In the spring of 2024, Israel began to strike back on multiple fronts with precision and lethality against the enemy alliance that had attacked it on October 7, 2023. After a months-long break in its siege of Gaza, Israel redoubled its efforts to destroy Hamas. In the summer, assassinations of senior Iranian and Hamas leaders in Beirut and Tehran were startling in ambition and dazzling in execution. And by the middle of September, when the pagers of Hezbollah fighters and leaders exploded simultaneously and Israeli air strikes were eliminating the majority of the Lebanese terrorist group's senior ranks, the results were unmistakable and stunning.
The hour-by-hour details of Hezbollah's degradation and destruction were accompanied by the evidence that Israel's grinding military efforts against Hamas had begun to yield fruit—even as Israel batted down the second set of ballistic-missile strikes launched against it from Iran, marking the first direct hostilities between the two countries in Israel's 76-year history.
After a bruising yearlong war, amid a shocking spike in global anti-Zionism, the nation that had endured the darkest assault on Jews in nearly 80 years has seemingly regained its swagger. But to borrow from the rapper LL Cool J: Don't call it a comeback. The capabilities Israel has demonstrated have been developing, secretly and ever more efficiently, for nearly two decades. This is not a return to form but the culmination of a painstaking intelligence and counterterrorist effort without parallel in world history.
The attacks of October 7 had left Israelis with the sense that their nation's strength and security had both been illusory. That despair gripped Israel again in late September when six hostages in the tunnels under Rafah were killed as Israeli special forces were closing in on their rescue. After their recent string of tactical victories, the Israelis now view battles ahead with renewed self-confidence. That alone is an inestimable psychic and spiritual achievement. But this war is still fraught with danger.
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To understand what has happened, one must first grasp the disadvantages that Israel faced during the first phase of the war that began on October 7, 2023. Without question, Israeli hubris enabled the catastrophic Hamas attack on southern Israel. The intelligence services believed that Israel had achieved deterrence against Hamas, so much so that they ignored and belittled signs that Hamas was not only undeterred but ready to strike. The military didn't fare much better, as it struggled to mount a response to the Hamas attack that day while citizens in safe rooms in the south and in hiding holes near the Nova music-festival grounds waited in vain for the calvary to arrive.
But these were not the obstacles Israel was forced to overcome. During the first wartime visit of an American president to Israel in the wake of October 7, when Joseph R. Biden arrived to show solidarity in a gesture deeply appreciated by Israel's shocked and suffering populace, the Israelis privately let America know that they believed they had an opportunity to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon.
To some, this idea may even now seem like a non sequitur, as it did to Biden and his people; the attack had come from the south, not the north, and the force that had struck Israel was Hamas, not Hezbollah. But it did not seem like a non sequitur to the Israelis who were proposing an attack on Hezbollah. For reasons that are unclear, Hezbollah had decided not to invade northern Israel, which it certainly could have, when Hamas raided the south. Hezbollah, too, possessed a tunnel system and access to multiple points at which it could have entered the Jewish state. But, without question, the Iran-backed terror group in Lebanon had joined the war. It started firing rockets from its stash, hundreds of thousands of warheads strong, on Israel on October 8, and it had no plans of stopping. There was still a chance that Hezbollah's highly trained Radwan Forces could try to attack Israel on the ground. And, of course, both Hamas and Hezbollah answered to the same state sponsor in Iran, which had clearly at least blessed the outbreak of war if it had not directed it.
According to several people familiar with the conversation that ensued, Biden warned, "Don't start a war you can't finish." And so, Israel forbore in the north. Thus began the first phase of the war: Gaza. The Israelis turned their sights on the terror group that had perpetrated the massacre of October 7, even as rockets and missiles hurtled into Israel from Lebanon.
The Israelis had been in direct combat against Hamas in Gaza multiple times—in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021, and there had been multiple flare-ups in between these clashes. So, on the one hand, this was a familiar foe. But the Israelis had burned many of their capabilities while fighting the group in the intervening years. There are only so many surprises in strategy and tactics, let alone newly developed weaponry, one can deploy against well-known adversaries before they learn to respond effectively. One Israeli-American analyst I spoke with likened the situation to inter-divisional rivalries in sports, like when the Yankees play the Red Sox.
But there was another reason that Israel lacked the ready-made tools for victory in Gaza. The security apparatus in Israel had agreed more than a decade earlier to focus the lion's share of its attention on countering Hezbollah and Iran, given the strategic and even existential threat these actors posed. The Israelis invested billions of dollars and untold man-hours into developing the tools that were needed to defeat their mortal enemies. Hamas got short shrift.
