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Israel’s Endgame in Gaza Must be Cutting the Iranian Noose
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
JNS.org – Increasingly strident voices both within and outside Israel demand that Israeli leaders outline the endgame in Gaza after the destruction of Hamas as a political and terrorist force. U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as former Israeli generals, many of whom have acknowledged the mistaken doctrines and concepts they held before the slaughter of Oct. 7, have joined forces to demand answers to this question.
Focusing on Gaza as a standalone Israeli problem that demands redress in the near future is a grievous strategic error that threatens not only Israel’s very existence but the well-being of democratic states far beyond the borders of the conflict.
Three ominous developments have emerged since the Oct. 7 attack and the subsequent Israeli military campaign in Gaza aimed at dismantling the Hamas threat. These developments leave Israel facing a precarious predicament, the likes of which it has not faced since the 1967 Six-Day War.
For the first time since the renewed emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in Egypt 50 years ago and its ensuing proliferation, Sunni and Shi’ite fundamentalism have joined forces operationally against Israel, and indirectly against the broader alliance of democratic states.
Hamas’s attack on the Gaza border region was followed by Hezbollah’s acts of war on Israel’s northern border. And acts of war they are, from the number of missiles launched at civilian and military targets, to the heavy mortar bombardments along the border and the use of both armed and intelligence-gathering drones. As a result of Hezbollah’s attacks, greater numbers of Israeli civilians have been evacuated from the north, or have left the area of their own accord, than have evacuated from the south.
This Sunni-Shi’ite unity did not prevail during or after the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks or the Islamic State onslaught that saw the movement occupy most of northern Iraq and southern and eastern Syria, erasing the border between these two states—two events that were rightly perceived as strategic threats to the West and elicited a commensurate response from the United States and its allies.
In both encounters, Shi’ite and Sunni forces were pitted against each other. After the 9/11 attack, Iran came down hard on its Sunni minority as well as suppressing Sunni jihadist groups.
The Shi’ite response was even more pronounced and decisive: With the expansion of ISIS, Iran and its major proxy, Shi’ite Hezbollah, rushed to Assad’s Syria to prevent the regime’s downfall and the potential ISIS takeover of the country. In Iraq, Tehran established the Shi’ite terrorist proxies currently attacking U.S. forces to save Baghdad from the fate of Iraq’s third largest city, Mosul, which fell easily to ISIS.
Houthi cruise missile and UAV attacks from Yemen on Eilat, Israel’s southernmost port, are the second development that contributes to Israel’s precarious predicament. As a Shi’ite proxy of Iran, the Houthis are a reflection of Sunni and Shi’ite fundamentalist unity, but also represent a threat that goes far beyond that. Eilat is Israel’s only gateway to South and East Asia. This trade route, essential to Israel’s economic well-being and growth, has been threatened by the recent Houthi hijacking of a commercial vessel partially owned, but not run, by an Israeli company. It echoes the closure of the Straits of Tiran at the mouth of the Red Sea to Israeli shipping in May 1967. This act was one of the reasons behind Israel’s preemptive strike against Egypt and was part of the noose tightening around Israel’s neck prior to the Six-Day War. Today, a similar noose is threatening Israel.
Finally, both these threatening developments are being orchestrated by a regional power, Iran, which is fast becoming a nuclear power with ballistic capabilities to strike at Israel and beyond.
This devastating triangle, with a fundamentalist, imperialist state at its apex, flanked by Sunni-Shi’ite fundamentalist unity on one side and far-flung terrorist Iranian proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen on the other, has no parallel in the Al Qaeda threat of 2001 or the ISIS threat in 2014. Both Al-Qaeda and ISIS faced a world arrayed against them, including rivals such as the United States and Russia.
Israel must not be made to address Gaza’s future before first cutting the ever-tightening noose around it. This is not only obviously in Israel’s interest. If Israel is prevented from cutting itself free of this noose, not only will its very existence be threatened, but so will that of all U.S. allies in the region.
Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990 proved how vulnerable some of these states are. It took Iraq just one day to take over Kuwait. One can hardly believe that Iran, emboldened by a weakened Israel forced to focus on Gaza—hardly Israel’s major front—will not be tempted to do the same as Saddam Hussein in 1990. Or perhaps far more.
We are in a strategic tempest. A wise strategy of allowing Israel to deal with its immediate and more threatening fronts as the endgame to the war with Hamas might mean the difference between a stable Middle East led by U.S. allies, or a region controlled by Iran, a country strongly embedded in the global axis of states operating against the U.S. alliance.
