December 21, 2024: On October 1st Israel once again invaded Lebanon, for the 5th time in the last 46 years. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire on November 26th but not everyone in the area went along. There are a lot of factions, mainly Islamic terrorist groups, that no one controls. There are some self-defense militias that respond to attacks from anyone.

Meanwhile, neighboring Syria underwent a rapid and unexpected change of government when a well prepared opposition group led by the HTS rebel organization began a surprise offensive on November 26th. Within two weeks all Assad government forces were gone. Most just changed into civilian clothes and walked away.

HTS forces didn’t take the Kurdish region in the northeast that occupies about 40 percent of Syria. The Kurds have their own army and support from the United States. The HTS was allowed to get organized in Turkey, which wanted a new government in Syria so that the millions of Syrian refugees living in Turkey could go home. This unexpected collapse of the Assad government, which had ruled Syria for 53 years, presented Israel with opportunities. These included occupying some Syrian territory to provide a larger security buffer zone. Israel also went into Lebanon to complete the destruction of Hezbollah. After this Hezbollah will continue to exist, but as a shadow of its former self. It could take this Hezbollah remnant a decade or more to rebuild. Israel realizes that and will thwart a Hezbollah revival any way it can.

The last Israeli war in Lebanon took place during 2006 and lasted 34 days. It began on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah gunmen ambushed an Israeli border patrol. Three Israelis were killed and two captured. An Israeli quick response team attempted to rescue the captured soldiers with but five more Israeli troops killed during a failed rescue effort. The two captured Israeli soldiers were later killed by Hezbollah. Ultimately this brief war involved about 30,000 Israeli troops and about a thousand Hezbollah gunmen. The Israelis lost 121 soldiers and 46 civilians. Hezbollah lost about 500 fighters. The Lebanese security forces lost 43 men, local militias lost 31 while 1,100 Lebanese and 51 foreign civilians along with five UN workers were killed. As many as 20 percent of the dead civilians were actually unarmed Hezbollah members. Hezbollah keeps stockpiles of weapons in civilian homes and can instruct Hezbollah members to go to a specific home and get weapons and other equipment for an operation.

The current war in Lebanon is another side effect to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack out of Gaza that triggered more battles in Gaza as well as fighting in northern Israel and Lebanon. The current fighting in Lebanon led to the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a September 27 Israeli airstrike in Lebanon.

For over two decades it was believed that Hassan Nasrallah was so critical to the success of Hezbollah, that if he was killed, the whole organization would fall apart. Although on paper the movement has clear lines of authority, and a defined order-of-succession, if you take a close look at Nasrallah's henchmen, you realize that most of them are pretty much the ordinary run of uninspiring Arab thugs. As none of them comes near Nasrallah in either brains or charisma, they would most likely begin squabbling among themselves if Nasrallah got killed. Iran sent lots of advisers and technical experts to Lebanon, but none of these could expect to lead Hezbollah, largely because all Lebanese are touchy about foreign influence. Although decades of Syrian occupation favored Hezbollah, and thus Shias in general, it was still foreign occupation. And it's no secret that the old Assad Syrian regime considered large parts of eastern Lebanon as territory that should be part of Syria. Iran doesn't like depending so much on one person, but they don't have much choice. Nasrallah, like most Arab strongmen, saw the elimination of any likely successors as an excellent method for avoiding getting deposed.

In 2024 the importance of Nasrallah and Hezbollah ceased to be a problem. He was killed along with other key Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Israel used exploding pagers and portable radios, plus airstrikes, to accomplish this. Israel also killed several senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders including the elusive Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas supreme leader and one of its founders. Sinwar was moving about in Gaza when he and some aides were confronted by some Israeli soldiers. There was a brief gunbattle and the Israelis discovered that one of the dead men was the elusive Yahya Sinwar. Within a day, DNA tests confirmed that Sinwar was dead. His death was a catastrophe for Hamas which had recently suffered the loss of several leaders.

Sinwar had spent two years planning and organizing the October 2023 Hamas offensive in Gaza that left over a thousand Israelis dead. This was the largest number of Israelis ever killed in one day, let alone one action. With Sinwar gone, his replacement is apparently Khalil Al Hayya, who is based in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar where he handles Hamas relations with Iran. In practice you can’t replace someone like Sinwar and his aides had a difficult time obtaining agreement on selecting Khalil Al Hayya, who plans to stay in Qatar where he is relatively safe from an Israeli attack.

Now virtually leaderless, Palestinians are unsure of what the future will bring. Most Palestinians live in or immediately adjacent to Israel. Two million of Israel’s 9.8 million population are Palestinians. The Gaza Strip contains 365 square kilometers of territory and 2.1 million Palestinians. The West Bank contains 5,655 square kilometers and 4.1 million Palestinians. Gaza has had many rulers over the last century. A century ago Gaza was administered by British officials and occupied by British troops. After 1945 Gaza was ruled by Egyptian officials. In 1956 a war between several Arab states and Israel was won by the Israelis, who also captured Gaza but then withdrew. The 1967 Arab Israeli war saw Gaza once more captured by the Israelis and administered by them until 2005 when, after an 11 year process, Israeli forces withdrew and a local Palestinian government, initially Al Fatah, which also ruled the West Bank, took over Gaza.

In 2006 Hamas, a radical Palestinian group that had taken refuge in Egypt, won Palestinian elections for a united Palestinian government. The West Bank Palestinian leaders refused to accept Hamas rule and there was fighting between Fatah and Hamas factions. Israel did not want this violence to spread into Israel and blockaded Gaza, only letting people in or out who were unarmed and had a good reason, like medical care or visiting relatives the Israeli knew about. Hamas continued to recruit Palestinian men to join their force. Hamas armed these new recruits with weapons from Iran, via Egyptian smugglers who could get the guns into Gaza. Hamas completely took over in Gaza in 2007 while Fatah remained in control of the West Bank.

By 2023 Hamas forces in Gaza had grown to about 30,000 men, though there were also other rival armed Palestinian and non-Palestinian terrorist groups, and there had been several mini-wars between Hamas and Israel since 2007. In October 2023, 3,000 of the armed Hamas fighters, and an equal number of Gaza civilians and non-Hamas terrorists, invaded Israel. About half of the 3,000 attacking Hamas fighters were killed during this offensive. The IDF/Israeli Defense Forces lost 376 troops while 767 civilians died as well. As of December, about a third of the 97 hostages remaining in Hamas captivity have died or been killed by the continuing fighting in Gaza between Hamas and IDF forces.

Surviving Hamas gunmen stayed in Gaza because they failed to advance. In Gaza Hamas waged a guerilla war against the IDF. Hamas also took 251 Israeli civilians and soldiers captive and is trying to bargain with Israel to get thousands of imprisoned Palestinians freed in return for their Israeli captives. So far Israel is not willing to release thousands of convicted Hamas and other Palestinian killers to get imprisoned soldiers and civilians back from Hamas. Instead IDF forces have been searching for the hostages and fighting Hamas gunmen who are guarding them.

Hamas has been much less of a problem in the West Bank where Fatah security forces, with some assistance from the IDF, have kept most Hamas fighters out. Hamas leaders, especially Ismail Haniyeh, have lived in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for several years. There he controlled $11 billion dollars donated to Hamas by various western and charitable groups and Arab governments as well several hundred million dollars a year from Iran. In theory this money should be used to make life easier, or at least bearable, for Palestinians living in Gaza. That does not happen because Hamas steals the money as well as foreign aid from Western countries. Israel sends food aid, accompanied by a military escort that fights armed Hamas members seeking to steal the aid. As of late-2024, this remains the situation in Gaza and the West Bank.