The Israeli aggression led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been continuing for more than a year on the Gaza Strip and then on southern Lebanon, and the “King of Israel” is still unable to achieve his goals by declaring “absolute victory” over the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) or Hezbollah.
Despite the states of “ecstasy of power and intoxication of arrogance” that Netanyahu is experiencing – especially after the occupation army carried out some large and specific attacks against the resistance and its popular incubator, such as assassinating leaders and achieving security successes – the obsession with failure and failure continues to haunt and control him as he faces facts on the ground that bring him back to his point. Zero every time.
In light of the massacres, killings and systematic destruction carried out by the occupation army in implementation of the decisions of the political level in Israel, questions arise about the reality of the field achievements achieved by the resistance, forming a thorn in Netanyahu’s side that disturbs him and spoils his euphoria.
Aside from the losses in foreign policy related to putting Israel on the international map and dragging it to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, we can talk about 7 files in which the resistance achieved achievements, the repercussions of which continue to directly affect Netanyahu as a person, as well as the pillars of his government, his army, and the Israeli public.
A huge tragic price
Since the beginning of the war until now, Israeli analysts have not stopped talking about the extent of human losses among the Israeli public and the military alike, which is estimated at thousands of dead and wounded, as Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that about a thousand soldiers join the rehabilitation department in the Ministry of War every month.
Press reports speak of an atmosphere of pessimism dominating the political and societal scene, amid fear that Netanyahu is “dragging Israel into the unknown,” at a time when it is being subjected to strikes from the resistance in Gaza, Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and the Islamic resistance factions in Iraq.
Despite the media blackout imposed by the occupation army on the details of the casualties and losses recorded daily, what is filtered out in the media alone is enough to worry political and military leaders.
In an analysis published by the American magazine “National Interest”, Israeli political analyst Shalom Lipner said, “More than a year after the Al-Aqsa flood attack, feelings of frustration and disappointment still dominate the majority of Israelis.”
Haifa is like Kiryat Shmona
Hezbollah’s missile attacks deep inside Israel formed a new path in the conflict, as the party launched the slogan, “We will make Haifa like Kiryat Shmona and Metulla.”
A state of terror was recorded in Israeli circles following the targeting of Netanyahu’s house, as the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that a drone launched from Lebanon directly hit Netanyahu’s house in Caesarea, south of Haifa.
Israeli military sources considered that the arrival of the Hezbollah drone to a place where the Prime Minister lives was a miserable failure of the security services.
The attack, with its assault march, on the Golani Brigade’s Binyamina base in Haifa a few days ago achieved a painful military surprise for Israel. The party described the operation as “specific and complex,” as the drone was able to penetrate the Israeli air defense radars without being detected and reached its goal.
In a statement, the Islamic Resistance Operations Room, the military wing of Hezbollah, confirmed that it had decided to “discipline the enemy and demonstrate some of its capabilities at any time or place it wants.”
Netanyahu commented, saying, “We are waging a fierce campaign against the Iranian axis of evil. We are paying a painful price, but we have tremendous achievements,” while Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy described the attack as difficult and with painful results.
Lebanese media outlets close to Hezbollah said that these operations reveal “advanced intelligence briefing and tremendous development of the equipment used by Hezbollah, and professionalism in military tactics,” especially since they came after repeated statements by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant in which he confirmed that he had succeeded in eliminating Most of Hezbollah’s missile and drone capabilities.
Tens of thousands of displaced people inside Israel
To avoid missile strikes from Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli government resorted to evacuating thousands of Israelis from their homes, and Israel recorded, for the first time in its history, a record number of displaced people.
According to Israeli newspapers, the number of displaced people from the settlements surrounding the Gaza Strip and from the border with Lebanon reached 120,000 displaced people, but the number rises to half a million displaced people, according to what was previously announced by the Israeli army.
The presence of these displaced people – whose expenses are covered by the government during the period of their displacement for more than a year – will exacerbate the problems and economic and moral burdens on the occupation government, which has rented hotel rooms and guest houses for them, and has also resorted to erecting tents to shelter them.
According to a report broadcast by Tel Aviv Tribune, the displacement has many connotations in the Israeli imagination, as the images of those permanently leaving Israel deepen the scene.