Originally published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
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Israel to Send Delegation to Qatar for Gaza Ceasefire Talks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a news conference in Jerusalem, Sept. 2, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
Israel has decided to send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal, an Israeli official said, reviving hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations to end the almost 21-month war.
Palestinian group Hamas said on Friday it had responded to a US-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal in a “positive spirit,” a few days after US President Donald Trump said Israel had agreed “to the necessary conditions to finalize” a 60-day truce.
The Israeli negotiation delegation will fly to Qatar on Sunday, the Israeli official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters.
But in a sign of the potential challenges still facing the two sides, a Palestinian official from a militant group allied with Hamas said concerns remained over humanitarian aid, passage through the Rafah crossing in southern Israel to Egypt and clarity over a timetable for Israeli troop withdrawals.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is due to meet Trump in Washington on Monday, has yet to comment on Trump’s announcement, and in their public statements Hamas and Israel remain far apart.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said Hamas must be disarmed, a position the terrorist group, which is thought to be holding 20 living hostages, has so far refused to discuss.
Israeli media said on Friday that Israel had received and was reviewing Hamas’ response to the ceasefire proposal.
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Tucker Carlson Says to Air Interview with President of Iran
Tucker Carlson speaks on July 18, 2024 during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photo: Jasper Colt-USA TODAY via Reuters Connect
US conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson said in an online post on Saturday that he had conducted an interview with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, which would air in the next day or two.
Carlson said the interview was conducted remotely through a translator, and would be published as soon as it was edited, which “should be in a day or two.”
Carlson said he had stuck to simple questions in the interview, such as, “What is your goal? Do you seek war with the United States? Do you seek war with Israel?”
“There are all kinds of questions that I didn’t ask the president of Iran, particularly questions to which I knew I could get an not get an honest answer, such as, ‘was your nuclear program totally disabled by the bombing campaign by the US government a week and a half ago?’” he said.
Carlson also said he had made a third request in the past several months to interview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be visiting Washington next week for talks with US President Donald Trump.
Trump said on Friday he would discuss Iran with Netanyahu at the White House on Monday.
Trump said he believed Tehran’s nuclear program had been set back permanently by recent US strikes that followed Israel’s attacks on the country last month, although Iran could restart it at a different location.
Trump also said Iran had not agreed to inspections of its nuclear program or to give up enriching uranium. He said he would not allow Tehran to resume its nuclear program, adding that Iran did want to meet with him.
Pezeshkian said last month Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons but will pursue its right to nuclear energy and research.
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Hostage Families Reject Partial Gaza Seal, Demand Release of All Hostages
Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – As Israeli leaders weigh the contours of a possible partial ceasefire deal with Hamas, the families of the 50 hostages still held in Gaza issued an impassioned public statement this weekend, condemning any agreement that would return only some of the abductees.
In a powerful message released Saturday, the Families Forum for the Return of Hostages denounced what they call the “beating system” and “cruel selection process,” which, they say, has left families trapped in unbearable uncertainty for 638 days—not knowing whether to hope for reunion or prepare for mourning.
The group warned that a phased or selective deal—rumored to be under discussion—would deepen their suffering and perpetuate injustice. Among the 50 hostages, 22 are believed to be alive, and 28 are presumed dead.
“Every family deserves answers and closure,” the Forum said. “Whether it is a return to embrace or a grave to mourn over—each is sacred.”
They accused the Israeli government of allowing political considerations to prevent a full agreement that could have brought all hostages—living and fallen—home long ago. “It is forbidden to conform to the dictates of Schindler-style lists,” the statement read, invoking a painful historical parallel.
“All of the abductees could have returned for rehabilitation or burial months ago, had the government chosen to act with courage.”
The call for a comprehensive deal comes just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares for high-stakes talks in Washington and as indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas are expected to resume in Doha within the next 24 hours, according to regional media reports.
Hamas, for its part, issued a statement Friday confirming its readiness to begin immediate negotiations on the implementation of a ceasefire and hostage release framework.
The Forum emphasized that every day in captivity poses a mortal risk to the living hostages, and for the deceased, a danger of being lost forever. “The horror of selection does not spare any of us,” the statement said. “Enough with the separation and categories that deepen the pain of the families.”
In a planned public address near Begin Gate in Tel Aviv, families are gathering Saturday evening to demand that the Israeli government accept a full-release deal—what they describe as the only “moral and Zionist” path forward.
“We will return. We will avenge,” the Forum concluded. “This is the time to complete the mission.”
As of now, the Israeli government has not formally responded to Hamas’s latest statement.
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