Hezbollah’s victory furthers the path of resistance; Gaza’s victory is near
Julia KassemJulia Kassem
Source: Al Mayadeen English
30 Nov 2024 14:28
11 Min Read
Many need to abandon the static view of developments that seem to forget the dynamism, as well as the level of deep coordination shared among the members of the Resistance.
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On November 25, reports of a potential ceasefire in Lebanon, on grounds of the 1701 resolution surfaced. Hezbollah stressed that it would not accept any other concessions that enabled an extended occupation in Lebanon or the disarming of the Lebanese Resistance. However, there is a dangerous misconception in the assumption that by agreeing to a ceasefire that doesn’t explicitly stipulate an end to the genocide and siege on Gaza, Hezbollah is abandoning the very people it entered the war to defend.
Before and after the announcement of the ceasefire, “Israel” compensated by intensifying its brutal siege on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure, perhaps trying to put pressure to apply its original terms. Yet it failed. It couldn’t use the resolution as an excuse to establish its sought-after “buffer zone” in Lebanon or compensate for its military failures. Put simply, it faced one of its largest monumental defeats of many.
It’s important to clear up two misconceptions – one that the implemented resolution succeeds in disarming Hezbollah, and second, that Hezbollah capitulated and abandoned Gaza in its dropping of the conditionality demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. To the first point, Hezbollah’s intensified operations of “making [the enemy] scream,” as Sheikh Naim Qassem said weeks ago, have forced the occupation to return to the pre-October 8, 2023, status.
As MP Fadlallah said, the resolution that came onto the table is not the same one that came out. It wasn’t just red ink that defanged “Israel’s” attempt at winning concessions, but Hezbollah’s unprecedented operations. All the red ink that rendered “Israel’s” vision for the current implementation of 1701 useless to them was not just won by words, but by the pressure of unprecedented Hezbollah operations, especially Sunday’s escalation that surpassed 50 operations, with the force of 340 rockets pummeling major sites in occupied Palestine. As it stands in the final agreement, “Israel” will not win any of its demands to remain in Lebanon for any period of time, nor can it or the US enforce a disarmament of Lebanon. Any additional concessions “Israel” celebrated in its media were actually negotiated out, refused by Hezbollah, and the final agreement doesn’t specify or spell out any requirement of Hezbollah to even disarm outside of the Litani. Hezbollah remains on guard, ready to defend itself at any time, understanding that “Israel” may break the agreement at any time, thereby returning the entity to its fate amid its arrogant suicide mission.
The US and “Israel” will not be able to enforce a withdrawal of Hezbollah from the southernmost borders of Lebanon because it is their land, with “Israel” failing to capture a single village. “Israel” suffered record losses of Merkava tanks that weren’t even able to make it to the 2006s Graveyard of Merkavas, as around 70 were destroyed. There is no longer an “Israeli” army to send back to Gaza as both fronts have depleted their capacity in terms of ammunition, personnel, and morale.
Assuming that Lebanon abandoned its commitment to Gaza overlooks the shifted material reality of the battlefield after September 17. “Israel” diverted its focus based on the likely fear of the Radwan unit’s infiltration from the north of occupied Palestine, the effectiveness of its low-flying, deadly drones, and the ability of its missiles to reach far distances across occupied Palestine – as its campaign against Lebanon represented more to the entity than a mere defensive one supposedly aimed at restoring security to the northern settlements. Hezbollah held firm to its goals, yet the Zionist entity’s losses at every step of the way forced it to constantly drop failed objectives to take on more unmanageable goals. When it shifted its focus to wanting to invade Lebanon despite not defeating Hamas or recovering its captives, it accumulated defeat while spreading thin its focus on the battle arena. It threw its weight behind total war on Lebanon, exhausting a great deal of its energy and wrath in the first week in a shock-and-awe string of massacres and destruction – already unable to meaningfully escalate beyond that point.
Hezbollah, on the other hand, remained undeterred and still maintained the upper hand and control over the pace of operations and escalation, even after “Israel” murdered most of Hezbollah’s senior leadership. Hezbollah quickly replaced and recovered its chain of command and maintained the escalation ladder, repeatedly hitting new targets and revealing new surprises with new and stronger capabilities. Evidently, as the war took on a different form and focus, so naturally did Hezbollah’s objectives. In its announcements, Resistance operations were “in defense of Gaza” and “in defense of the Lebanese people.” so, Hezbollah had to juggle two priorities – maintaining its support of Gaza and adding pressure on “Israel” to protect its own people.
The pre-September 17 material conditions changed post-November 24, with Hezbollah’s linkage to the Palestinian Resistance no longer a point of contention, but an undeniable material reality. Sayyed Nasrallah’s refusal to separate the fronts in September came at a time when alleviating the pressure on “Israel” from Lebanon would still offer some hope for “Israel” to restore its power, maintain security over its major cities and sites, and re-enter Gaza stronger. Yet, in those two months, the situation has progressed to where both Gaza and Lebanon are putting the entity into an existential situation. Critical military and intelligence sites past Tel Aviv and in Haifa have been bombarded nonstop, and the losses inflicted on the Entity by the Lebanese Resistance already produced irreversible damage. So by agreeing to a ceasefire that occurs within the context of the joint Resistance’s greater strategic goals, Hezbollah is not going back on its word, but pushing forward after setting new equations against the arrogant occupation. Hezbollah has fired an average of 200 rockets into occupied Palestine lately, topping at 340 rockets on Sunday, November 24, with over 51 operations and 6 Merkavas destroyed that day. The losses of Israeli soldiers and equipment are immense. There’s no recovery, respite, or turning back. “Israel” knows it will only completely disintegrate if it goes further in Lebanon. So they have no choice but to accept a ceasefire, which will also mark its official colossal loss in a major pillar in its war for slipping self-preservation.
