On November 12, a Hezbollah drone crossed into northern Israel and struck a kindergarten in the town of Nesher, near Haifa. Although children were at the pre-school, no one was injured. The drone attack came the same day as the IDF said that four soldiers had been killed fighting in northern Gaza in the battle for Jabaliya, an urban area near Gaza city where the IDF has been fighting Hamas for the last month.
The deaths of the soldiers and the drone attack symbolise the challenges Israel faces on two fronts. Hezbollah has been launching large barrages of rockets at northern Israel even as it faces Israeli airstrikes in Beirut and IDF ground operations in southern Lebanon. The Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist group is showing that it is not defeated and that it has a large rocket arsenal with which it can continue to pound northern Israel.
Israel faces some crossroads regarding the war that began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas attacked and murdered more than 1,000 people and took 250 hostages, of whom 101 remain held in Gaza. The wars are winding down in terms of their intensity. However, Israel has not achieved a knock-out blow to either Hamas or Hezbollah. If they are not defeated decisively, they will return to threaten Israel and the region; as Israel eyes an end to the wars, it is important to achieve a decisive victory over at least one of these groups. A defeat for one of them will send the message to the other Iranian proxies that they can be destroyed as well. That weakening capabilities of these groups is not enough to guarantee peace, prosperity and security should be obvious from the outcome of the 2006 war with Hezbollah and numerous conflicts against Hamas.
Hamas in Gaza is also showing that despite a year of war, it has the ability to reconstitute itself in some areas. For instance, in early October the IDF began a new operation in Jabaliya to clear this urban area of Hamas. The operation ran into difficulties at the start because the Israeli military had to wait while 70,000 civilians were evacuated. This has been the usual process of how the IDF operates in Gaza, calling on civilians to leave and only staging a ground operation when a neighbourhood is largely empty. This reduces civilian casualties but often means that Hamas can also flee – and that the group can choose the time and place to fight. For instance, Hamas can festoon buildings with booby-traps or set up sniper positions.
In recent conversations I have had with soldiers and officers in Gaza (including a trip with the IDF to Jabaliya), the soldiers related how Hamas has hidden weapons in most of the civilian homes the soldiers searched. Leaving AK-47s in homes enables Hamas men to walk unarmed in the streets and appear as civilians, then grab a weapon when they have the opportunity. In addition, the group sometimes sends civilians to monitor IDF troops. The soldiers described seeing Hamas steal trucks laden with humanitarian aid and watching terrorists cynically hiding in buildings that serve as civilian shelters or former schools.
In Lebanon, the challenge is different. Most Lebanese have fled the villages near Israel’s border. These villages are rural, unlike the urban geography of Gaza. Hezbollah tends to try to behave more like a conventional armed force than Hamas, claiming to target Israeli military sites with its rockets and drones. However, recent attacks have seen masses of rockets fired at cities north of Haifa and cities in the Galilee, killing and injuring numerous civilians.
The IDF is now deployed on two fronts. Five divisions – the bulk of the army – is in the north. Three divisions are operating in Gaza, while two have the job of securing the Gaza border and corridors across the Strip, one of which is south of Gaza City and the other runs along the Egyptian border. In essence, this leaves the IDF with only one division that can act as a mobile hammer against Hamas. It is not hard to transfer forces from the northern to southern fronts. The IDF moved the 98th Division from Gaza to fight in Lebanon in early September. Other units have moved from one area to another.
Israel faces numerous hurdles next year. Fewer IDF reservists are turning up to their units due to the strain of being called up for ten months out of the last year. Israel’s defence budget is ballooning, possibly creating more economic challenges for the country. Essential tools for the war effort such as D-9 bulldozers from the US are also taking time to arrive. Armoured vehicles have seen so much unprecedented action that the IDF now has to outsource repairs for them. This is what a long, intense war looks like.
But for all the challenges ahead, Israel has many opportunities. The incoming Trump administration is expected to be very supportive of Israel. This may deter Iran and its proxies, or at least give Israel a blank cheque to wipe the floor with them if need be. However, a blank cheque can also be deceptive. Israel will have the support it needs but it will need to decide what to do with all these open options.
Handing Hamas or Hezbollah a clear defeat is necessary for peace. Israel has eliminated the leaders of both groups, but the groups have vowed to carry on the war. They also have backing from abroad; Russia, Iran, China, Turkey and other countries have an interest in this war continuing, each for their own reasons. A clear victory on one of the fronts is therefore a setback for Iran in the region, and would also bolster the US and the west globally.
Seth J Frantzman is the senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Post, an adjunct Fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and author of The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024)
