Israel is using existing ceasefire agreements to establish new realities on the ground, projecting itself as the regional hegemon by launching attacks on Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
By Qassam Muaddi and Mondoweiss Palestine Bureau
November 28, 2025
MONDOWEISS
Israeli army tank deploys near the Gaza border, May 20, 2025. (Photo: © Saeed Qaq/ZUMA Press Wire/ZUMA Wire/APA Images)
The war that Israel allegedly fought on “seven fronts” a year ago is supposed to be over. But Israel is now escalating on all fronts to achieve what it could not during the war, launching strikes and military incursions across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day last Sunday as home demolitions have continued throughout the week; in Lebanon, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Hassan Ali Tabtabai; in the West Bank, the Israeli army has launched a wide-ranging military operation concentrated around the towns and villages of the northern Tubas governorate; and in Syria just this morning, Israel launched missile and artillery strikes in the southern Damascus countryside, killing 13 Syrians.
All of this takes place as Israel is nominally party to two ceasefires, respectively with Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel’s violation of both has become routine and has escalated significantly in recent weeks.
In Gaza, local sources tell Mondoweiss that a new status quo has emerged in which Israel continues to seize the opportunity to assassinate Hamas leaders in Gaza while claiming its actions are in response to an alleged “violation” on the part of Hamas. Israeli forces have also conducted dozens of demolitions of Palestinian buildings over the week, accompanied by shelling in eastern Gaza City, Rafah, and Khan Younis. Last Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day, and on the Tuesday before that, the Israeli army killed 33 Palestinians in a single night.
In all cases, the military either claims that Palestinian fighters trapped in Rafah and surrounded by Israeli forces allegedly violated the ceasefire, or it claims that Palestinian fighters approached the yellow line demarcating the area from which Israeli forces had withdrawn since the ceasefire came into effect last October.
But Israeli forces have been shooting at Palestinians near the yellow line indiscriminately, many of them trying to return to their homes in the area. The line remains invisible to most Gaza residents and can only be identified by the yellow concrete blocks Israeli forces have placed across various points, supposedly demarcating the ceasefire withdrawal borders, which effectively cut Gaza in half. The Israeli army also dropped leaflets over Palestinian encampments west of the yellow line, warning them that anyone who approaches the virtual border will expose themselves to danger.
Through these policies, the Israeli army is entrenching Gaza’s de facto division into two areas, one controlled by Hamas and the other controlled by the Israeli army. Even though this state of affairs is supposed to be temporary and linked to the “first phase” of the ceasefire, the deliberate ambiguity of the deal’s terms and the lack of an implementation mechanism make it easy for Israel to declare that Hamas is in violation of the terms — and hence refuse to withdraw further from Gaza. The effect this has had is to force almost all of the Strip’s population into less than half of its already overcrowded territory.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli forces have launched a wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank concentrated around the so-called “pentagon of villages” — Tubas, Tammun, Aqaba, Tayasir, and Wadi al-Fara — which the Israeli intelligence establishment considers a “hotbed” of resistance activity. Ostensibly to root out resistance in the Tubas district, local residents told Mondoweiss that the real reason for the military invasion is to thin out the population in the area, laying the groundwork for land confiscation and settlement building.
In Lebanon, the international peacekeeping forces — UNIFIL — reported last week that Israeli forces had committed around 10,000 violations of the ceasefire deal with Lebanon, including 2,500 land incursions and 7,500 airspace violations, since entering into its ceasefire with Hezbollah a year ago in November 2024. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot also reported that the Israeli army has conducted 1,200 land raids into 21 Lebanese villages over the past year.
These violations escalated significantly over recent weeks, culminating in the strike that killed Hezbollah chief of staff Tabtabai on Sunday, who is considered the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be targeted since the ceasefire began. Following the assassination, Israel put its forces near Lebanon’s border on alert, as Hezbollah officials insinuated the possibility of a response. This series of escalations now threatens to blow up the Lebanon ceasefire.
Using ceasefires to establish realities on the ground
Both ceasefire deals in Lebanon and Gaza were only made possible after long months of mediation, in which Hezbollah and Hamas each eventually accepted terms that allowed Israel to maintain forces in their territories, without any practical guarantees that the ceasefires would be sustainable.
