by Farrukh Abadi
US officials are calling for negotiations between Hamas and Israel to continue as the threat of an escalating war in the region increases. In late July, Israel assassinated senior Hezbollah official Sayyed Fouad Shukr in an airstrike in Beirut that killed 3 others and injured 74 civilians. Within 24 hours, a joint US-Israel assassination operation murdered Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh during his visit to the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran. Since the killings, a number of Palestinian liberation factions, the Iranian government, and anti-imperialist forces in the region including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansarallah have promised retaliation.
The retaliation has yet to come, and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stated in a recent speech that “the wait is part of the punishment.” He also listed a series of Israeli economic assets worth over $100 billion that he claims “can be destroyed in one hour or even half an hour.” Meanwhile, resistance forces continue to fight both the US and Israel, including a recent attack on a US airbase in Iraq on Monday that wounded at least 7 personnel.
Following the call to resume the ceasefire negotiations by the US, which were echoed by Qatar and Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel will participate in the negotiations. Netanyahu has so far maintained a policy of putting on a show of cooperation while actively sabotaging the negotiation process, such as its latest assassination of Hamas’s lead negotiator Haniyeh.
Hamas, under the newly elected leadership of Yahya Sinwar, has not yet confirmed it will participate in the negotiations.
The renewed push for negotiations reflects the inability of the US and Israel to realize their aims militarily—the elimination of Hamas—and on the other hand, the growing ability for Palestinian resistance factions and other regional allies to realize their aims. The US and Israel continuously come back to the negotiating table in an attempt to contain the resistance through diplomatic means, which is underscored by Israel’s policy of murdering civilians, such as its continued bombing campaign against schools in Gaza.
Some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, such as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, support a ceasefire with Hamas in order to pivot to a full-scale war with Hezbollah. Gallant had pushed for a preemptive full-scale invasion of Lebanon following the October 7 resistance operation, but was overruled. In June, the Israeli military approved operational plans for an offensive against Lebanon, and in July, Gallant stated: “Even if there is a ceasefire, [in the north] we continue to fight and do everything necessary, and this is what brings the results.”
Such a pivot highlights Israel’s inability to continue fighting on multiple fronts and win its political objectives. Israel is unlikely to win against Hezbollah given that they have been unable to win against Hamas and the other Palestinian factions, which are significantly smaller and are not as well-armed as Hezbollah. Hezbollah also has larger territory in which to fight, a rear zone, and a more extensive tunnel network than the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, and they previously defeated Israel when the latter invaded Lebanon in 2006. On the other side, the Israeli military has also recently announced a shortage of tanks, tank crews, and ammunition, while internal tensions continue to grip the country. A recent court ruling requiring Orthodox Jews to be drafted has so far been resisted by many, and protests against the government to end the war continue.