Hezbollah was still prepared to engage in battle, but its Sunday operations were the final trigger in making “Israel” beg for a ceasefire – “without any extra letter.” “Israel’s” reluctant acceptance to return to a pre-October 2023 status quo, a ceasefire that restores the same equation maintained post-2006 (and to “Israel’s” further detriment, having lost its credibility over maintaining security and illusion of iron supremacy) is further proof of its crawl to the negotiation table from a point of weakness.
The ceasefire heightened contradictions in Israeli society, with many officials in the government and in the north furious at “handing Hezbollah a victory” and “making Israel surrender.” Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have expressed their fury – with the latter wanting to collapse the government over the deal, finding themselves for the first time perhaps in open conflict with Netanyahu, who still tries to save face with false achievements. They recognize the truth – that this was a surrender for “Israel”; it was a cry of desperation for the entity and drives a dagger into any narratives and pretenses to victory by “Israel”. Neither the killing of Hezbollah leaders nor the claim of wiping out “80 percent of its launchers/ammo” hold up in reality, even to “Israel’s” own settlers, many unwilling to return to northern settlements as the Lebanese packed their cars and roads in droves to return home. Kiryat Shmona Mayor Amichai Stern is not even willing to come back, saying that he “is not ready for the [settlers] to return like cattle to be slaughtered, and I do not feel safe raising my children in Kiryat Shmona.” Operation Al-Aqsa Flood shattered the illusion of safety for the settlers, and Hezbollah’s campaign in the north completely killed it.
Finally, it is important to stress that the ceasefire marks another step, rather than a diversion, from the joint Lebanese-Palestinian Resistance strategy. Amid a shift in the front of war comes a shift in strategy for the Resistance. A defeat for “Israel” is a defeat everywhere, and no force outside Palestine has given more than Hezbollah, sacrificing its top leadership, the entire communities of its constituents, and almost 4,000 martyrs. Hezbollah works in close coordination with the Palestinian Resistance – as Hamas representative in Lebanon Osama Hamdan confirmed, who also congratulated and acknowledged Hezbollah’s victory. Each faction has made decisions that ultimately fall into a greater unified strategy, and today’s ceasefire recognizes a fall in “Israel’s” plan for Lebanon as the joint Resistance factions brace for confrontation on other fronts.
It is because of Hezbollah’s continued focus on Gaza, and not in spite of it, that the Lebanese Resistance now wants to recoup its forces’ energy, recover its capacity, and reassess its strategy jointly with the other arms of the Axis in Palestine, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen to keep rather than to divert the focus on Palestine. At the same time, amid their coordination, the shared solidarity in the struggle of the Axis doesn’t mean they can’t assess or make certain decisions specific to their periodic circumstances while not sacrificing their overall principles. When Hamas scores a ceasefire and prisoner exchange, albeit a temporary one – as they’ve done last year, when Iraq’s Resistance reorganizes itself to switch between striking US bases to striking Israeli ports, or when an anticipated ceasefire in Gaza results in an intensification of hostilities in the West Bank, these too mark the balance of local objectives with regional strategy, with communication and coordination among members of the Axis of Resistance actively engaged with one another in every step of the way.
Rather, by tying up loose ends at home, also considering that Hezbollah is a political party in the Lebanese government, also accountable to its own people and operating within a very socially volatile political environment full of internal contradictions just waiting to be activated and exploited by America, it is able to better commit itself to focusing on Palestine. The Resistance in Yemen’s intensification of operations against Israeli ports and ships during Al-Aqsa Flood was in part possible due to the waning of its war at home, allowing itself to become more engaged in its coordination efforts with Hezbollah, Iran, and the Iraqi Resistance. Many need to abandon the static view of developments that seem to forget the dynamism, as well as the level of deep coordination shared among the members of the Resistance.
Biden is already talking about following up with a ceasefire in Gaza, seeing that the battered Israeli Army likely has no capacity left to keep taking Yassin-105 shells to its tanks in Jabalia (which we saw multiple times yesterday alone), or ambushes destroying entire soldier groupings (with 20 destroyed days ago). The Resistance in Gaza continues to maintain its pressure and successfully thwart – for the fourth time – an Israeli attempt to establish a security belt to the North. With the US and “Israel” cutting their losses in Lebanon, Gaza will be next as they shift focus to countering Iran and the expected True Promise III operation, not forgetting the Resistance from the West Bank.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas have both given the Lebanese Resistance their congratulations as they pledge continued unity on the fields. The coordination between the Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance, both leading up to and following the Lebanese ceasefire, will further join, rather than split, their shared struggle amid the regional effort. The victory in Lebanon is a step, not an impediment, to an eventual victory in Palestine. The once-separate fronts are now one path.
The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