Yet Israel is using these truces to establish new realities on the ground, entrenching its occupation of parts of Gaza and southern Lebanon while asserting its military dominance on the regional stage. This projection of control aims to impose Israel’s vision for a “new Middle East” and a new status quo that recognizes Israel as the uncontested hegemon.
This can be gleaned in Israel’s active escalation in Syria, where Israel has tried to counter the expansion of Turkey’s influence in the country.
Israeli forces continue to position themselves in Syrian territory while conducting land raids in cities such as Quneitra and its surroundings. Last Monday, official Syrian TV reported that Israeli forces “bulldozed extensive farming areas” in the Syrian village of Breiqa in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, on Thursday, Syrian media outlets reported that Israeli fighter jets flew over several Syrian governorates, and on the following day, an Israeli force invaded the Syrian town of Beit Jinn. When the force was reportedly uncovered, clashes between the Israeli force and Syrians reportedly led to the injury of two Israeli soldiers. According to Syrian state TV, Israeli shelling and strikes led to the killing of 13 Syrians, including at least two children.
Israeli strikes across Syrian territory have continued to become more flagrant over recent weeks, while previous strikes in Damascus in July aimed to strengthen Druze separatist elements in Suwayda. The reality on the ground Israel hopes to create is one of regional fragmentation.
In Gaza, this is manifesting in the recently declared plan to build “alternative safe communities” that would make up a “new Gaza” in the part of the Strip under Israeli control, which appears to have received U.S. backing. Earlier in July, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had stated that Israel would create a “humanitarian city” built over the flattened remains of Rafah, which was supposedly meant to house 600,000 Palestinians and would be used as a pathway for Palestinians to “voluntarily migrate” out of Gaza, a plan that was characterized by UN officials and human rights experts as a “concentration camp.”
In that same month, a Reuters report revealed that the U.S.-run and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — so-called “aid” sites meant to replace the UN’s aid distribution system, but where thousands of Palestinians were gunned down in what were described by Gazans as “death traps” — had drafted plans to create so-called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” meant to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The GHF was itself the “brainchild” of Israeli officials, the New York Times reported last May.
Now that plans for a “new Gaza” have surfaced as part of the Trump-backed ceasefire framework, new reports have begun to emerge that UG Solutions, the U.S. military subcontractor that provided security for the GHF, is now recruiting for a new deployment in Gaza to run ten to 15 more aid sites during the ceasefire.
All these developments take place as Israel attempts to continue to advance its goals. In Lebanon and Syria, it is to establish itself as a regional hegemon, and in Gaza, it is to achieve during the ceasefire what it could not achieve during the war — the ethnic cleansing of Gaza under the rubric of “voluntary migration.”
Israel is losing the battle of public relations.
The war that Israel allegedly fought on “seven fronts” a year ago is supposed to be over. But Israel is now escalating on all fronts to achieve what it could not during the war, launching strikes and military incursions across Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank.
In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day last Sunday as home demolitions have continued throughout the week; in Lebanon, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Hassan Ali Tabtabai; in the West Bank, the Israeli army has launched a wide-ranging military operation concentrated around the towns and villages of the northern Tubas governorate; and in Syria just this morning, Israel launched missile and artillery strikes in the southern Damascus countryside, killing 13 Syrians.
All of this takes place as Israel is nominally party to two ceasefires, respectively with Hezbollah and Hamas. Israel’s violation of both has become routine and has escalated significantly in recent weeks.
In Gaza, local sources tell Mondoweiss that a new status quo has emerged in which Israel continues to seize the opportunity to assassinate Hamas leaders in Gaza while claiming its actions are in response to an alleged “violation” on the part of Hamas. Israeli forces have also conducted dozens of demolitions of Palestinian buildings over the week, accompanied by shelling in eastern Gaza City, Rafah, and Khan Younis. Last Sunday, Israeli airstrikes killed over 20 Palestinians in a single day, and on the Tuesday before that, the Israeli army killed 33 Palestinians in a single night.
