By Abdullah as Siddiq & Adnan Khan
The Gaza war reached its one-year anniversary on the 7th October 2024 and has now expanded to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran. In our previous analysis back in July 2024 we concluded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has worked to keep the slaughter going as this serves the Zionist greater Israel agenda and his personal position. Netanyahu and his allies want the complete surrender of the Palestinians and have successfully opposed all US peace and ceasefire deals. This has been possible due to the Zionist influence in the US which has forced the US President’s hand.
Since July 2024 there have been numerous developments with Israel escalating and intensifying its genocidal war against Gaza and now Lebanon. Israel opened a new front in Lebanon targeting Hizballah and managed to assassinate all its senior leadership including its leader, Hassan Nasrullah. Israel is now engulfed in a full-scale war across its northern border in Lebanon. Israel also launched direct attacks on mainland Iran to expand the war further, something it wanted to do for a long time and which it did with US blessing. In both Gaza and Lebanon Israel’s strategic plans are now being reported by many outlets who see Israel’s goals are to depopulate Gaza and Southern Lebanon in order to resettle and annex these territories.
Starve and Surrender
After a year of slaughter in Gaza things are not just desperate in the small enclave but what the world is seeing is apocalyptic. Images continue to beam around the world of widespread destruction, infrastructure demolition and aid being blocked with Gaza’s healthcare system long bombed into oblivion.
Israel intensified its attacks on Gaza from October 2024, especially upon Northern Gaza. There has always been speculation Israel was executing the “Generals Plan”, which is also known as the ‘starve and surrender’ plan. Near the end of October 2024 Israel announced anyone remaining in Northern Gaza would be designated as Hamas and then targeted for killing. Israel has for long tightened its siege and cut-off aid in order to force the remaining population to flee, making Gaza uninhabited. The plan to depopulate Gaza was confirmed on the 21st of October when representatives of Israel’s Mossad spy agency and its security agency Shin Bet visited Cairo and informed them of their plan to create a buffer zone in northern Gaza, forcing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to move to areas close to the Egyptian border.[1]
The general’s plan is clearly genocidal in nature and the ethnic cleansing of the inhabitants has been in motion for some time. This is despite the fact this all of this goes against international law and most nations’ rules of war. It’s also against the US administration’s view, who from the start of the war declared there should be no buffer zones inside Gaza.
The general’s plan is clearly genocidal in nature and the ethnic cleansing of the inhabitants has been in motion for some time
The Biden administration responded to this major escalation by sending a letter to Israel and giving it an ultimatum. In the letter, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to lift restrictions on aid into Gaza within 30 days or face unspecified policy ‘implications’ including the potential halting of US weapons transfers. As its Israel’s siege that’s halting aid deliveries this was a call to end the siege.
Netanyahu then responded that the Israeli plan was to eventually allow civilians back into Northern Gaza, but only after clearing it of Hamas. The Israeli regime then said the area will be controlled by Israel and this will be done through local tribes that oppose Hamas. This was all to placate the US administration as Israel has constantly delayed, obscured, obfuscated and made U-turns whenever the White House made demands of it. Israel has continued to pursue the Generals Plan through forced evacuations, and mass killings on a scale not seen previously (Although this may be hard to comprehend with the level of devastation witnessed for the last year.) Despite this ultimatum the Financial Times reported that at the end of October 2024 aid had fallen to its lowest level since the war began as Israel continued to block aid from reaching the inhabitants of Gaza.[2]
After a year since the events of October 7th, 2023, Israel has continued with its onslaught despite the position of the Biden administration. The White House threatens Netanyahu but has failed for over a year to come down upon Netanyahu and use its extensive power over Israel to force it into line.
