The Prospects of Regional War and the Fate of Gaza

It has become quite clear that the Israeli government of aggression and fascism has managed to inflict an unprecedented blow on the leadership of Hezbollah, and on the party’s ability to maintain composure and wisdom, which characterized the last speech of the party’s Secretary-General, the martyr Hassan Nasrallah, for which he paid with his life, especially his insistence on linking the ceasefire in the north to the cessation of aggression on Gaza.

It was also clear that the party, under Nasrallah’s leadership, remained keen to limit its targeting to Israeli military sites, within the rules of engagement that had been maintained over the past months, despite targeting the party’s stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut and the assassination of its first military commander, Fouad Shukr. This was due to the party’s keenness not to give any pretext to expand the scope of its aggression to civilian-populated areas, in an attempt by the party’s secretary-general to spare the Lebanese the scourge of Israeli aggression, as happened in 2006, which had always threatened Beirut with the same fate as Gaza. This was in light of internal Lebanese equations that opposed and rejected involving Lebanon in supporting Gaza, which remained alone facing its fate in the face of Netanyahu’s appetite for killing, without these people realizing that the plans to liquidate Hezbollah, in the context of Netanyahu’s plans to subjugate the region and isolate the Palestinian people, were Netanyahu’s top priority, and that his success in breaking Gaza would hasten the moment of devoting himself to striking the party’s capabilities and paralyzing its role in supporting not only the Gaza front, but also confronting the plans to subjugate the entire region.

Tehran's fall into the trap of American promises to work on a comprehensive agreement to stop the war of extermination on Gaza if it refrained from responding to the assassination of the head of the political bureau of Hamas in Tehran was the straw that broke the camel's back, and revealed not only Tehran's inability to respond legitimately to the violation of its sovereignty, but also the nature of Tehran's priorities in terms of not spoiling the atmosphere of its attempts to open up to Washington and Western capitals, without realizing that Tel Aviv's strategic goal remains always to involve Washington in a regional war to eliminate Tehran's position from the ongoing conflict over the future of the region, which is certainly an American goal in the context of Iran's alignment with Russia in the Ukrainian war.

With the absence of the Secretary-General and a group of the party's most prominent military leaders, the most important question arises about the reality and future of the party's role and with it the axis of resistance in the region. The party's continuation of its role in linking the fronts and supporting Gaza means the continuation of the war to try to eliminate the party, and it seems that what encourages Israel to do so, beyond the gap of deep and painful breaches without urgent review of them, is represented by the American green light that believes that the repercussions of the war on the party do not jeopardize Harris' electoral standing as much as the effects of the war of extermination on Gaza. The awareness of international and American public opinion, beyond the issue of targeting Hamas, is that the war on Gaza is a war of extermination aimed at liquidating Palestinian rights, and that Palestine has become a symbol of universal justice that attracts millions of people in defense of its absent values, which are being trampled by Netanyahu's American war machine. However, if the party chooses to back down from supporting Gaza, this will mean political suicide for the entire system of the axis of resistance, and more than that, such a backtracking will encourage the occupation army to proceed with its plans and not the opposite.

Here lies the dilemma, the essence of which is where Tehran will stand, realizing that a war to try to eliminate the party’s military capabilities will narrow its scope for negotiating maneuvers with Washington, and that letting Israel continue to accomplish the mission will not make it safe from the brutal Israeli aggression.

In any case, Gaza remains in the eye of the storm, and from Netanyahu's point of view, its complete collapse constitutes the key to the domino effect of liquidating the Palestinian cause, without neglecting the fact that subjugating the region helps him isolate Gaza to achieve this liquidation, the title of which is controlling and annexing the entire West Bank. The million-dollar question is, as long as the fundamental Israeli goal is to liquidate the Palestinian cause, how long will the Palestinian situation remain torn apart, and those dominating its political decision-making pant after the illusion of a settlement, while Netanyahu continues to play the game of eliminating the possibility of achieving it, and not just the resistance structures. The only safe way to thwart Netanyahu's plans requires accelerating the building of a unified national leadership that manages the conflict under the banner of the PLO as a united national front, and works to achieve the priorities of the ability to survive and endure through a national consensus government, and not to be drawn into any traps of the so-called agreement on managing Gaza, as such traps are what Netanyahu seeks to eliminate the unified national entity and its comprehensive representative expressions. Logic says that if there is a possibility of reaching an agreement, even if it is transitional, on the administration of Gaza, then what prevents it from reaching an agreement on a national government?!

Finally, isn’t it time for all parties, movements, initiatives and influential national figures who seek and demand to change this reality to unite? This is a top priority that does not tolerate hesitation, as its inability to reach an agreement among all its parties places it before a historical responsibility, perhaps no less than the responsibility of others at this juncture that lies between the possibility of liberation or falling into a second catastrophe.