In all cases, the military either claims that Palestinian fighters trapped in Rafah and surrounded by Israeli forces allegedly violated the ceasefire, or it claims that Palestinian fighters approached the yellow line demarcating the area from which Israeli forces had withdrawn since the ceasefire came into effect last October.
But Israeli forces have been shooting at Palestinians near the yellow line indiscriminately, many of them trying to return to their homes in the area. The line remains invisible to most Gaza residents and can only be identified by the yellow concrete blocks Israeli forces have placed across various points, supposedly demarcating the ceasefire withdrawal borders, which effectively cut Gaza in half. The Israeli army also dropped leaflets over Palestinian encampments west of the yellow line, warning them that anyone who approaches the virtual border will expose themselves to danger.
Through these policies, the Israeli army is entrenching Gaza’s de facto division into two areas, one controlled by Hamas and the other controlled by the Israeli army. Even though this state of affairs is supposed to be temporary and linked to the “first phase” of the ceasefire, the deliberate ambiguity of the deal’s terms and the lack of an implementation mechanism make it easy for Israel to declare that Hamas is in violation of the terms — and hence refuse to withdraw further from Gaza. The effect this has had is to force almost all of the Strip’s population into less than half of its already overcrowded territory.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli forces have launched a wide-scale military operation in the northern West Bank concentrated around the so-called “pentagon of villages” — Tubas, Tammun, Aqaba, Tayasir, and Wadi al-Fara — which the Israeli intelligence establishment considers a “hotbed” of resistance activity. Ostensibly to root out resistance in the Tubas district, local residents told Mondoweiss that the real reason for the military invasion is to thin out the population in the area, laying the groundwork for land confiscation and settlement building.
In Lebanon, the international peacekeeping forces — UNIFIL — reported last week that Israeli forces had committed around 10,000 violations of the ceasefire deal with Lebanon, including 2,500 land incursions and 7,500 airspace violations, since entering into its ceasefire with Hezbollah a year ago in November 2024. The Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot also reported that the Israeli army has conducted 1,200 land raids into 21 Lebanese villages over the past year.
These violations escalated significantly over recent weeks, culminating in the strike that killed Hezbollah chief of staff Tabtabai on Sunday, who is considered the highest-ranking Hezbollah member to be targeted since the ceasefire began. Following the assassination, Israel put its forces near Lebanon’s border on alert, as Hezbollah officials insinuated the possibility of a response. This series of escalations now threatens to blow up the Lebanon ceasefire.
Using ceasefires to establish realities on the ground
Both ceasefire deals in Lebanon and Gaza were only made possible after long months of mediation, in which Hezbollah and Hamas each eventually accepted terms that allowed Israel to maintain forces in their territories, without any practical guarantees that the ceasefires would be sustainable.
Yet Israel is using these truces to establish new realities on the ground, entrenching its occupation of parts of Gaza and southern Lebanon while asserting its military dominance on the regional stage. This projection of control aims to impose Israel’s vision for a “new Middle East” and a new status quo that recognizes Israel as the uncontested hegemon.
This can be gleaned in Israel’s active escalation in Syria, where Israel has tried to counter the expansion of Turkey’s influence in the country.
Israeli forces continue to position themselves in Syrian territory while conducting land raids in cities such as Quneitra and its surroundings. Last Monday, official Syrian TV reported that Israeli forces “bulldozed extensive farming areas” in the Syrian village of Breiqa in the southern part of the country. Meanwhile, on Thursday, Syrian media outlets reported that Israeli fighter jets flew over several Syrian governorates, and on the following day, an Israeli force invaded the Syrian town of Beit Jinn. When the force was reportedly uncovered, clashes between the Israeli force and Syrians reportedly led to the injury of two Israeli soldiers. According to Syrian state TV, Israeli shelling and strikes led to the killing of 13 Syrians, including at least two children.
Israeli strikes across Syrian territory have continued to become more flagrant over recent weeks, while previous strikes in Damascus in July aimed to strengthen Druze separatist elements in Suwayda. The reality on the ground Israel hopes to create is one of regional fragmentation.