The White House threatens Netanyahu but has failed for over a year to come down upon Netanyahu and use its extensive power over Israel to force it into line
War Expands to Lebanon
Ever since the events of October 7th Israel was concerned Hezbollah may open a front in Northern Israel, and this would overstretch Israeli forces when it was planning to go into Gaza. To deal with this Israel moved 60,000 residents to temporary housing from Northern Israel to ensure it could focus its limited resources on Gaza and therefore not fight on two fronts. But tensions continued to grow between Hezbollah and Israel and regular attacks between them escalated. Whilst divisions between the Israeli military leadership, the war cabinet and other officials grew over Gaza, in Lebanon there was unity that something needed to be done. Opposition leader Benny Gantz, a former army chief, who quit the emergency war cabinet in June, stated that the 1st of September, the start of the school year, was the deadline for northern Israeli residents to return to their homes. “You can’t lose another year in the north. It will happen either via [a diplomatic] arrangement or via [military] escalation,” Gantz said.[3] Israelis of all stripes had been threatening more intense action against Hezbollah after an escalation in cross-border fire, increasing tensions all the while promoting the prospect of all-out war with the Lebanese group.
The Biden administration since the events of October 7th has been arguing against Israel opening a second front by attacking Lebanon. President Biden dispatched the energy specialist and former IDF soldier, Amos Hochstein to the region in June to try and cool tensions and halt any Israeli war plan against Lebanon. When Hochstein left Israel for Lebanon on 17th June 2024, Israel killed a number of Hezbollah fighters and commanders. Once in Beirut Hochstein reportedly told officials that the White House was ready to support an Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon if a “diplomatic solution” is not found to stop cross-border hostilities with Hezbollah.[4] Hochstein achieved the complete opposite to what President Biden had dispatched him for!
Amos Hochstein as presidential advisor is now effectively the US Middle East war envoy, along with Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East. Amos and Brett, along with Deborah Lipstadt, who is a US ambassador, with diplomatic clearance, the special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism have all given Israel complete support and cover and have done the opposite to what the administration has been trying to achieve. Each time Hochstein and McGurk travel to the region with strict instructions to get Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire or halt military activity, both envoys have come away agreeing with the Israeli position, seeing their logic and effectively sanctioning its actions. POLITICO revealed in September that Hochstein and McGurk, told top Israeli officials that the US agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad strategy to shift Israel’s military focus to the north against Hezbollah in order to convince the group to engage in diplomatic talks to end the conflict.[5] They both did this despite the President working on a ceasefire to the opposite. Hochstein, McGurk and other top US national security officials described Israel’s Lebanon operations as a history-defining moment — one that will reshape the Middle East for the better for years to come.
Each time Hochstein and McGurk travel to the region with strict instructions to get Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire or halt military activity, both envoys have come away agreeing with the Israeli position, seeing their logic and effectively sanctioning its actions
In September, Israel took full advantage of this support from US officials to carry out deadly strikes against Hezbollah and Lebanon. On 17th September Israel detonated explosives it had placed in pagers and walkie-talkies by intercepting the supply chain of these electronic devices, which it believed were used by Hezbollah. It led to the death of 42 people and severely injured over 3000 people. Israel was planning to use the electronic attack as cover to launch an assault on Southern Lebanon but moved early fearing they had been compromised. Then two weeks after this assault despite a ceasefire being agreed by US President Biden and France, with Nasrullah and Netanyahu agreeing to the terms,[6] Israel carried out a major attack using a bunker buster bomb in a suburb of Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrullah. Israel proceeded to target Hezbollah’s leadership and wiped out its entire leadership.
Israel is now in full scale war in Southern Lebanon, whilst its slaughter in Gaza is still ongoing. Israel is arguing it wants to see UN resolution 1701 implemented, under which Hezbollah retreats behind the Litani river. But Israeli actions go well beyond this, and it is looking like it is pursuing in Lebanon what it’s long been pursuing in Gaza. That of depopulating Southern Lebanon under the guise of a buffer zone for security.
The destruction by Israel of Southern Lebanon can be seen from satellite imagery, where Israel has wiped 11 villages next to the Lebanese border on the map. In Ramyah, barely a single structure still stands on the village’s central hilltop, after a controlled detonation that Israeli soldiers showed themselves carrying out in videos posted on social media. In Aita al-Shaab Israeli bombardment turned the hilltop with the highest concentration of buildings into a wasteland of rubble. In another controlled detonation much of the village of Odeissah was levelled with an explosion so strong it set off earthquake alerts in Israel. Israel is not only striking Southern Lebanon but continues targeting Beirut and the Beqaa Valley as well as the roads that lead to Syria.
