When Will the World Address the Elephant in the Room

Closing in on the first anniversary of the humiliating October 7 attacks, Israel has turned the tide. With the near total decimation of the Hezbollah leadership first with the innocuous pager attacks and walkie-talkie explosions, followed by audacious air strikes, Israel has substantially weakened Iran’s militia. The killing of Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s chief for 32 years, turned out to be a tipping point. The collateral damage suffered by Iran in the bunker bomb attack in terms of the killing of Quds Force commander Abbas Nilforoushan alongside Nasrallah has forced Iran to shed its strategic evasion.

Iran maintained strategic patience even after three major high-profile assassinations towards the end of August. In 24 hours, Israel killed Milad Bidi, an Iranian military adviser, associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who lived next door to Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut in an air strike. Even before Hezbollah could confirm the losses, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a precision attack from the VIP security region in the heart of Tehran. Breach of security to a state guest who arrived in Iran to attend President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration caused a major embarrassment and triggered a massive purge.

Each of these attacks was deemed a proverbial ‘red line’ for Iran. However, Iran resisted these provocations. Israel has been on a roll since September. It has systematically eliminated the most influential and prominent leaders of Iranian proxy operatives. Towards the end of September, Israel eliminated the top seven leaders of Hezbollah- Nabil Kaouk, Ibrahim Akil, Ahmed Wahbe, Ali Karaki, Mohammad Surour, Ibrahim Kobeissi and finally Nasrallah in a week. This shocked Hezbollah and created a leadership vacuum in an organisation that had been carefully built since 1982.

The double whammy of Nasrallah’s killing and the announcement of a limited ground attack in Southern Lebanon has been the final nail in the coffin. Things have reached a stage where Iran’s calculated inaction would have been an affront to its credibility, coherence and comradeship.

In retaliation, Iran struck at Israel with a record 181 ballistic missiles in an hour overwhelming missile defence systems. Israel emerged relatively unscathed as IDF along with assistance from the US, UK, France and Jordan successfully intercepted a majority of the missiles. However, the rockets managed to damage three Israeli military bases and several public spaces with one landing very close to Mossad’s quarters. Reports confirmed the death of a Palestinian during the strikes and two people sustained minor injuries.

The latest round of escalatory strikes is Iran’s second direct attack on Israel from its territory. On April 14, Iran hit back at Israel with an unprecedented barrage of close to 330 missiles, drones, and cruise missiles in retaliation after the latter flattened a building of the Iranian consulate, a putative military attack in Syria. Reportedly, 16 people were killed including General Mohammed Reza Zahedi, senior commander and a liaison to Hezbollah and Syrian intelligence services, Mohammed Hadi Haji Rahimi and Hezbollah member Hussein Youssef.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes in both cases have been in response to the targeted elimination of terrorist leaders integral to its axis of resistance. Iran openly challenged Israel with escalatory strikes twice to avenge the deaths of the terror operatives establishing its role in nurturing and cultivating the terror elements. The two foundational pillars of Iran’s regional security have been limited military nuclear capability and the building of a ‘ring fence of deterrence’ comprising of aligned militia. With the so-called ‘resistance movement’ against the Zionist Regime, Israel’s mortal enemy, Iran has outsourced the armed struggle to foreign shores.

Clearly, the first pillar prevented Iran from a full-scale war with Israel for fear of full-scale retaliation which could potentially damage its nuclear ambitions. On the contrary, it has expended its full might in creating a new front of resilient and organised militia against Israel.

Iran’s official statement post-Hamas attack, “What took place today is in line with the continuation of victories of the anti-Zionist resistance in different fields, including Syria, Lebanon and occupied lands”. unequivocally attests to its deterrence strategy against Israel.  In fact, since the fateful October 7 attacks, Israel has faced a six-front attack. These included Iran’s non-state actors and terror outfits- Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansar Allah Movement or Houthis in Yemen. In addition, Israel was attacked by pro-Iranian militia in Iraq and Syria alongside massive rebellion in pockets of the West Bank.

Conversant of Iran’s two-pillar regional strategy, Israel has firmly opposed the P5+1+EU and Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement spearheaded by the Obama administration. Mindful of its loopholes Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear accord in 2018. However, Iran had by then managed to enrich a sizable quantity of uranium and mastered missile technology.

To outsmart a technologically and militarily advanced dominant power, Iran has chosen to take on the Zionist power in a war by other means. United by a common objective of the destruction of Israel all the ideologically motivated Iranian terror entities have encircled Israel. Hamas's surprise attack on South Israel has pulled the trigger for coordinated action that has attempted to overwhelm Israel with a multi-pronged attack.

