Since the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7, 2023, Israel has been at war in the Middle East. The conflict spans borders, stretching from Gaza to Lebanon to Iran. Over the course of 15 months, the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli intelligence services have transferred the fight directly to Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, two of the most prominent members of Iran's “Axis of Resistance.”
This was linked to a dramatic operation by the Israeli secret service in mid-September exploding pagers and walkie-talkiesMore than a dozen Hezbollah foot soldiers were killed and thousands more people in Lebanon were injured or maimed. In Gaza, the Israeli military killed more than 17,000 Hamas fighters, a devastating blow to the group's base and affected 22 of Hamas' 24 battalions.
But the heart of the Israeli effort was targeted attackswhereby the leaders of these groups were killed with ruthless efficiency. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, while Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who initiated the October 7 attack, was killed by the Israeli military in Rafah in mid-October.
However, many conventional wisdom on counterterrorism suggests that killing a terrorist leader – also known as decapitation attacks – is not enough to defeat these groups in the long term.
However, there have been numerous academics and analysts who have published assessments suggesting this, such as the Economist saidThere is “good reason to believe that this time might be different.” Distinguished military historian Raphael S. Cohen his voice added to those who see Sinwar's death as extremely consequential, arguing that “this incident is different from the killing of al-Zarqawi, al-Baghdadi and even bin Laden,” referring to the leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq , the Islamic State and core al-Qaeda, respectively.
Nevertheless, the empirical evidence and the broader research group Regarding the effectiveness of beheading attacks, the results suggest that both Hamas and Hezbollah continue to function even in a significantly weakened state until both can recruit new members and rebuild their organizations.
One of the reasons it is premature to write an obituary for Hamas or Hezbollah is that both groups are better understood as insurgent organizations rather than transnational terrorist groups. What's the difference? Terrorism is a tactic while insurgency is a strategy. Terrorism consists of “violent, criminal attacks“And while insurgents might use terrorism, that does not define them; is an uprising “The organized use of subversion and violence to seize, undermine or challenge political control of a region.” Hamas and Hezbollah pursue nationalist goals intertwined with Islamist ideology, but the group's main members and supporters are Palestinian and Lebanese, respectively .
These groups are organic and homegrown, unlike the Islamic State or al-Qaeda, which rely heavily on fighters from abroad. This is important because foreign fighters, although zealous in many ways, are kept away from the territory in which they live. For most of its existence, al-Qaeda was a roving group of jihadists, traveling from battlefield to battlefield, stretching from the Balkans to the Caucasus to South Asia. At the peakThe Islamic State counted 30,000 foreign fighters from 85 countries, not including those who brought their families with them.
In contrast, Hamas and Hezbollah will replenish their ranks with locals – new recruits, many of whom will be motivated to continue their fight after the immense devastation and humanitarian suffering that Israel's draconian actions have wrought in Gaza and Lebanon. As has been the case throughout their time in office, Hamas and Hezbollah will use the ongoing conflict to strengthen a Cult of martyrdom to ensure that ideological and religious fervor is passed on to younger generations. Killing organizational leaders does not significantly hinder this – and could even fuel radicalization.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are integral to the socio-political fabric of Gaza and Lebanon and will inevitably re-enforce their depleted ranks. Hezbollah recruits by offering jobs, education and health care Provision of other services to the Shiites in southern Lebanon. Israel's scorched earth approach to Gaza – where 45,000 Palestinians were killed and the territory's infrastructure leveled – will serve as Recruiting tool for Hamas, which is trying to win over the next wave of Palestinians, many of whom are radicalized by the war and its aftermath. “We will be fighting their sons in four or five years” Yaakov Peri remarkedthe former head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, referring to the cycle of violence perpetuated by Israel's ongoing attack on Gaza.
Of course, the attack was devastating for both groups. And yet neither organization is likely to disappear. As Middle East expert Steven Cook noted after Sinwar's death: “It is difficult to get out of the problem of a resistance movement. Those arrested don't get the message; They just redouble their efforts.”
There is one in Israel famous saying about counterterrorism, which the Israelis euphemistically call “mowing the grass.” The analogy is apt because grass always grows back. But in this latest round of fighting in the last 15 months, Israel has decided to do more than just “cut the grass” – and that’s why we’re seeing scorched earth instead.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his inner circle of right-wing ministers have tried to convince Israelis that the challenges posed by Hamas and Hezbollah could be solved once and for all, without making it a problem that needs to be mitigated. In November the Prime Minister spoke of Hezbollah said: “This is no longer the same Hezbollah. … We have set it back by decades.” As for Hamas, Netanyahu said Israelis would stay in Gaza until the group was “completely destroyed.” Kim Ghattas, journalist and regional expert, has described these goals as “maximalist and largely unattainable”.
In fact, this is what the Israeli military is striving for “total victory” in Gaza and Lebanon will guarantee the survival of Hamas and Hezbollah. Finally, insurgent organizations must be combated through counterinsurgency, not counterterrorism. The Israelis have sought a solution that does not fit the problem at all. Counterinsurgency involves “comprehensive civilian and military efforts aimed at simultaneously defeating and containing insurgencies and addressing their root causes.”
But Israel's recent actions in Gaza and Lebanon contained no real plan to protect the population and no effort to “win hearts and minds.” Furthermore, since the beginning of these overlapping conflicts, Netanyahu has never attempted to offer a coherent political end result for dealing with Hamas or Hezbollah.
As always, war and especially insurrection is politics by other means. Israel's military campaign, while tactically formidable, has relied exclusively on the kinetic aspects of the conflict, completely neglecting the political component and dooming future generations on all sides to the same fate – eternal war.
Colin P. Clarke is director of research at the Soufan Group, an intelligence and security consulting firm in New York City.