The clash in Gaza was thus slated to be a tactical battle, and one that would require the IDF to fight an uncharacteristically long, gritty, urban war right on its border. This is not to say that Israel didn't innovate or impress in Gaza. The Israeli leadership pulled together a battle plan over the course of just three weeks, called up its reservists, and deployed them into a complex urban and underground war. The Israel Defense Forces then performed beyond all expectations. Many predicted that they would get stuck in the Gaza mud, so to speak. This never happened.
In fact, during my visits to Israel over the past year, the one thing I observed consistently among older generations of Israelis was their beaming pride for the new generation of Israeli war fighters who had deployed to Gaza. There was a fear that these young men and women would not live up to the storied martial reputation of previous generations. But the generation of screen-addicted youth proved everyone wrong. They advanced rapidly in enemy territory in an extremely challenging environment.
The very fact that the Israelis were fighting on three fronts—in the air, on the ground, and in the tunnels—was challenging enough. But Hamas was also hiding behind Palestinian human shields and holding hostages whom soldiers wanted to save at all costs. These were conditions that forced Israel to slow its advance from northern Gaza to the south. But the greatest challenges Israel faced may not have been on the battlefield. Rather, they stemmed from the complex political battlefield here in America.
While President Biden came out in full support for Israel in the wake of October 7, he was soon hammered for doing so by the left flank of his own party—with an election year coming. By March 2024, Biden warned Israel not to complete its sweep southward into Rafah during the entire month of Ramadan. After the holy month was over, the White House then began to warn of possible Israeli war crimes, which proved to have a chilling effect on Israel's military progress. It also gave a green light to Israel's litigious enemies, who promptly wielded the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to level outrageously false war-crimes charges.
Meanwhile, an internecine battle raged inside Israel. The hostage families and the Israeli left joined together in common cause, excoriating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to broker a hostage deal with Hamas, even as the terrorist group repeatedly eschewed any such arrangement. Hamas's repeated refusal to cut a deal, while it occasionally released signs of life of the hostages, was a brutally effective psychological-warfare campaign against the already traumatized Israeli people.
But even with this cocktail of challenges, the Israelis were still able to demonstrate why they are the most advanced and agile military in the Middle East. The IDF adopted a "sukkah" or canopy system to prevent Hamas drones from dropping explosives on their tanks. They developed methods to breach the tunnel entrances that had been booby-trapped by Hamas. They mapped an estimated 1,000 kilometers of Hamas's three-tiered underground tunnel system, some reaching depths Israel had not realized. The IDF developed a system of deploying drones, robots, dogs, and fighters to clear the tunnels before destroying them. Faster progress has been hindered only by the fear of harming hostages being held in these tunnels.
The Israelis also executed a series of intelligence-driven air strikes that neutralized Hamas's top leaders in Gaza. With deadly care, they eliminated Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa, the group's top military commanders, and a slew of other mid-level military types.
By early summer, the tide had clearly turned. That was when Israel, defying the shrill warnings of the White House and the tantrums of the Abdel Fatah al-Sisi regime in Egypt, advanced on the last bastions of organized Hamas fighters in southern Gaza. This, they realized, was the only way to defeat Hamas. The army carefully moved on the town of Rafah. In the process, the Israelis conquered Hamas's last remaining tunnels and supply lines—some of which clearly snaked into Egypt. Since then, the Israelis have announced the defeat of 23 out of 24 Hamas brigades. By autumn, the Israelis declared the hard fighting in Gaza complete. And the breathless American warnings of a humanitarian crisis in southern Gaza—a crisis that soon-to-be Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was sure would happen since, she said, she had studied "the maps"—failed to materialize.
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Winding down that tough, tactical battle in the south meant that Israel could begin to use some of its more impressive capabilities in other theaters. In late July, the Israelis took out Fouad Shukr, a top Hezbollah commander, with a surgical air strike in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh in Beirut. Later that day, the Mossad detonated a pre-placed explosive that killed Hamas political chief Ismael Haniyeh in the heart of Tehran. With that startling double whammy, the Israelis finally appeared to go on the offensive, sowing fear in the hearts of their enemies.
Then, in the middle of September, came "Operation Grim Beeper," the jaw-dropping mass detonation of thousands of Hezbollah pagers that killed or maimed Hezbollah's middle ranks. This was followed a day later by the detonation of walkie-talkies. The Mossad, as it turns out, had penetrated Hezbollah's supply chain. Years earlier, it had placed small amounts of explosives and listening devices in communications equipment before the gear was sold to Hezbollah. The plan was to collect intelligence over time and detonate the devices only when war was imminent. But, as fate would have it, the Israelis were forced to act sooner. While the specifics are still unclear, it appears this capability was in danger of being discovered.
The war against Hezbollah was not launched by design but rather by necessity. And even then, there was fierce debate within Israel's security cabinet. Fear of being viewed by the world as the aggressor, and fear of angering the Biden administration during an election cycle, forced Israeli leaders to think twice. For several days after the Mossad operation, with Hezbollah in disarray, the government of Israel found itself at a strategic crossroads. And it did not know quite know what to do.
