The IDF struck the latest leader of Hamas in Gaza on Tuesday. This came after the killing of another Hamas leader there a week ago. At the same time, Israel's prime minister has vowed to crush Hezbollah. This puts Israel once again in the complex position of fighting and managing two fronts.
Israel has become an expert at this kind of complex battle. However, questions remain about what will be achieved.
Israel announced the attack on the latest Hamas leader.
"At the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, the IDF has just struck at Mohammed Odeh in Gaza, the new leader of the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization and one of the architects of the October 7 massacre,” Israel's Prime Minister's Office said. “Odeh served as the head of Hamas's intelligence staff during the October 7 massacre and was appointed – about a week ago – to replace Ezzedine al-Haddad, who was eliminated in an IDF strike in the Gaza Strip two weeks ago."
The attack on Odeh would appear to show Hamas is not observing security around its leaders or hiding their movements. Previous leaders such as Yahya Sinwar, Marwan Issa, and Mohammed Dief were hard to eliminate. The elimination of Odeh and Haddad harkens back to an earlier era.
A new normal?
In 2004, Israel killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin and Abdul Aziz Rantisi in a month of targeted assassinations. In those days, the targeted killings were a bit more controversial. Now they are seen as the norm.
It is not clear if the elimination of the Hamas leaders in Gaza will lead to a new round of clashes or if Hamas will be weakened.
Will Hamas now collapse? Hamas has lost most of its brigade and battalion commanders in some 961 days of war. It has lost its leaders. But it has not collapsed. It continues to control half of Gaza. Israel has essentially walled it off in half of Gaza, where it continues to rule over 2 million civilians, half of whom are under age 18. These people are trapped under a weakened Hamas. In essence, Hamas might collapse if it weren’t able to hide behind all these people, but it appears to be propped up by being among them.
Hezbollah continues to threaten Israel despite heavy losses
Hezbollah is in a similar, but also different, condition. It has also lost many leaders and commanders. It is also able to swim amongst the people by hiding in Shi’ite communities in Lebanon. These communities are mostly in southern Lebanon, as well as the Dahiyeh in Beirut and the Beka’a Valley.
Hezbollah has suffered losses but continues to threaten Israel. The recent threat has been the use of FPV optic fiber drones. Hezbollah uses small drones with munitions to evade Israeli defenses. Troops have taken to using nets to try to stop the drones, a tactic used in Ukraine. However, the threat will take time to defeat.
In Jerusalem, the narrative is that Hezbollah will be “crushed” again. This comes after 960 days of war against the group, and one would think that Hezbollah should have been handed a defeat. It took only a month of fighting in 2006 to fight Hezbollah and get more than a decade of quiet in the north. Now Israel is back in a security zone in southern Lebanon, Israel has razed Shi’ite villages in a tactic borrowed from Gaza, and yet there is no clear strategy to be rid of Hezbollah.