Hamas’ 24 battalions are around 20,000 strong, with the remainder responsible for support activities and able to take up arms if necessary.
My impression is that a hostage deal would be more likely, since if the next US president were not likely to support Hamas, they would be facing serious existential risk, because Trump would certainly give Netanyahu whatever he wants if he asked.
Hezbollah:
The deal that is emerging is definitely a win for Israel.
For anyone who expected Hezbollah to come out on top in a conflict with Israel, it ended up getting the short end of the stick. While Hezbollah is more powerful than it was in 2006, this time Hezbollah fared much worse than in the last conflict, first suffering a setback with explosive pagers and radios that injured more than 1,000 Hezbollah fighters, culminating in the death of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and severely damaging Hezbollah's missile and rocket stockpiles.
Israel appears to have learned this time by deploying rotational units in Gaza, which gave the reservists prior experience before carrying out the offensive in Lebanon, a far cry from 2006, when the reservists were mobilized in a hurry and thrown into the fight in a more fragmented manner.
If the deal is unfolding as it is being reported, Israel has regained this deterrence by pushing Hezbollah beyond the Litani River.
The crucial question is what happens about the parts of Lebanon that Israel claims as part of the Golan heights. If they're willing to return the shebaa farms and there are credible security guarantees for Lebanon, then that's all the objectives that Hezbollah ever wanted. We'll need to see the actual deal rather than an Israeli speculation based on rumours
Netanyahu and Israel might not want to eliminate Hamas entirely since that ends the justification for Israeli retaliation. It's better to have them severely weaken than completely eliminated.