In the case of Gaza the US administration opposed, criticised and even threatened Israel. In the case of Lebanon this has not been the case. No one in the US has raised concerns about civilian casualties, forced evacuation orders, the huge destruction of civilian infrastructure, attacks on financial institutions as well as the lack of proportionality. This would indicate that unlike Gaza where there are differences between the US and Israel, with Netanyahu continuing to undermine the US president, in Lebanon there are shared interests.
America’s goals were revealed by the US Ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, who said her agenda is to prepare Lebanon for a “post-Hezbollah era” by mobilising “internal” forces against the resistance movement while it fights the Israeli Army.[7] At the same time both Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk have been travelling to the region to work on a ceasefire deal that will see UNIFIL and the Lebanese army take over southern Lebanon, under direct supervision of the US military.[8] The US proposal even includes an Israeli demand of the continued right for Israel to attack any target, anywhere in Lebanon. Whilst Israel has much bigger aims of territorial acquisition the US is focussed on Hezbollah and undermining Iran’s influence, a policy the US has been pursuing for nearly a decade.
In the case of Gaza the US administration opposed, criticised and even threatened Israel. In the case of Lebanon this has not been the case
Iran: To Escalate or not to Escalate
With Iran’s proxies all weakened, Iran responded on the 1st of October with a direct strike on Israel. Iran launched around 200 ballistic missiles and drones at Israel. The strikes were extremely limited and led to no destruction in Israel and the strike did not hit any major military or civilian infrastructure. The strikes were underwhelming which would indicate Iran was trying to save face and not escalate matters.
Israel has been promoting the idea that the “success” in Gaza and Lebanon has created a “unique opportunity” to create a new reality in the Middle East. Israel has used its escalation to convince the US that its actions will create a new Middle East which is also beneficial to the US. Israel has found strong support for this course of action from the neoconservatives amongst the US political elite or the Deep State is it’s commonly known. The neocons like the idea of a new Middle East and they have been promoting the idea of supporting Israel’s attacks on Iran and pushing the US to participate in the attacks.[9] During the 1990’s, when the Neocons rose to prominence and began introducing ideas of US unilateralism and regime change, they received widespread support from the Zionists. Netanyahu has never hidden the fact that Israel wanted to launch strikes against Iran as he and many zionists consider Iran the head of the octopus that threatens Israel, something he pointed out in July when he addressed the US Congress. The Israeli regime has found some of the Deep State also see the region as Israel does and they have been working together and this is what forced the hand of the US president so many times since the 7th October 2023.
However, there are those within the Deep State that oppose this and have stood in the way of escalating war with Iran. This was on full display when Israel was looking to launch attacks on Iran in response to its 1st of October strikes on Israel. President Biden announced the transfer of the THAAD missile defence system to Israel,[10] But this was on condition that Israel shared the details of its plans to attack Iran and after this this faction of the US moved to ensure any attack on Iran was limited.
Israel has used its escalation to convince the US that its actions will create a new Middle East which is also beneficial to the US. Israel has found strong support for this course of action from the neoconservatives amongst the US political elite
The US launched strikes against Yemen on the 17th of October 2024 using its $1 billion, B-2 bombers that dropped bunker buster bombs on probably the poorest nation in the world. It was completely overkill, but it sent the message to Iran that the US could destroy Iranian facilities if it wants to. Israel’s war preparations and US intelligence of this was then leaked, which highlighted how much logistical support Israel needed from the US. When Secretary of State Anthony Blinken visited the region from the 21st of October, whilst the public message was a ceasefire in Gaza, in reality he was ensuring all the parties understood the US position and their dependency on the US for their futures. In the end Israel carried out a limited attack on Iran that saw its bombers launch strikes from Iraqi airspace into Iran, no oil or nuclear facilities were struck in the end. Rather, military facilities and ammunition sites were struck. Israel even informed the regional leaders of the attacks prior to launching them and the Dutch Foreign Minister was told to pass the message to Iran.[11] On this occasion the faction within the Deep State who doesn’t see US interests in escalation prevailed, over those who support Israel in its escalation strategy.
When Israel carried out strikes against Iran on 26th October it targeted its missile production facilities, which are key platforms for Iran in its regional ambitions. Israel targeted the solid fuel missile facilities and whilst little information has been revealed on the level of damage, if Israel did indeed succeed in destroying them, considering the solid fuel mixers are highly complex machines, that are critical to Iran’s missile program, Iran will not be able to resupply Hezbollah and the Houthi’s and this will weaken Iran’s position in the region.
