Israel is winning its war on terror

The ordeal of the past year has tested Israelis to the limit, but they have emerged all the stronger for it

First Hamas, now Hezbollah: in a matter of months, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has decapitated the two most powerful terrorist organisations in the world.
Rather than rejoice, however, the West has offered at best lukewarm support, at worst ostracism and obstruction.
Yet Israel’s ingenious military response shows that it has lost none of its capacity to astonish the world, just as it did in 1948, in 1967 and ever since.
Once again, and with remarkable panache, Israel has transformed defeat into victory. On Friday, it scored perhaps its most stunning victory so far. Hezbollah has confirmed that its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, perished in the rubble of his headquarters in Beirut. After three decades, he has finally paid the price for his crimes and for bringing ruin on his own country of Lebanon.
As the chief ideologist of Hezbollah (“the Party of God”), Nasrallah once said: “If they [the Jews] all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” His death cult, like that of Hamas, subscribes to the same eliminationist anti-Semitism as the Nazis.
Nasrallah has not been the only terrorist mastermind in Israel’s sights. In recent days, the IDF has eliminated at least six of Hezbollah’s senior commanders, including two who were involved in the 1983 Beirut bomb attack that killed more than 400 US Marines and other American and French personnel.
Israel is not the only target for either Hezbollah or Hamas — even if the BBC refuses to call the latter “terrorists”.
Just as IDF’s precision strikes have taken out Hezbollah’s command and control centres, so Mossad transformed their pagers into miniature bombs. This brilliantly planned and executed operation neatly turned the tables on the terrorists, some 1,500 of whom are reportedly out of action.
Even if Hezbollah’s boasted strength of 100,000 men and 150,000 missiles is correct, its offensive capabilities have suffered a severe, perhaps irreparable blow. After dismantling Hamas’s forces in Gaza, Israel has now neutralised the two most immediate threats to its civilian population. Iran, which is responsible for unleashing the present conflict, has suffered a strategic defeat. And Israel-haters everywhere have been reminded that those who attack the Jewish people will not escape unscathed.
Yet we should not forget how grim, even desperate, Israel’s predicament appeared after the genocidal onslaught of October 7 last year. That day 6,000 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, armed to the teeth. They killed almost 1,200 people in cold blood; most were civilians, including 36 children. Many were raped or tortured; 3,400 were wounded. Hamas took some 251 hostages: eight have been rescued by the IDF and 109 were released in exchange deals. The rest are still in captivity, or dead.
October 7 was Israel’s darkest day. Its military had become complacent and its failure to protect civilians came as a shock. They had come close to defeat in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 by falling for the myth of their own invincibility. Fifty years later, the IDF’s hubris was again followed by nemesis. Israel’s enemies could not wait to exploit its apparent vulnerability. Hezbollah began firing rockets across the border almost immediately, forcing the evacuation of more than 60,000 civilians from northern Israeli cities such as Kiryat Shmona.
In Yemen, the Houthis began a campaign of piracy against Red Sea shipping which continues to this day. Last April, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched a barrage of drones and missiles in its first direct assault on Israel.
None of this, nor even the horrors of October 7, intimidated the Israelis. They fought back to reduce the vast underground fortress that Gaza had become under Hamas rule, constructed largely with money diverted from aid.
Despite the difficulty of fighting a ruthless foe that shielded itself in hospitals, schools and apartment blocks, the IDF kept the ratio of civilian to military casualties in Gaza lower than in any comparable conflict.
Despite that, the global consensus turned against Israel. Even its allies in the United States and Europe have blown hot and cold, constantly blaming Israel for the humanitarian crisis that the terror regime in Gaza had brought upon its own people. Lately, the Labour government has gone further, accusing Israel of blocking food supplies to Gaza.
The Prime Minister has told the House of Commons that he is bound by law to prohibit certain arms exports to Israel. Both these claims are demonstrably false.
Israel has ignored this hostile consensus and carried on exercising its right to self-defence. It has routed two terror organisations which between them had more men under arms and bigger arsenals than many sovereign states.
Whether judged by military prowess or humanitarian scruples, the IDF is the most formidable fighting force on earth. Rather than preaching to the Israelis, we in the West should admire their daring, emulate their creativity and learn from their example. Like any nation state, Israel is not perfect, but it has survived and flourished in a dangerous region by its own efforts.
The ordeal of the past year has tested Israelis to the limit, but they have emerged all the stronger for it.