The unrelenting attacks by Hezbollah since October 8 as solidarity with Hamas, the missile strikes of Houthis on Israel directly and, targeted attacks on vessels in the Red Sea have laid out bare the machinations of Iran’s ‘ring fence of fire’. Unsurprisingly, all the rockets and missiles used by these terrorist outfits are sourced from Iran. Besides, it has been an uncanny coincidence that in each of Israel’s precision strikes against these operatives, leaders of the different Iranian proxy groups ended up being the casualties.

For instance, sixteen people were killed in Israel’s attack on Iranian consulate in Syria. These included seven IRGC soldiers, five pro-Iranian militia in Syria, one Hezbollah leader, one Iranian adviser and two civilians. Joined at the hip- Hamas, Hezbollah, IRGC and even Houthis had been hand in glove in their anti-Zionist agenda.

A recent revelation by the Israel Defence Forces sheds much light on Hezbollah’s proxy war against Israel strategically aligned with Hamas. Just days after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah has positioned its cadres close to Israel’s northern border to unleash a pogrom. As per an IDF spokesperson, 2500 Radwan terrorists and 500 Palestinian Islamic Jihadi operatives trained by Radwan were waiting in the tunnels near Southern Lebanon. Some of these tunnels even extended into Lebanese villages. The extensive underground structures of Hezbollah akin to the tunnel network of Hamas in Gaza were stashed with sophisticated weapons and arms. Most of them are Iranian-made weapons.

IDF also announced that their troops reached over 1000 Hezbollah tunnels fortified with weapons abutting the border. Alongside the Israel-Hamas war, as per the reports, IDF troops carried out nearly 200 nights' worth of operations to destroy the underground infrastructure constructed over the years. While the Hamas attack has been a surprise for Israel and the rest of the world, the gruesome attack underscored years of planning that went into it.

War by other means or advocating terrorism as a state policy has been integral to some nations. After suffering humiliating defeats at the hands of India in four conventional wars, Pakistan has adopted the strategy of ‘bleeding India by thousand cuts’ by building a terrorist militia corps. Unfortunately, strategic neutrality and indifference of powerful nations have emboldened the ‘motherships of terror’ to pursue this low-cost asymmetric war against their adversaries. The incapacitating impact of terrorism is extremely devastating as compared to the conventional war.

The waves of missiles fired by Iran on Israel worth $200 million managed to damage Israeli infrastructure and killed a person. However, around the same time, seven Israelis were killed in a terror attack carried out by two Palestinians from the West Bank in the Tel Aviv metro line. For years, the terrorist attacks carried out by the ‘Axis of Resistance’ have exhausted and sapped Israel. Perceptive of the debilitating effects of terrorism, countries are raising militia.

Facing an existential threat from the non-state actors backed by Iran, Israel launched “Operation Iron Swords” post-Hamas attack. In a year-long ground invasion, Israel has demolished the subterranean tunnel network of Hamas that has deeply entrenched themselves in the civilian areas. Israel’s combing operations to track and neutralise terrorists also increased civilian casualties who were used as human shields. Surging deaths in the Gaza Strip led to international accusations of ‘genocide’. While nations rightfully reiterated the demand for a ceasefire to avert a humanitarian crisis, the issue of the return of hostages from the Gaza Strip received less support.

Similarly, the close to year-long attacks by Hezbollah have forced 60,000 residents from the northern territories of Israel to flee their houses. To enable their return, IDF has turned its attention to Lebanon and declared ‘limited, localised and targeted raids’. Israeli troops marched into South Lebanon to destroy the underground tunnel network built in contravention of the UNSC 1701 ceasefire resolution of 2006. Ground clearance along with aerial strikes is entailing civilian losses during the process of neutralisation of the Hezbollah cadre. Lashing out at Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, Qatar’s Emir has alleged Israel of ‘collective genocide’.

Israel’s offensive exposed the advanced capabilities of the non-state actors and the evident existential threat posed by them to a nation-state. By painting the operations of the state and non-state actors in the same brush and applying the same metric, countries have inadvertently normalised terrorist activities. By failing to distinguish the State’s right to protect its citizens from impending threats and terrorist operations countries are formally endorsing terrorism.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes on October 1 have heightened the spectre of a wide-ranging war. Israeli Prime Minister has vowed to retaliate saying Tehran would “pay for it”. He added, “They will understand. We will stand by the rule we established: Whoever attacks, we will attack”. Unless the world refuses to address the elephant in the room- terrorism, they will continue to pay a heavy price for it.

Until countries fail to call the bluff of state-sponsored terrorism and continue to normalise their agenda and equivocate it with the state’s right to protect civilians, peace, co-existence and stability will remain elusive.

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