Former military and security brass soon began to criticize the Benjamin Netanyahu government for failing to follow up on this remarkable turn of events. Those critics included even some Bibi loyalists. Domestic considerations consequently began to influence Israeli leaders. But in the end, the government understood that, after absorbing more than 8,000 Hezbollah rockets over the course of the year and watching helplessly as an estimated 150,000 residents of northern communities had either fled or been evacuated from their homes by government diktat, a response was long overdue.
Thus began the series of audacious, targeted strikes against Hezbollah leaders, culminating in the breathtaking operation that killed Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah. The Israelis followed up with similar strikes against scores of other Hezbollah leaders, including Nasrallah's successor, Hashem Safieddine.
These operations, during which the Israeli air force dropped dozens of 2,000-pound bombs in rapid succession to penetrate Hezbollah's bunkers 90 feet below ground, required an air force and intelligence capability that had taken more than a decade to develop. The source of the intelligence that made it possible for Israel to know where the Hezbollah leaders were at any given moment will likely never be revealed. But when the Israelis understood that their information was accurate and only getting better, they began to train the air force—this goes as far back as 2012—to prepare for rapid and lethal strikes against Hezbollah assets. They developed new tactics and procedures tailored to their objectives. One former official said the innovation was nothing short of an "industrial revolution" for Israel's air force.
The tight coordination between Aman (Israeli military intelligence) and the Israeli Air Force only grew tighter in the intervening years, as Israel targeted Iranian weapons transfers to Hezbollah from Syria. This was live-fire practice. In this way, the Israelis were able to improve on the innovative approach first developed through the "Campaign Between the Wars"—a gray-zone campaign designed to stymie Hezbollah's military build-up and that of other enemies. And as one former Israeli official told me, "Had the Israelis not taken out these transfers, the fighting in Lebanon would be much more difficult today."
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The string of impressive Israeli strikes and operations against Iranian-regime proxies in August and September gave way to a direct confrontation with Tehran in October. The long-awaited showdown between an increasingly frustrated Islamic Republic and the embattled Jewish state had finally arrived.
Of course, Israel had already sustained an Iranian attack in April, during which the regime lobbed some 300 missiles and drones at Israel. The Israelis, with help from the United States military and partners in the region, shot 99 percent of them down. During the attack in October, however, the Iranian regime fired an unprecedented 181 ballistic missiles at Israel. Iran had learned from the spring attack that the drones and other projectiles had simply proved too easy for Israel to shoot down. Israel's Arrow missile-defense system intercepted the massive projectiles that appeared destined to strike meaningful targets. But given the staggering cost of each interceptor (an estimated $1 million apiece), the Israelis let some of the projectiles through. Again, the Israelis got assistance from regional partners, and the overall impact of the Iranian assault was negligible.
There was another silver lining to the Iranian attack: It yielded from the Biden White House a clear green light for Israel to respond. Israel was granted the opportunity, yet again, to brandish some of its previously secret weapons and capabilities. According to one former Israeli official, the Israelis have been developing these capabilities since the 1990s.
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After months of watching Israel struggle to gain the upper hand, supporters of the Jewish state became euphoric, heartened by Israel's stunning achievements. But this is not a time to celebrate. Wars are not linear. Isolated victories in battle do not lead inexorably to winning in a wider war.
Israel remains small and vulnerable to attack. The Iranian regime still arms and directs proxies across the Middle East. Its "ring of fire" still surrounds Israel and continues to darken its skies with drones, missiles, and rockets.
Israeli ground forces are now fighting another tactical battle, this time in Lebanon, against a Hezbollah terrorist army that is better trained and equipped than perhaps any other foe they have encountered since the founding of the state. Terror attacks launched against Israel inside its borders and on the West Bank continue to be carried out by Iran's Palestinian proxies. These battles will claim lives, erode morale, and sap the country's resources. In other words, a brutal war continues.
Then again, Iran's proxies are weakening. The soldiers of the IDF understand the stakes, and they are fighting accordingly. The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, lacks a competent air force, and it has not seen a war on its on soil since the Iran-Iraq War, which was fought from 1980 to 1988 and concluded only when that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini chose to "drink from the poison chalice" and end a war he knew he could not win.
The Israelis, through capabilities and innovations developed with painstaking patience and mastery over decades in anticipation of this moment, now aim to neutralize the Iranian regime's long war launched on October 7. Some in Israel merely seek to get Supreme Leader Ali Khameini to drink from Khomeini's chalice. Others seek nothing less than the downfall of the Islamic Republic. Whatever surprises the Israelis have in store to achieve that ambitious end are unknowable to us. But one thing we do know: Israel has gotten its mojo back.