In Gaza, this is manifesting in the recently declared plan to build “alternative safe communities” that would make up a “new Gaza” in the part of the Strip under Israeli control, which appears to have received U.S. backing. Earlier in July, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had stated that Israel would create a “humanitarian city” built over the flattened remains of Rafah, which was supposedly meant to house 600,000 Palestinians and would be used as a pathway for Palestinians to “voluntarily migrate” out of Gaza, a plan that was characterized by UN officials and human rights experts as a “concentration camp.”
In that same month, a Reuters report revealed that the U.S.-run and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — so-called “aid” sites meant to replace the UN’s aid distribution system, but where thousands of Palestinians were gunned down in what were described by Gazans as “death traps” — had drafted plans to create so-called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” meant to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The GHF was itself the “brainchild” of Israeli officials, the New York Times reported last May.
Now that plans for a “new Gaza” have surfaced as part of the Trump-backed ceasefire framework, new reports have begun to emerge that UG Solutions, the U.S. military subcontractor that provided security for the GHF, is now recruiting for a new deployment in Gaza to run ten to 15 more aid sites during the ceasefire.
All these developments take place as Israel attempts to continue to advance its goals. In Lebanon and Syria, it is to establish itself as a regional hegemon, and in Gaza, it is to achieve during the ceasefire what it could not achieve during the war — the ethnic cleansing of Gaza under the rubric of “voluntary migration.”
Israel is losing the battle of public relations.
Israel is violating ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump is allowing it
In recent days, Israel has dramatically escalated its violations of the ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, which have been met with utter silence from the United States. Could this mean a return to the full-scale atrocities of the past two years?
In recent days, Israel has dramatically escalated its violations of the ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon, which have been met with utter silence from the United States. Could this mean a return to the full-scale atrocities of the past two years?
November 27, 2025
MONDOWEISS
Benjamin Netanyahu with Donald Trump at the Ben Gurion airport in May 2017. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom GPO)
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “ceasefire” means: “a suspension of active hostilities.” The so-called “kids’ definition” is: “a temporary stopping of warfare.” That all seems clear enough.
But Israel’s definition differs significantly. They understand “ceasefire” to mean: “they cease, we fire.”
This is not news to Palestinians, Lebanese, or any of Israel’s neighbors. Much like how Israel and its supporters like to say that there was “peace” before October 7, 2023, questions of violence are always defined not by whether there is shooting or bombing but by whether Israelis are getting hit with those bullets and bombs.
When the United States imposed or brokered ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, it was well understood by all that Washington would have to keep Israel on a tight leash for the agreements to hold. It was not hard to anticipate that the attention to that task would not be sustainable under Donald Trump.
Recent events have proven that to be true. Israel has never held to either ceasefire, of course. But in recent days, it has dramatically escalated its violations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and these violations have been met with utter silence from the United States.
Are we about to see a return to the full-scale atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon that became so sickeningly familiar these past two years? And why did the U.S. go to the trouble of brokering these ceasefire agreements if they were just going to let Israel destroy them so flagrantly and easily?
Above all, what is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to achieve, as he seems to be calling all the shots, directly or indirectly?
Israel’s aims
Israel’s goals are clear enough: endless war.
After the United Nations Security Council shamefully voted to endorse Donald Trump’s colonialist plan to impose conditions on the Palestinians as the price for stopping Israel’s full-scale genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu reacted not like a leader who had gotten what he wanted, but like a man who just saw a development he needed to prevent.
“Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors” and calls on neighboring countries to “join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region,” he said in a series of posts on X.
Expulsion of Hamas was not part of Trump’s plan or the Security Council’s resolution. Netanyahu obviously added this to prick Hamas, add fuel to his efforts to undermine the Trump plan, and to toss a bone to his right flank.
Israel had never heeded the ceasefire to begin with. More than 340 overwhelmingly non-combatant Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was put in place, and over 15,000 more structures in Gaza have been destroyed, just as flooding, overflowing sewage, rains, and the cold weather of approaching winter start to hit the already battered population.
