ABNA24 - Israel's escalating attacks on Lebanon have less to do with security and more with one man's survival. Netanyahu faces corruption charges — and peace would put him in the dock.
Recent developments have demonstrated that the Axis of Resistance is no longer a loose collection of scattered groups but has evolved into a cohesive, multi-layered network whose components exert direct influence on one another.
Israel's recent attacks on Lebanon should not be analyzed merely within the framework of a border conflict or a limited military operation. What is unfolding today in southern Lebanon is part of a broader strategic project — one that, following the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation and Israel's severe security failure on October 7th, became Tel Aviv's foremost political and security priority: the elimination of the Axis of Resistance from the regional equation.
From the very first days of the Gaza war, Israel sought to transform the crisis from a contained conflict into a comprehensive redesign of the balance of power across West Asia. Tel Aviv had concluded that without destroying or significantly weakening the pillars of the Resistance, it would no longer be capable of restoring its lost deterrence. For this reason, the Gaza war was never solely a war against Hamas — it was the beginning of a project encompassing Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and even Iran.
Yet after months of warfare, assassinations, bombardment, and intelligence operations, Israel has failed to achieve its primary objective. Hamas has not been eliminated, Hezbollah has not collapsed, the supporting fronts of the Resistance have not gone silent, and the region's security equation has not shifted entirely in Tel Aviv's favor. Even the sweeping support of the United States and certain Western governments has proven insufficient to deliver the "absolute victory" Netanyahu promised. This failure has now become one of the principal drivers behind Israel's intensified attacks on Lebanon and its repeated violations of the ceasefire.
Lebanon: Israel's Most Critical Strategic Knot
Israel is well aware that Hezbollah is not merely an armed group operating within Lebanon — it is the most operationally significant pillar of the Axis of Resistance in the region. The experience of the 33-Day War and developments over the past two decades have demonstrated that Hezbollah has attained a level of missile, intelligence, and operational capability sufficient to shift the deterrence balance against Israel. Tel Aviv, therefore, holds that without neutralizing or substantially weakening Hezbollah, no durable security order favorable to Israel can take shape in the region.
However, Israel's objectives in escalating its attacks against Lebanon extend beyond military considerations. One of Tel Aviv's central aims is to disrupt the ongoing negotiations between Iran and the United States and to prevent any reduction of regional tensions. Israel clearly understands that any potential agreement between Tehran and Washington could diminish the intensity of the war environment and reduce Israel's leverage in regional security calculations.
In essence, Tel Aviv requires the continuation of the crisis — it defines the survival of its regional strategy in the shadow of persistent tension. Whenever signs of a potential agreement or de-escalation emerge, the level of Israeli attacks against Lebanon rises in parallel. The objective is transparent: to draw the United States back into the heart of the crisis and to prevent diplomacy from supplanting the logic of war.
It is for this very reason that the repeated violations of the Lebanon ceasefire are not merely tactical maneuvers, but form part of Israel's overarching strategy to preserve a state of permanent war in the region. Tel Aviv is working to convey a clear message: without accommodating Israel's demands, no stability can take root in the region.
The Forty-Day War: The Collapse of the American-Israeli Project
The developments of the recent forty-day war against Iran marked a significant turning point in the region's equations — a war that the United States and Israel believed could lead to the strategic weakening of Iran, the disintegration of the Axis of Resistance's cohesion, and the consolidation of Tel Aviv's deterrence. The outcome, however, proved to be the exact opposite.
Washington and Tel Aviv, relying on military superiority, Western backing, and an extensive psychological warfare campaign, entered a confrontation they believed would compel Tehran to retreat within a short period. What transpired instead was the exposure of the limits of American and Israeli power. Iran's power structure was not destabilized, the Axis of Resistance did not fracture, and Tehran's resolve to pursue its regional course did not diminish.
Most significantly, the forty-day war demonstrated that the strategy of "eliminating the Axis of Resistance" had effectively failed. Israel discovered that even with direct American support, it was incapable of imposing its will upon the region. The war also laid bare an important reality for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf: that the United States, at critical junctures, is not only unable to guarantee the security of its allies, but is itself confronted with a crisis in achieving its own military objectives.
In truth, Israel's current attacks on Lebanon must be understood as a continuation of the same failed project pursued during the forty-day war against Iran. Israel is attempting to compensate for its broader defeat at the hands of Iran and the Axis of Resistance by intensifying pressure on Hezbollah, seeking once again to return the region to a state of permanent conflict.
Netanyahu: Waging War to Escape Political Collapse
A significant dimension of Israel's aggressive conduct must be analyzed through the lens of the regime's internal crisis and the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu. Following the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, the Zionist regime's prime minister faced one of the most devastating security failures in the regime's history — a failure that not only called into question the credibility of Israel's military and intelligence apparatus, but severely shook Netanyahu's own political legitimacy.
From the earliest days of the war, Netanyahu sought to compensate for this initial defeat by prolonging the crisis and expanding the scope of hostilities. He pledged "total victory," yet the passage of time has revealed that achieving such an objective is effectively impossible. The Resistance has not been dismantled, security has not been restored to Israeli settlements, and Israel's internal crisis has not been contained.
Under these circumstances, for Netanyahu, the continuation of the war is not merely a political choice — it is a matter of survival, particularly given that he simultaneously faces corruption charges and ongoing judicial proceedings. The end of the war could mark the beginning of his political collapse; for once the fighting stops, the record of the October 7th security failure, internal protests, and corruption cases will inevitably return to the forefront of Israel's domestic affairs.
Viewed from this angle, the escalation of attacks against Lebanon and Hezbollah constitutes part of Netanyahu's effort to escape his domestic impasse. He seeks, by transforming the war into a regional crisis, both to relieve internal pressure and to keep the United States locked into permanent support for Israel.
Conclusion
Developments in recent months have demonstrated that the Axis of Resistance is no longer a loose collection of scattered groups, but has evolved into a cohesive, multi-layered network whose components exert direct influence on one another. Accordingly, an attack on Hezbollah is not simply an attack on Lebanon — it is an attack on the Resistance as a whole.
As events in Gaza, Iraq, Yemen, and the Red Sea have shown, any pressure applied to one pillar of the Resistance can trigger a response from other fronts as well. This is precisely the reality that Israel continues to disregard.
Under these circumstances, the Islamic Republic of Iran and its diplomatic apparatus cannot remain indifferent to the repeated violations of the Lebanon ceasefire. If discussions around de-escalation or any potential regional agreement are to take place, Hezbollah and the other components of the Resistance must also be incorporated into the ceasefire equation and the path toward an end to the war.
Today, more than ever, it is clear that Israel's objective is not a limited engagement, but a wholesale redesign of the regional balance of power. Nevertheless, the experience of recent months has shown that the Resistance — contrary to Tel Aviv's assumptions — has not only survived, but has succeeded in preventing the realization of Israel's "absolute victory" project.
What is occurring in Lebanon today is not merely a border crisis. It is part of a larger struggle over the future of the region — a struggle in which Israel seeks, through the path of war, to guarantee its own political and security survival, while the Resistance strives to impose a new regional equation: one in which Israel's absolute deterrence and American unilateralism no longer hold sway.
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