What Next?
What can we expect going forward now that Donald Trump is returning to the White House? Whilst Donald Trump has said he wants to see the conflict end, before he takes office, he has also supported the Israeli position and has recently mended relations with Netanyahu that took a hit when Netanyahu supported Joe Biden’s victory back in 2019. The Biden administration didn’t make much progress on the Abraham Accords and talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel, with the US mediating have been on-and-off.
The US wants Iran’s influence reduced by weakening its proxies. In Lebanon, the US and Israel are demanding Hezbollah drop its ceasefire demand that Israel stop its attack on Gaza. The US wants to see Hezbollah only linked to Lebanon and for them to abandon Gaza. Until Hezbollah accepts this the US will likely leave Israel to continue with its scorched earth strategy, destroying and killing and maiming in order to achieve its goals. Once Hezbollah accepts this US demand, then it’s likely the US will pressure Israel to accept a ceasefire deal based on UN resolution 1701, where Hezbollah moves behind the Litani river, and UN and Lebanese soldiers control the border area with Israel. It’s likely Israel will resist this and will demand it control the border areas on both sides of the Lebanese border. This is because for Israel these actions are a step towards its greater Israel project and the eventual settlement by Zionist colonists.
What has become clear after a year from the events of October 7th 2023, is America’s schizophrenic approach is due to its elite having a divergent view about the Middle East region. Whilst both agree Iran needs to be curtailed in the region, they differ over whether this should be through escalating a region wide war by supporting and supplying Israel with the weapons needed. Or alternatively, whether this should be by not escalating a region-wide war, but dealing with Lebanon and Gaza and Iranian proxies there. This all means the slaughter in Gaza and Lebanon is of secondary concern for the US and this is why Israel has been able to commit this centuries first genocide with impunity.
[1] Egypt voices strong opposition to Israel’s postwar plans for Gaza, the national news, 21 October 2024, https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/10/21/egypt-voices-strong-opposition-to-israels-postwar-plans-for-gaza/
[2] Gaza aid falls to lowest level since start of war despite US warning to Israel, Financial Times, 29 October 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/99488ed6-e3e3-4d07-9316-e236b3640ddc
[3] Netanyahu Is Waging Three Wars of Attrition: Against Hamas, Hezbollah and the Israeli People, Haaretz, 28 June 2024, https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-28/ty-article/.premium/netanyahus-three-wars-of-attrition-against-hamas-hezbollah-and-the-israeli-people/00000190-5af8-d1c4-affa-5bfee2a50000
[4] US reminds Lebanon: ‘We will back Israeli offensive against Hezbollah’ the Cradle, 20 June 2024, https://thecradle.co/articles-id/25530
[5] US officials quietly backed Israel’s military push against Hezbollah, Politico, 30 September 2024, https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/30/us-israel-military-hezbollah-00181797
[6] Hezbollah leader agreed to temporary ceasefire days before assassination, says Lebanese foreign minister, CNN, 3 October 2024, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/03/middleeast/lebanon-hezbollah-nasrallah-ceasefire-assassination-intl-latam/index.html
[7] US ambassador to Lebanon promotes ‘internal uprising’ to assist Israel: Report, the Cradle, 29 October 2024, https://thecradle.co/articles/us-ambassador-to-lebanon-promotes-internal-uprising-to-assist-israel-report
[8] Hezbollah and Israel offered truce deal monitored by US-led body, the National, 31 October 2024, https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2024/10/31/lebanon-and-israel-offered-truce-deal-monitored-by-us-led-body/
[9] A Strategy for Striking Back at Iran, Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2024, https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-strategy-for-striking-back-at-iran-middle-east-conflict-47098845
[10] Why the US is sending Israel a powerful Thaad anti-missile system, BBC Online, 14 October 2024, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39le0dp4p7o
[11] Israel sent message to Iran ahead of strike via third parties with details, warning not to retaliate, The Times of Israel, 26 October 2024, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-israel-sent-message-to-iran-ahead-of-strike-via-third-parties-with-details-warning-not-to-retaliate/