In just the past few days, though, Israel has killed more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza, a sign of escalation. It is no coincidence that this uptick comes on the heels of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman’s (MBS) visit to Washington where he once again insisted, much to Trump’s annoyance, that if Donald Trump wanted to see a normalization deal between his kingdom and Israel, there would need to be a clear, committed path to a Palestinian state with a timeline. Whether MBS was sincere about that or not, Netanyahu has no intention of making even the slightest gesture in that direction, and the escalation in Gaza was, at least in part, his response to that part of the Trump-MBS confab.
Israel’s justifications for its attacks on Palestinians are threadbare and reflect how little Washington cares.
Netanyahu claims that Hamas has repeatedly violated the ceasefire by sending their people across the arbitrary line Trump drew in Gaza, when, in fact, these are Hamas members who were caught on the wrong side when the ceasefire was imposed and have been cut off from their commanders.
Other Israeli claims are equally thin and disingenuous, such as the false claim that Hamas is killing Palestinian civilians or that they staged a body recovery, which is true but hardly merits the mass slaughter Israel engaged in response.
But for the most part, Israel is not even bothering to justify their actions. They simply say, “There was a Hamas person there,” and that is good enough for the U.S. and most of the mainstream Western media. This is despite the fact that Hamas has stuck to their side of the agreement, in terms of refraining from attacks on Israelis, despite the fact that, legally, they have every right to attack an occupying army.
Setting sights on Lebanon
Yet as much as Israel continues to escalate in Gaza, they are wary of reigniting the global outcry that has quieted a bit as some people — mostly those eager to go back to disinterest in the plight of the Palestinian people — accept the idea that the slightly slower pace of genocide occurring now can be called a “ceasefire,” and an end to “the war.”
Israel is hoping that the isolation that was created, mostly by popular movements, during the genocide might ease. Netanyahu, who is always seeking ways to have the best of both worlds, will not end the killing in Gaza to achieve this, but is hoping the illusion of an end to genocide might take hold. So far, it has not, despite the fact that many sources, even some Arab ones, persist in referring to the ceasefire as if it were genuine.
Netanyahu needs perpetual war. An Israel that faces diplomatic challenges abroad and internal questions at home is not a hospitable one for Netanyahu’s election chances next year.
Lebanon offers an alternative. While there may be protests regarding attacks on Lebanon as well, it has not generated the same kind of global response as attacks on Gaza. With even less provocation from Hezbollah than they have gotten from Hamas (which, itself, was virtually nil), Israel has stepped up the attacks on Lebanon that it also never ceased.
There could not be better proof that Israel has no interest in peace and regional stability, but prefers a state of constant war.
The ceasefire deal that was struck last year between Israel and Lebanon calls for the Lebanese military to take over the defense of the country in the south, where Hezbollah has been the de facto defense force for decades. The new Lebanese government agreed to do this and to work with Hezbollah to bring about the absorption of the group’s armed wing into the Lebanese military, unified under the solitary command of the Lebanese government.
This should be exactly what Israel wants. It would mean that Hezbollah, which would continue to be a political entity in Lebanon, would no longer have an independent armed wing. Their fighters and arms would instead be controlled by a government that is not only friendly to the West but also heavily dependent on it for its economic recovery.
The Lebanese military made it clear from the outset that they would not — and indeed, they could not — disarm Hezbollah by force. They are not about to risk another civil war after the way the last one devastated the small country.
Persistent Israeli attacks and Israel’s refusal to leave key areas in southern Lebanon have greatly complicated matters. Hezbollah has evacuated its sites in the south, but they are not prepared to disarm while Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory and launch regular attacks. That is not an unreasonable position; they are simply asking that Israel fulfill its side of the ceasefire.
Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabatabai last Sunday, in a clear escalation that was widely interpreted as a warning to Lebanon and the U.S. over what they considered the “slow pace” of Hezbollah disarmament and their claims that Hezbollah is slowly building up an arms cache again.
Indeed, the pace is slow, and it seems that Hezbollah is likely rebuilding its stock of weapons. However, their support from Iran is greatly diminished, as are their domestic manufacturing capabilities; therefore, any rearming is a much slower process than it might have been in the past.
