As the conflict in Israel escalates, what does victory actually look like for Netanyahu?

Editorial: In taking on such powerful and ruthless forces without clear war aims, or anything like an exit strategy, Benjamin Netanyahu is making some grievous mistakes

Benjamin Netanyahu warns Hezbollah and the Lebanese government that if they dare to launch any assaults, they will face unimaginable force and devastation (Reuters)

As Israel intensifies its bombing of Gaza and prepares for a ground invasion, it is ominous that the Israeli government has ordered the evacuation of yet more settlements, on its northern border with Lebanon.

There is an obvious sense of inevitability about the war on Hamas in Gaza, and in truth it is well under way already; but fears that the conflict will escalate and widen to the east and north are starting to crystallise. Hezbollah and Israeli forces have already been exchanging low-level fire, and huge, well-equipped forces face each other on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, a territory where the government of Lebanon has little authority.

The history of warfare suggests that such mobilisations tend to create a momentum of their own. So does the belligerent rhetoric booming out from all sides. Benjamin Netanyahu, to whom violent threats come easily, has warned Hezbollah and the Lebanese government (for whatever the politics in Beirut are worth) that if they dare to launch any assaults, they will face unimaginable force and devastation. Having experienced Israeli invasions in 1982 and 2006, such words carry credibility.

Such is the nature of this conflict that any tiny possibility of restraint, or even mercy, is eliminated by the flow of news and revelations about atrocities, sometimes disputed and propagandised. The deadly blast at the overcrowded al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, which took hundreds of lives, was one such enraging, horrific story. The confirmation that the British-Israeli teenager Noiya Sharabi, abducted by terrorists, was indeed murdered by Hamas is another.

And so the tensions build. Mr Netanyahu’s remarks to his troops on what he calls a “do or die” mission came after the Iranian foreign minister issued some aggressive words of his own the other day: “Time is running out very fast ... If the war crimes against the Palestinians are not immediately stopped, other multiple fronts will open, and this is inevitable.”

That Israel is moving so many of its own civilians to places of safety and away from the border with Lebanon looks like much more than a precaution against further rocket attacks by Hezbollah terrorists. It feels as though Israel, with the backing of the United States, is preparing to confront a coalition of Iranian-backed Islamist groups surrounding it, which are operating from Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen and – in a more indirect and shadowy fashion – Iran itself.

It has called up all of its reserves, creating an Israeli force of about half a million. Smaller but still numerous Islamist forces are arrayed on its borders. No doubt other regional players, such as Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf states, and Turkey and Russia will also assess their options, to defend and further their own respective interests. The interplay between the Ukraine and Gaza wars creates still more instability.

This is a terrifying scenario, and it may just be dawning – albeit in private and quietly – on all the participants in this incipient regional war exactly how high the stakes actually are. What may be about to befall the people of the Middle East is vastly more serious and momentous than any of the many previous intifadas, incursions, civil wars, terrorist attacks and small wars that have afflicted them over recent decades.

It would in fact be the most serious and far-reaching confrontation since the Yom Kippur war, almost exactly half a century ago, when Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Arab nations attempted to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, thwarted by formidable Israeli resistance and a massive airlift of materiel from the US, ordered by Richard Nixon, which arguably saved Israel.

America has once again “got Israel’s back”, as Joe Biden puts it now. The president has deployed two aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean and more ships in the Red Sea, and they are already neutralising cruise missiles and drones launched by Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen.

What is so different today is the emergence of powerful non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah, incomparably more capable than the likes of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Both of these armies are linked to Iran, but not always entirely obedient to the wishes of Tehran, deadly and capricious as they can be.

And unlike in 1973, when Israel’s war aims were plainly national survival and pushing the tanks back until a ceasefire, it’s still not clear what Mr Netanyahu thinks victory looks like, apart from “crushing” Hamas – which, regrettably, is simply not possible, given the persistence of its existence. The principal hope in such a situation is that, as the full self-destructive enormity of the situation dawns on the participants, they resist the temptation to turn limited incursions into all-out total warfare.

It must by now have occurred to President Biden that if, as in 1973, Israel comes under critical, existential threat, there might come a point when US forces have to become more directly involved, possibly even on the ground. A long, unpredictable, bloody proxy war by the US and Israel against Iran would then be fought across Israel, Gaza, the rest of the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian disaster in Gaza overtakes and overshadows everything. The aid coming grudgingly into Gaza via Egypt is woefully inadequate, and will continue to be so for as long as Israel and Egypt conspire to keep the refugees trapped in Gaza.

The tragic absurdity of the situation is that lorryloads of water are being transported into Gaza at the same time as Israel keeps the normal water supply cut off. The medical supplies that Israel permits to enter through Rafah are urgently needed mainly because of the Israeli aerial bombardment and the forced evacuation of hospitals.

And while Israel insists, with reason, that humanitarian aid shouldn’t be diverted to Hamas, there is no practical way of preventing that from happening, any more than if the normal transport of supplies were going into Gaza. Rationing it may only mean that Palestinian civilians will receive even less after Hamas has purloined its share.

Given all that, Mr Netanyahu is probably right that Hamas militants may well have made the biggest mistake of their lives, and they won’t have much of a base left in Gaza, even if they cannot be wiped out. Certainly the worst fears of the Palestinian people, who are not the same as Hamas, will be realised. The same goes for Hezbollah.

However, in taking on such powerful and ruthless forces without clear war aims, or anything like an exit strategy for Gaza, let alone Lebanon, Mr Netanyahu is also making some grievous mistakes of his own.