Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank: Why is Israel fighting so many wars?
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Many militant groups oppose Israel’s existence and have become more active in recent years.
PHOTO: AFP
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JERUSALEM – While Israel’s devastating war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip attracts the most attention, its military has also been fighting for months on several other fronts, making this one of the most complex periods of conflict in the country’s 76-year history.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the military has been raiding and striking militant groups in several Palestinian cities, killing about 600 people since October 2023, in the deadliest campaign in the territory in more than two decades.
On Aug 28, Israel began one of its biggest manoeuvres in the territory in recent months, simultaneously invading three cities to capture or kill militants.
Along the Israel-Lebanon border, Israel has been exchanging rocket and missile fire with Hezbollah, a militia allied with Hamas and backed by Iran, in fighting that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the border and killed hundreds.
And Israel’s years-long shadow war with Iran has burst into the open, with each side striking the other directly in April, leading to fears that a relatively contained war in Gaza might end up setting off an all-out war involving Iran, its many proxies across the Middle East, and even the United States.
Why are various groups fighting Israel, why is it using force to deal with them, and why is it taking so long for these wars to end?
Why Israel is still fighting in Gaza
Despite the destruction of much of Hamas’ military infrastructure and tens of thousands of deaths, there is no end in sight to the war in Gaza, partly because Israel has set itself a high threshold for victory: the eradication of Hamas’ leadership and the rescue of roughly 100 hostages still held by the group.
By contrast, Hamas has a low threshold: It seeks to survive the war intact, a modest goal that allows it to weather a level of devastation that might have caused other groups to surrender.
Hamas’ extensive subterranean tunnel network also makes it hard for Israel to win. Some of the group’s leaders are thought to be deep beneath the ground, surrounded in some cases by Israeli hostages, making it challenging for Israel to find the leaders, let alone attack them without harming its own kidnapped citizens.
Israel’s tactics also make winning more difficult. Its military has swiftly retreated from most of the areas that it has conquered, allowing – in some cases – for Hamas to regroup there and preventing the war from ending in the way that most wars do, with one side capturing the other’s territory.
A ceasefire has also proved elusive, in large part because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants only a temporary truce, while Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar seeks a complete halt.
Why Israel is raiding West Bank cities
While Israeli soldiers withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the army retained a wide presence across the West Bank, partly to protect the roughly 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are considered illegal by most of the world.
The Israeli military regularly raids and strikes Palestinian cities in the West Bank to quell armed Palestinian groups, including Hamas, that mount terrorist attacks on Israelis in those settlements and in Israel itself.
Many militant groups oppose Israel’s existence. They have become more active in recent years as Israel’s occupation has grown more entrenched, all but ending the dream of Palestinian statehood and increasing Palestinian resentment of Israelis.
Rising violence by settler extremists against Palestinian civilians, coupled with a sense of growing impunity for those extremists and the expansion of their settlements, has also been cited by Palestinian groups to justify their militancy.
Since the war in Gaza began, Israel has increased its attacks on these armed groups, saying they became even more active amid a rise in arms smuggled from Iran. Israel also says the Palestinian Authority, the institution that administers Palestinian cities in the West Bank, has become too weak to rein in the groups by itself.
Why Israel is striking Lebanon
Hezbollah, a Hamas-allied militia that controls large parts of southern Lebanon, began firing at Israel in solidarity with Hamas shortly after the Oct 7 attack.
Ever since, Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket and missile fire across the Israel-Lebanon border, while trying to avoid an all-out ground war that would most likely devastate both countries.
Israel’s fighter jets could cripple the Lebanese capital Beirut, while Hezbollah has thousands of precision-guided missiles that could wreck Israeli cities.
Israel has said it will not stop targeting Hezbollah assets and operatives until it is safe for residents of northern Israel, some 60,000 of whom have been displaced by the fighting, to return home.
But that is a distant prospect because, in turn, Hezbollah has pledged to carry on firing until the implementation of a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.
With no end in sight in Gaza, the Lebanon battle looks set to drag on, raising the chances of a miscalculation by either side that could cause the conflict to spiral out of control.
A Lebanese strike on schoolchildren in July led Israel to kill a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, leading analysts to predict a major escalation until both sides managed to step back from the brink on Aug 25.
Why Israel is fighting with Iran
For decades, Iran’s leaders have said they sought Israel’s destruction. Both countries have clandestinely attacked each other’s interests, and both have built competing regional alliances to deter each other.
Israel views Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon as an existential threat and has frequently attempted to sabotage the programme.
Until the war in Gaza, both sides tried to maintain plausible deniability for their attacks, mainly to avoid a direct confrontation that could escalate into all-out war.
Israel had never claimed responsibility for its assassination of Iranian officials. Iran avoided major public provocations of its own, while encouraging proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as Palestinian groups in the West Bank, to attack Israel.
The intensity and length of the conflict in Gaza has tempted both sides to be more brazen, bringing their shadow war into the open. In April, Israel struck an Iranian diplomatic compound
Iran responded by firing one of the biggest barrages of cruise and ballistic missiles in military history in the first direct hit on Israel from Iran
And when Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh visited Iran in July, Israel took a risk by killing him on Iranian soil, leading Iran to promise another direct strike on Israel.
How Israel explains its use of force
Israel says it has been left with no choice but to defend itself against an Iran-led regional alliance that aims not only to end Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, but to destroy Israel itself.
Israeli officials highlight how Hamas and Hezbollah attacked Israel first, forcing Israel to respond, and they say that Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah makes it necessary for Israel to attack Iran and its assets.
Many Israelis have also lost hope of using diplomacy to resolve their conflict with the Palestinians.
In mainstream Israeli discourse, Israel is perceived as having made many concessions to the Palestinians during a failed peace process three decades ago, only for its best offers to be rejected by the Palestinian leadership.
Israelis often cite their withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 as an example of how Israeli goodwill fell flat: Hamas won legislative elections in 2006, wrested control of Gaza from rival group Fatah a year later, and used Gaza as a platform for attacks on Israel that culminated in the Oct 7 raid, the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
As a result, they see force as the only logical deterrent to groups including Hamas that ultimately seek Israel’s destruction rather than sincere coexistence.
How critics perceive Israel’s use of force
In Gaza, opponents say Israel displays too little concern for civilian life, accusing it of mounting a genocide, a charge Israel denies.
In Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel’s critics say it has been too provocative in its choice of targets and too reluctant to let diplomacy take its course.
For example, some saw Israel’s recent strikes
More broadly, Israel is also accused of having brought its predicament on itself by failing to agree to a peace deal with the Palestinians two decades ago.
Israel’s opponents also see the Oct 7 attack in the context of Israel’s enforcement, along with Egypt, of a 17-year blockade on Gaza that prevented many in the territory from travelling abroad, stifled the territory’s economy, and blocked access to everyday services including 3G internet and some kinds of complex healthcare. NYTIMES