Israel’s refusal to abide by even one moment of the terms of the ceasefire agreement is the greatest impediment to the process that the Lebanese government has been insisting is the only way they can not only disarm Hezbollah, but also normalize the country’s entire security apparatus, bringing it under one authority.
The U.S.’ short attention span
At first, when the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel was announced, the United States seemed to understand that the Lebanese military, weak as it is, would need to work with Hezbollah, not against it, in order to achieve the outcome everyone seemed to want. The Trump administration also seemed to get it.
But neither the outgoing Biden administration nor the incoming Trump one was prepared to push Israel to abandon its positions in southern Lebanon. Nor was either prepared to rebuke Israel for its continuous attacks, even when those attacks were directed at civilians, or even United Nations personnel.
American diplomats have sent mixed signals. Trump’s Special Envoy for the region, Tom Barrack, has vacillated between complimentary words on the progress being made by the Lebanese government in its talks with Hezbollah and threats of Israeli action if the process of disarming Hezbollah is not completed soon.
When Trump took office, he sent similarly mixed messages. While he voiced his support for the Lebanese government, he almost immediately started pushing the government to accelerate the process of disarming Hezbollah.
While Trump seemed to understand that Israeli attacks made this already difficult task much harder for the fledgling Lebanese government — asking Israel to “scale down” its attacks — he continued to show impatience with a process that requires careful steps, not bluster.
For Trump, his aims were largely achieved by his ability to claim a ceasefire in Gaza, however false a claim that may be. In Lebanon, the truce was not technically of his making; he likely would not mind a new round of large-scale warfare, which he could then claim to have brought to an end. The reality of such claims, and how they actually play out on the ground, is of no importance to him.
In recent days, Trump has focused his attention on Russia and Ukraine, and, as a result, he is paying even less attention to Gaza and Lebanon than he was before. Netanyahu noticed.
In looking at what Trump is pursuing in Ukraine, and the potential wealth he personally stands to gain from his plans there, it is obvious that any interests he may have had in Trump casinos and towers in Gaza or Beirut are insignificant next to the mineral and other forms of profit he hopes to leech out of Ukraine.
In the end, Trump decided to act in Gaza largely out of his concern for his business partners in Qatar, after Israel’s attack there crossed a line. That rebuke has now been registered, and his interest lies elsewhere.
No one is reading this more clearly than Netanyahu. He will continue to pursue his Genocide 2.0 in Gaza, allowing a quarter of the aid needed into Gaza rather than none of it, and featuring daily killings of a slightly lower number than before.
Lebanon is where he envisions a return to larger-scale fighting, but, at least for now, he needs Hezbollah to retaliate for his provocations. So far, they haven’t taken the bait.
But how much more provocation can they realistically be expected to stand for? That is the bet Netanyahu is making with the full knowledge that Trump has turned his attention away from these actions. Trump, being his mercurial self, could pivot back, but there is little reason for him to do so at this point.
Benjamin Netanyahu with Donald Trump at the Ben Gurion airport in May 2017. (Photo: Amos Ben Gershom GPO)According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “ceasefire” means: “a suspension of active hostilities.” The so-called “kids’ definition” is: “a temporary stopping of warfare.” That all seems clear enough.
But Israel’s definition differs significantly. They understand “ceasefire” to mean: “they cease, we fire.”
This is not news to Palestinians, Lebanese, or any of Israel’s neighbors. Much like how Israel and its supporters like to say that there was “peace” before October 7, 2023, questions of violence are always defined not by whether there is shooting or bombing but by whether Israelis are getting hit with those bullets and bombs.
When the United States imposed or brokered ceasefires between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah, it was well understood by all that Washington would have to keep Israel on a tight leash for the agreements to hold. It was not hard to anticipate that the attention to that task would not be sustainable under Donald Trump.
Recent events have proven that to be true. Israel has never held to either ceasefire, of course. But in recent days, it has dramatically escalated its violations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and these violations have been met with utter silence from the United States.
Are we about to see a return to the full-scale atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon that became so sickeningly familiar these past two years? And why did the U.S. go to the trouble of brokering these ceasefire agreements if they were just going to let Israel destroy them so flagrantly and easily?
