Assessments of Israel's military campaign in Gaza and Lebanon offer a mixed picture, suggesting that while significant tactical gains have been made in degrading Hamas's capabilities and infrastructure, achieving long-term strategic objectives and maintaining lasting control on the ground has proven more challenging.
Military Gains and Destruction
Infrastructure Damage: Israel has caused widespread destruction, with over 60% of buildings in Gaza damaged or destroyed, including extensive damage to residential areas and a vast network of Hamas's subterranean tunnels, referred to as the "Gaza Metro".
Hamas Casualties: Israel claims to have killed or captured a significant number of Hamas fighters, including a portion of its military leadership.
Territorial Control: Israeli forces currently maintain control over a significant portion of Gaza.
Limitations and Challenges
Hamas Resurgence: Despite heavy losses, data analysis indicates a significant Hamas resurgence in some areas. Many of its battalions remain functional, and the group has been able to regroup and recruit new, less-trained fighters, suggesting that military gains are not permanent in the absence of a viable post-war governance plan.
Nature of Warfare: The conflict involves complex urban and subterranean warfare, which makes it difficult to completely eliminate an entrenched insurgent group without extensive collateral damage.
Strategic vs. Tactical: While the IDF has achieved numerous tactical objectives, military analysts debate whether these translate into a clear strategic victory.
The war's ultimate objective of eradicating Hamas entirely remains a struggle, with some analysts arguing that the bombing campaign may have even accelerated Hamas's recruitment.
Humanitarian Crisis: The military actions have led to a catastrophic humanitarian situation, with most of Gaza's population displaced and facing famine conditions, which generates international scrutiny and complicates Israel's overall position.
In essence, the narrative of "little results" on the ground stems from the persistent ability of Hamas to continue fighting and the lack of a clear, stable political alternative for post-war Gaza, and Lebanon which makes Israel's military control seem fragile and its long-term objectives elusive:
“Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is rebuilding its armaments and battered ranks, defying the terms of a truce and raising the prospect of renewed conflict with Israel, people familiar with Israeli and Arab intelligence said.
The intelligence shows Iranian-backed Hezbollah is restocking rockets, antitank missiles and artillery, the people said. Some of those weapons are coming in via seaports and weakened but still functional smuggling routes through Syria, some of the people said. Hezbollah is manufacturing some new weapons itself, one of the people said.
The rearmament is straining an agreement that ended a punishing two-month Israeli campaign against the group a year ago. Lebanon is required to start disarming Hezbollah in parts of the country under the deal, before continuing to all of Lebanon as per a previous agreement. But the group has since dug in its heels, saying its weapons are needed to defend Lebanon's sovereignty.
Israel, which has provided intelligence to help the Lebanese army disarm Hezbollah and has carried out more than 1,000 strikes of its own against the group since a truce was signed last November, is losing patience, the people said. It was angered by the new intelligence findings and that the matter at issue had shifted from Hezbollah's disarmament to Hezbollah's rearmament in a few months, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
"Should Beirut continue to hesitate, Israel may act unilaterally -- and the consequences would be grave," said Tom Barrack, U.S. ambassador to Turkey and a key American envoy for Lebanon and Syria.
Lebanese leaders, through Arab and U.S. intermediaries, are asking Israel for patience, and are open to increasing intelligence-sharing and coordination with Israel despite the states being technically at war.
The office of Lebanon's prime minister declined to comment. The presidency and military didn't respond to requests for comment. Hezbollah officials didn't respond to requests for comment.
Naim Qassem, the head of Hezbollah, said in an interview there should be coordination between the Lebanese military and Hezbollah, but that attempts to disarm the group should be resisted. He said Hezbollah is seeking to avoid another war with Israel, and has avoided military responses to Israeli strikes since the truce.
The standoff highlights the difficulty of quashing an established militia with a base of support among the population even when it has been badly beaten.
Last November's cease-fire agreement states that disarmament efforts should begin south of the Litani River, which defines a zone about 20 miles deep running roughly parallel to the border with Israel. Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have publicly advocated for Hezbollah to be disarmed in the rest of the country, and for the state to have a monopoly on force.
The Lebanese government has made progress dismantling Hezbollah positions and weapons in the southernmost areas of Lebanon, which long have been under Hezbollah's control and were battered by Israel's 2024 attacks. Disarmament there often has been conducted with Hezbollah's assent.
But other areas with significant Hezbollah influence, such as Beirut's southern suburbs and the Bekaa Valley running through eastern Lebanon, have seen little progress amid militant resistance.
Lebanon's leaders are in a sensitive position. Their military is outmanned by Hezbollah. Politically isolating Hezbollah could leave the country's Shiite population, hundreds of thousands of whom support Hezbollah, feeling marginalized and less attached to the state. The country's leaders worry a confrontation could plunge Lebanon back into the sort of civil war that plagued it for much of the second half of the 20th century.
"The Lebanese military isn't interested or ready to confront Hezbollah militarily," said Randa Slim, a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University-based Foreign Policy Institute and an expert on conflict resolution. "We are stuck in this gray area where the Lebanese government says it has taken the decision to disarm Hezbollah. They are implementing it south of the Litani. But there is nothing, no concrete plans, about what happens north of the Litani."
The growing frustration underscores how hard it is to turn a halt in intense fighting into a durable peace. It also shows the limits of disarming groups by force of arms.
"What more can Israel do to achieve its desired outcome than what they had already been doing?" Slim said.
Arab intelligence officials say Hezbollah is returning to a more decentralized structure, similar to how it operated in the 1980s.
"Hezbollah does not feel like it has been defeated," Slim said. "It still thinks it can reconstitute, and it still has a regional supporter of the party in Iran."” [1]
1. World News: Hezbollah Rearms, Risking Cease-Fire --- Israel loses patience as Lebanese militants restock rockets, missiles and artillery. Abdel-Baqui, Omar; Said, Summer. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 31 Oct 2025: A16.
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