In the last few days, two important elements of the war between Israel and organizations close to Iran - "Hezbollah" and "Hamas", add a new dimension to the long conflict between the mentioned countries. These two elements are the elimination of the head of the Sunni "Hamas" Yahya Sinwar and the drone strike on Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Caesarea (an attack possibly carried out by "Hezbollah", although the Shiite group in question has not yet claimed responsibility for the act).
Although a matter of luck rather than intelligence, the elimination of Yahya Sinuar is a further blow to the already severely compromised capabilities of "Hamas". At the same time, however, this will not affect the actions of the Sunni terrorist organization in the short term. The latter arises from the following circumstance. Sinwar's security concerns have forced the Hamas leader to survive in extreme isolation in recent months, preventing him from exercising command and control functions over the activities of the terrorist organization in question. That is, she was forced to function largely without Sinuar even before he was eliminated. Because of this, as well as in view of the intensive and systematic strikes of the Israel Defense Forces against its positions, "Hamas" survived by leading a decentralized existence marked by difficult communication and a breakdown in its chain of command. In these conditions, each individual commander of "Hamas" got both more freedom to take operational actions, but also even greater uncertainty.
Of course, the psychological effect of Sinwar's elimination on the motivation of the remaining cadre of "Hamas" should not be underestimated. Since the head cannot protect itself, then no part of the body is safe. In response to widespread calls, including from Washington and Paris, which link the killing of Sinouar to the possibility of ending the war between "Hamas" and Israel, in fact, this elimination of the head of the terrorist organization provides additional opportunities for the Israel Defense Forces to finish what they started. This is shown by the "Netanyahu" model, which did not decrease, but systematically increased the military pressure against "Hezbollah". since the end of July, when the highest military commander of the Shiite organization Fuad Shukr was liquidated. The subsequent elimination of Hassan Nasrallah demonstrates the same again: this was not the end of Israel's military intervention in southern Lebanon, but rather just one isolated episode of it.
On the other hand, however, the large-scale heroization of Yahya Sinwar in Palestinian-Arab circles actually shows that he - himself signed his fate as a "walking dead" after planning and carrying out the bloody events of October 7 last year - it is yet to be exploited for propaganda purposes serving local and regional radicalism. In other words, if until now Sinwar created Palestinian propaganda, now Palestinian propaganda will create Sinwar. But the only thing more interesting than the elimination of the head of "Hamas" is the question of who will succeed him, insofar as this will enable the dynamics in the grouping to be followed against two key balances. One is the balance of power between the military and political wings of the organization (Ezeedin al-Qassam and the Doha office), the other, its regional dependencies and partnerships (Iran/Qatar/Turkey). Thus, for example, the political rise of Sinwar over the years was accompanied by the additional strengthening of the military wing of "Hamas" (at that, long before Ismail Haniya was eliminated in Tehran) and its partnership with Iran.
Although Iran has distanced itself from this act, in the eyes of Tel Aviv it is the Ayatollahs' regime that is the suspected accomplice in Hezbollah's attempt to target Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Caesarea with a drone.
This strike, first of all, is in sync with the announced "new phase" in the war with Israel on the part of "Hezbollah". It is not yet clear what this "new phase" would be. But based on the events of the last few days, it can be assumed that it includes the launching of precision-guided missiles and the targeting of targets that are not necessarily military (such as the Israeli Prime Minister's residence). And with regard to the developing hostilities on the territory of South Lebanon - intensification of the clashes, that is, the configuration of the close combat in which the fighters of "Hezbollah" they begin to apply the "hit and run" tactic; on the various fronts of the Israel Defense Forces offensive.
Secondly, the penetration of the kamikaze drone at a depth of 70 km in Israel is a serious and far from the only example of the gaps in Israel's anti-missile defense. In the case of the Caesarea strike, there is a twofold problem: not only did the missile shield miss the drone in question (but destroying two other kamikaze drones), the warning systems failed. Of course, it should be borne in mind that on the day of this strike "Hezbollah" has fired about 180 rockets, the purpose of at least some of which was specifically to further engage Israel's anti-missile defenses, so as to increase the chances of penetration of the unmanned aerial vehicles sent. Certainly, the capture of low-flying and mobile drones in their trajectory, often made of such materials as to leave a smaller "footprint" to activate the interceptors that meet them, is a laborious task. Again, a Hezbollah drone that entered Israel at an identical depth killed four Israeli soldiers and wounded sixty others in a strike on the Golani base near Binyamin last Sunday. Israel's missile shield was also breached earlier this month when Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles, including hypersonic ones, another type of challenge for Tel Aviv's missile defenses, as their speed is devastating but their predictable trajectory makes them detectable . Quite a few of these ballistic missiles hit the Israeli air bases Nevatim and Tel Nof (it is difficult to say exactly how many, given that the Israeli authorities have forbidden the publication of relevant information, but according to calculations made from satellite images, only Nevatim was hit with between 20 and 30 rockets). Although purely politically Israel and the US tried to downplay the Iranian strike, the subsequent deployment of one battery of the US THAAD missile defense system on Israeli soil was probably done partly for such reasons, concerning the ongoing breaches of Tel Aviv's missile shield.
Thirdly, the strike on Netanyahu's residence is likely to be factored into Israel's expected response to the aforementioned Iranian missile attack from earlier this month. In a sense, "Hezbollah" succeeded in bringing the war to the home of the Israeli prime minister; the Shia group "knock" at Netanyahu's door. But it is in the nature of the Israeli prime minister not to let such things go unpunished; on the contrary, he has repeatedly shown that when challenged, he prefers to raise the table. Moreover, Netanyahu presented the blow to "Hezbollah" as inherently an Iranian attempt to assassinate him. And this is further preparing the ground for Tel Aviv's upcoming response to Tehran. The strike on Netanyahu's residence unties Israel's ability to target people in the upper echelons of Iran's political elite.
Just a week ago, Naim Qassem, the most senior leader of "Hezbollah" after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, he seemed to give reasons for optimism, saying that the organization he represented supported diplomatic efforts for peace, and subsequently even gave the impression that the Shiite group no longer tied this peace to the events in the Gaza Strip (since the beginning of its involvement in the war, "Hezbollah" said it would continue until hostilities between "Hamas" ceased. After the elimination of Sinuar, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that this was the "beginning of the end" of the war with "Hamas".
But a week is too much time for events like those in the Middle East. Therefore, today we are closer to the hypothesis of a deepening of the conflict between Israel and Iran than to the mitigation of the intense war between Tel Aviv and the organizations standing next to Tehran.