Above all, what is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to achieve, as he seems to be calling all the shots, directly or indirectly?
Israel’s aims
Israel’s goals are clear enough: endless war.
After the United Nations Security Council shamefully voted to endorse Donald Trump’s colonialist plan to impose conditions on the Palestinians as the price for stopping Israel’s full-scale genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu reacted not like a leader who had gotten what he wanted, but like a man who just saw a development he needed to prevent.
“Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors” and calls on neighboring countries to “join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region,” he said in a series of posts on X.
Expulsion of Hamas was not part of Trump’s plan or the Security Council’s resolution. Netanyahu obviously added this to prick Hamas, add fuel to his efforts to undermine the Trump plan, and to toss a bone to his right flank.
Israel had never heeded the ceasefire to begin with. More than 340 overwhelmingly non-combatant Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire was put in place, and over 15,000 more structures in Gaza have been destroyed, just as flooding, overflowing sewage, rains, and the cold weather of approaching winter start to hit the already battered population.
In just the past few days, though, Israel has killed more than 60 Palestinians in Gaza, a sign of escalation. It is no coincidence that this uptick comes on the heels of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman’s (MBS) visit to Washington where he once again insisted, much to Trump’s annoyance, that if Donald Trump wanted to see a normalization deal between his kingdom and Israel, there would need to be a clear, committed path to a Palestinian state with a timeline. Whether MBS was sincere about that or not, Netanyahu has no intention of making even the slightest gesture in that direction, and the escalation in Gaza was, at least in part, his response to that part of the Trump-MBS confab.
Israel’s justifications for its attacks on Palestinians are threadbare and reflect how little Washington cares.
Netanyahu claims that Hamas has repeatedly violated the ceasefire by sending their people across the arbitrary line Trump drew in Gaza, when, in fact, these are Hamas members who were caught on the wrong side when the ceasefire was imposed and have been cut off from their commanders.
Other Israeli claims are equally thin and disingenuous, such as the false claim that Hamas is killing Palestinian civilians or that they staged a body recovery, which is true but hardly merits the mass slaughter Israel engaged in response.
But for the most part, Israel is not even bothering to justify their actions. They simply say, “There was a Hamas person there,” and that is good enough for the U.S. and most of the mainstream Western media. This is despite the fact that Hamas has stuck to their side of the agreement, in terms of refraining from attacks on Israelis, despite the fact that, legally, they have every right to attack an occupying army.
Setting sights on Lebanon
Yet as much as Israel continues to escalate in Gaza, they are wary of reigniting the global outcry that has quieted a bit as some people — mostly those eager to go back to disinterest in the plight of the Palestinian people — accept the idea that the slightly slower pace of genocide occurring now can be called a “ceasefire,” and an end to “the war.”
Israel is hoping that the isolation that was created, mostly by popular movements, during the genocide might ease. Netanyahu, who is always seeking ways to have the best of both worlds, will not end the killing in Gaza to achieve this, but is hoping the illusion of an end to genocide might take hold. So far, it has not, despite the fact that many sources, even some Arab ones, persist in referring to the ceasefire as if it were genuine.
Netanyahu needs perpetual war. An Israel that faces diplomatic challenges abroad and internal questions at home is not a hospitable one for Netanyahu’s election chances next year.
Lebanon offers an alternative. While there may be protests regarding attacks on Lebanon as well, it has not generated the same kind of global response as attacks on Gaza. With even less provocation from Hezbollah than they have gotten from Hamas (which, itself, was virtually nil), Israel has stepped up the attacks on Lebanon that it also never ceased.
There could not be better proof that Israel has no interest in peace and regional stability, but prefers a state of constant war.
The ceasefire deal that was struck last year between Israel and Lebanon calls for the Lebanese military to take over the defense of the country in the south, where Hezbollah has been the de facto defense force for decades. The new Lebanese government agreed to do this and to work with Hezbollah to bring about the absorption of the group’s armed wing into the Lebanese military, unified under the solitary command of the Lebanese government.