Two million Israelis are in shelters
The resistance attacks on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts brought to the fore once again questions about the readiness of the Israeli home front for missile attacks. The attacks also exacerbated the crisis of tens of thousands of displaced Israelis, as instead of these people returning to their homes as Netanyahu promised, they were joined by hundreds of thousands who are sleeping in shelters.
The resistance attacks – according to former Air Defense Commander General Ran Kochav in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 – caused the imprisonment of more than two million Israelis in shelters and fortified rooms in more than 190 towns, settlements and cities.
The problem of insufficient shelters, called the “shelter gap,” exacerbates the concerns of the occupation authorities, especially with local data revealing the unpreparedness of a large percentage of public shelters.
It also became clear that the fortified rooms in homes and apartments did not fully protect their residents from direct missile and drone strikes, and barely provided protection from shrapnel.
Striking the will to survive
Another scene that worries Netanyahu is “reverse migration,” which poses an existential threat to Israel, which is based primarily on a settlement policy and attracting Jews from all over the world.
As the director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Social and Human Sciences at Qatar University, Nayef Bin Nahar, says, the resistance operations struck the “will to survive” of the Israelis, which is primarily based on providing them with a safe entity, to confront their fundamental crisis, which is that Israel is an artificial entity from which they can leave at any time to… The country they came from and whose citizenship they still hold.
Although the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics does not reveal the real numbers of Israelis who immigrated, Israeli newspapers revealed that about a quarter of Israelis thought about immigrating abroad due to the security situation.
According to a report prepared by Tel Aviv Tribune correspondent Elias Karam last August, official figures say that nearly half a million of those who were outside the country before the Al-Aqsa Flood operation have not yet returned, while 375,000 left after the war.
The Times of Israel newspaper quoted data from the Population and Immigration Authority that half a million Israelis left Israel in the first six months of the war.
Armed operations
Military operations – including martyrdom operations – were one of the most prominent tools of the resistance in confronting the occupation, but the resistance refrained from martyrdom operations for a period “according to changes linked to world public opinion and the civilian losses that may result from these operations,” according to political analyst Muhammad Ghazi Al-Jamal in previous statements to Tel Aviv Tribune. net.
But the scale of the massacres that took place in Gaza amid the silence and international complicity with the occupation prompted the resistance to reconsider this strategy as an effective tool to pressure Israeli society.
The announcement by the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, and the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Jihad Movement, considered the return of martyrdom operations inside the occupied Palestinian territories to the forefront again in response to the Israeli massacres, the displacement of civilians, and the Israeli policy of assassinations against the leaders of the resistance factions in the Gaza Strip, as a strategic shift in the battle.
This announcement resonated within Israel, revealing a great degree of fear in the security system about introducing explosive devices into the heart of major cities in Israel, which could cause many human and material losses.
In addition, the success achieved by the shooting operations carried out by resistance fighters inside Israel doubles the fears of Israeli leaders about their negative repercussions on the Israeli public, and this became clear after the Jaffa operation, which resulted in the killing of 7 Israelis and the injury of 16 others.
Director of the Yabous Center for Studies, Suleiman Bisharat, commented in statements to Tel Aviv Tribune Net, saying that such operations show that Israel is unable to control the field in the confrontation with the Palestinians, and that it has failed in the military and security approach.
The announced numbers regarding the number of operations announced by Israeli security – whether successful or aborted – reveal the great pressure to which the occupation forces are exposed. As of last August, more than a thousand operations had been announced since October 7, 2023.
Press coverage: A new scene…the moment the explosive device exploded during the joint “Tel Aviv” operation between Al-Qassam and the Al-Quds Brigades, which led to the crossing being raised and a settler being injured. pic.twitter.com/a8ZTwMFQ8U
– Quds News Network (@qudsn) August 19, 2024
Countless economic losses
In conclusion, the war that Netanyahu is waging has caused huge losses to the Israeli economy, as was published in a report by Tel Aviv Tribune Net. Estimates indicated that the cost of the war has exceeded 67.3 billion dollars so far, and this does not include other costs related to the army, such as treating the wounded and providing shelter and refuges.
Fitch lowered Israel’s credit rating, noting the worsening geopolitical risks as the war in Gaza continues, amid threats of it moving to other fronts.
At the beginning of the war, the agency placed Israel’s sovereign debt rating under negative monitoring, and warned that any major escalation could lead to a downgrade of the rating.