The ring of fire against Israel and its foundation is Lebanon.. Has its role ended?

The Israeli newspaper “Jerusalem Post” published a new report in which it asked whether Israel was able to end the multi-front threat in the Middle East.

The report he translated says: “Lebanon 24” Since 2021, when Hamas fired rockets at Israel “in response” to Israeli actions with which it was unhappy regarding the Temple Mount and East Jerusalem, Israel has faced an increasing threat on multiple fronts, he added: “This threat has expanded to include Hezbollah and Syria in April 2023, when rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria at around the same time in response to conflicts between Israel and Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount.”

He added: “But the climax of this multi-front threat was the October 7 massacre, which forced Israel to wage large and extended wars simultaneously against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and 5 other fronts: Iran, Iran’s agents in Syria, and the Houthi forces in Yemen, Iranian proxies in Iraq, and militants in the West Bank.”

The report asked: “Did the ceasefire with Hezbollah on November 27, the expulsion of Iran from Syria with the fall of the regime of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December, and the ceasefire with Hamas on January 15 end the multi-front threat?”

He continued: “The theory behind the multi-front threat, or ring of fire, was very simple, which was to drown Israel simultaneously on many fronts. For your information, this theory was formulated and engineered by the former commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Qassem Soleimani, in 2017, before his assassination in 2020.”

He continued: “Soleimani and Israel’s other enemies knew that none of them would be able to directly defeat Israel or even seriously challenge it in an individual confrontation. But if they all went on the offensive at once, striking all parts of the home front at once, they might be able to crush Israel by forcing it to divide its forces, as they hoped. Indeed, Hamas may be able to bomb the south and Hezbollah the north, but it is doubtful that either of them will be able to inflict serious damage on the entire country.”

He added: “Collectively, Iran’s proxies may be able to defeat Israel only through the sheer number of threats moving from different locations, or at the very least, they may be able to force Jerusalem to make various strategic concessions that would improve the power and position of the Tehran axis.” “.

He said: “By February 2023, The Jerusalem Post has learned from defense sources that the Islamic Republic is expected to take more aggressive and risky actions to exploit the multi-front threat against Israel. “At selected points over the past 15 months, Iran and its proxies may have believed that its multi-front strategy had paid off.”

He continued: “It was not only about the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas and 250 others it took hostage on October 7, 2023, but it was also about 10,600 rockets that Hamas fired at central and southern Israel, including sometimes hundreds of rockets daily at Tel Aviv, from October 2023 until January 2024, with missile launches continuing from time to time throughout 2024.”

He said: “Israel has decided to allow Hezbollah to destroy parts of the north, including evacuating more than 60,000 citizens from their homes for 13 months to escape rocket fire. From mid-September to late November 2024, a third of northern Israel spent a significant amount of time under lockdown due to rocket fire from Hezbollah.”

He added: “Over the course of a year, Israel has been subjected to periodic ballistic attacks from the Houthis in Yemen, many of which were able to send between two and three million people in the center of the country to shelters in the middle of the night.”
He continued: “2024 was somewhat better than 2023 in this regard, as the overall level of Palestinian attacks on Israelis from the West Bank in 2023 and 2024 was off the charts. Of course, soldiers were periodically killed by drones launched from Syria and Iraq.”

He added: “In the end, Israel succeeded in causing setbacks for Hezbollah. After 13 months of promising not to withdraw from the war unless Israel withdrew from Gaza, the party withdrew from the confrontation while it was in a difficult state, especially after the assassination of its former Secretary General, Mr. Hassan Nasrallah.”

He continued: “Hezbollah is still the strongest force in Lebanon, but at least it is currently agreeing to political settlements with more moderate forces in Lebanon that it would never have dreamed of before the war.”

On the other hand, the report says, “Iran threatened to immediately attack Israel for the third time after Israeli army aircraft destroyed most of its distinguished air defenses, some of its ballistic missile production, and one nuclear site on October 26.” But so far, Iran has not carried out its threat.”

He added: “Hamas promised that it would not negotiate the return of the hostages unless the Israeli army first withdrew from Gaza, but in the end it reached a ceasefire agreement whereby the army would remain in part of Gaza until all (or at least most) of the hostages returned.”

He continued: “Also, all 24 Hamas brigades were dismantled by the Israeli army by last June. For reference, Hamas’ war architects, Yahya Al-Sinwar and Muhammad Deif, were killed, along with Ismail Haniyeh and most of the movement’s leaders before the war. “But there are open questions about whether Hamas will retain full control of Gaza after the ceasefire, or whether, in order to obtain reconstruction aid, it will need to accept some kind of hybrid governance with the Palestinian Authority and other regional and global parties.”

In the face of all this, the report posed a basic question, which is as follows: “Are all of these matters sufficient to convince Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and other forces hostile to Israel that the multi-front strategy awakened the sleeping Israeli lion and exploded in their face?”

Here, the report continues, saying: “In addition to avoiding any major conflict with Israel over the next year, and perhaps other years, as a tactical matter of finding time to rebuild and rearm, will some of these various enemies at least strategically come to the conclusion that they should limit any Conflict with Israel?

He said: “In other words, given that Israel has more power and influence on almost all fronts than it did before October 7, has the theory of a multi-front war with Israel been refuted?”

He continued: “Before the October 7 attack, Israel was afraid to fight with Hezbollah for fear that a small conflict would ignite a larger missile attack by Hezbollah. But is it possible that different parties will reach different conclusions, with less interest in the conflict with Israel? Also, is it possible that Iran will simply change its strategy in the conflict to new paths, including the path of nuclear weapons, global terrorism, and cyberwar?”

He continued: “It is too early to say anything, and much of what the various parties will conclude depends on whether the threat posed by Hamas from Gaza remains low.”

He said: “Some observers also believe that some of Israel’s enemies, even after the blows they have received, still view the latter as more defeatable in light of the October 7 attack and the punishment that the home front endured for 15 months.”

He concluded: “On the other hand, there is at least hope that the positive strategic change resulting from this war will push Israel’s enemies to think twice about whether joining another party’s war with Israel is in their interest.”

Source:
Translation of “Lebanon 24”