This should be exactly what Israel wants. It would mean that Hezbollah, which would continue to be a political entity in Lebanon, would no longer have an independent armed wing. Their fighters and arms would instead be controlled by a government that is not only friendly to the West but also heavily dependent on it for its economic recovery.
The Lebanese military made it clear from the outset that they would not — and indeed, they could not — disarm Hezbollah by force. They are not about to risk another civil war after the way the last one devastated the small country.
Persistent Israeli attacks and Israel’s refusal to leave key areas in southern Lebanon have greatly complicated matters. Hezbollah has evacuated its sites in the south, but they are not prepared to disarm while Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory and launch regular attacks. That is not an unreasonable position; they are simply asking that Israel fulfill its side of the ceasefire.
Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabatabai last Sunday, in a clear escalation that was widely interpreted as a warning to Lebanon and the U.S. over what they considered the “slow pace” of Hezbollah disarmament and their claims that Hezbollah is slowly building up an arms cache again.
Indeed, the pace is slow, and it seems that Hezbollah is likely rebuilding its stock of weapons. However, their support from Iran is greatly diminished, as are their domestic manufacturing capabilities; therefore, any rearming is a much slower process than it might have been in the past.
Israel’s refusal to abide by even one moment of the terms of the ceasefire agreement is the greatest impediment to the process that the Lebanese government has been insisting is the only way they can not only disarm Hezbollah, but also normalize the country’s entire security apparatus, bringing it under one authority.
The U.S.’ short attention span
At first, when the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel was announced, the United States seemed to understand that the Lebanese military, weak as it is, would need to work with Hezbollah, not against it, in order to achieve the outcome everyone seemed to want. The Trump administration also seemed to get it.
But neither the outgoing Biden administration nor the incoming Trump one was prepared to push Israel to abandon its positions in southern Lebanon. Nor was either prepared to rebuke Israel for its continuous attacks, even when those attacks were directed at civilians, or even United Nations personnel.
American diplomats have sent mixed signals. Trump’s Special Envoy for the region, Tom Barrack, has vacillated between complimentary words on the progress being made by the Lebanese government in its talks with Hezbollah and threats of Israeli action if the process of disarming Hezbollah is not completed soon.
When Trump took office, he sent similarly mixed messages. While he voiced his support for the Lebanese government, he almost immediately started pushing the government to accelerate the process of disarming Hezbollah.
While Trump seemed to understand that Israeli attacks made this already difficult task much harder for the fledgling Lebanese government — asking Israel to “scale down” its attacks — he continued to show impatience with a process that requires careful steps, not bluster.
For Trump, his aims were largely achieved by his ability to claim a ceasefire in Gaza, however false a claim that may be. In Lebanon, the truce was not technically of his making; he likely would not mind a new round of large-scale warfare, which he could then claim to have brought to an end. The reality of such claims, and how they actually play out on the ground, is of no importance to him.
In recent days, Trump has focused his attention on Russia and Ukraine, and, as a result, he is paying even less attention to Gaza and Lebanon than he was before. Netanyahu noticed.
In looking at what Trump is pursuing in Ukraine, and the potential wealth he personally stands to gain from his plans there, it is obvious that any interests he may have had in Trump casinos and towers in Gaza or Beirut are insignificant next to the mineral and other forms of profit he hopes to leech out of Ukraine.
In the end, Trump decided to act in Gaza largely out of his concern for his business partners in Qatar, after Israel’s attack there crossed a line. That rebuke has now been registered, and his interest lies elsewhere.
No one is reading this more clearly than Netanyahu. He will continue to pursue his Genocide 2.0 in Gaza, allowing a quarter of the aid needed into Gaza rather than none of it, and featuring daily killings of a slightly lower number than before.
Lebanon is where he envisions a return to larger-scale fighting, but, at least for now, he needs Hezbollah to retaliate for his provocations. So far, they haven’t taken the bait.
But how much more provocation can they realistically be expected to stand for? That is the bet Netanyahu is making with the full knowledge that Trump has turned his attention away from these actions. Trump, being his mercurial self, could pivot back, but there is little reason for him to do so at this point.
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