Israel’s Remarkable 20 Months - October 2023 to June 2025
Israel’s Strategic Position Greatly Improved Since October 2023 Attack by Hamas
(Israeli Air Force jets, ready to strike - 2025)
The October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel was horrific. More than 800 innocent civilians were killed, including 36 children. Hamas gunmen raped, tortured, and abducted women, children, and men who were simply going about their normal lives. The attack on the Supernova trance music festival will go down in history for its unprovoked barbarism.
Yet, much like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Hamas massacre on October 7 transformed Israel and - 20 months later - Israel finds itself in a greatly improved strategic position.
The major changes for Israel are as follows:
The Destruction of Hamas. Hamas has been nearly destroyed. Prior to 10/2023, Israel intelligence believed Hamas had adopted a more pragmatic relationship towards Israel. This was a grievous failure on the part of the Shin Bet (the Intelligence Agency) as Hamas was actually bent on a war of annihilation against Israel and all their supposedly peaceful engagement was a big lie. The Gazan people who crossed the border to work in Israel were actually gathering intelligence which was used by Hamas gunmen in their attacks on nearby Israeli communities. The utter destruction of Gaza, the killing of most of the Hamas leaders, and the killing of more than 10,000 Hamas gunmen has apparently shattered Hamas. I doubt Hamas will recover in a decade, if ever. The war has cost Israel the lives of about 700 soldiers (in addition to the 370 soldiers who were killed on October 7). Given what Israel has accomplished, this is very modest cost.
Israeli Unification. The October 2023 attack unified Israel politically. Up until that attack, Israel had gone through more than four years of constant elections and the government of Netanyahu had actually lost control for 18 months (from 6/2021 to 12/2022). So many elections had been held that the old political parties in the country were nearly destroyed as Israeli society looked like it was fracturing. After the attack, Israel formed a Unity government and polls showed that the Israeli peace faction nearly ceased to exist. The October 7 Hamas attacks shocked the Israeli electorate and nearly all support for a two state solution and peace with the Palestinians vanished. When Israel is united, it is an extremely capable state, quite possibly the most functional nation in the world today. No one wanted the October 7 massacres but it united Israel, much like Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor united the USA in December of 1941.
The Defeat of Hezbollah. Hezbollah, formerly a major power in south Lebanon, has suffered significant losses over the last year. The brilliant pager attack in September 2024 (nicknamed Operation Grim Beeper) killed dozens of Hezbollah leaders and injured more than 2,000. This was followed by the killing of Hezbollah’s top leader Nasrallah and his immediate successor and simultaniously, a short invasion by the Israeli army which destroyed most (?) of Hezbollah’s missiles. Hezbollah is not shattered but it has lost a great deal of military capability.
The Fall of Assad and the Destruction of the Syrian Airforce. The destruction of Hezbollah’s equipment and the killing of its senior leaders opened an unexpected door for the anti-Asad forces of HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) to restart their war against the Syrian government. The Syrian Civil War had been going on since 2011 and by 2019 it seemed Assad had won, thanks in part to Russian military support and the soldiers of Hezbollah fighting for Assad in Homs region. With Hezbollah in chaos, and the Russian’s focused on their war with Ukraine, a renewed offensive by HTS and allied units began in late November of 2024. To the surprise of nearly everyone, the Syrian army collapsed immediately. On November 29, 2024 the HTS captured Aleppo. Just ten days later, HTS soldiers drove south along the main highway, capturing the capital of Damascus on December 8th. The long-time leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, fled with his family to Russia on a jet plane as the city fell. Israel was able to take full advantage of the collapse of Assad’s government by occupying the remaining peaks of the Golan Heights and by conducting airstrikes on Syria’s airplanes and other military equipment. It is believed that nearly the entire Syrian air-force was destroyed by Israel on the 9th and 10th of December, 2024. Thus, in a 30 day period, two of Israel’s most significant threats were destroyed.
The government of Iraq moved away from Iran and has (apparently) joined with Saudi Arabia. In 2014, the government of Iraq asked for military assistance from Iran because ISIS had captured Mosul and was rapidly expanding its control over Iraq. See the War in Iraq (2013-2017). Iran agreed to the request and they sent military units (most of the Quds Force) and equipment to help fight ISIS. Iran also armed and trained several Shia military units which were allied with the Iraqi army. All this was done under the command of General Soleimani. The Iraqi army was able to defeat ISIS and they annihilated most of the ISIS soldiers defending Mosul in what was the largest urban battle since the end of World War II. Note: Iranian military support is not officially documented but Soleimani was in Iraq in 2016-2017. Following the capture of Mosul (6/2017) ISIS was forced out of Iraq and the Iraqi government was saved. (The US and other nations provided air support and military advisors - a unique case where the USA was defacto working with Iran). For several years it seemed Iraq would become a client state of Iran but since 2020, as far as I can tell, Iraq has adopted a policy of remaining uninvolved in all Iranian foreign affairs. Iraq ships 95% of its oil via tankers which all sail through the Persian Gulf. Any Iranian disruption of the oil tankers sailing through the Straits of Hormuz would cut off Iraq’s only significant source of government revenue. This means Iraq is actually opposed to any Iranian threats against Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Iraq doesn’t have much of an air force but they don’t seem to have made any objection to the (likely) Israeli air force flying over their land.
Putting all these factors together, Israel finds itself in June of 2025 in a remarkably favorable strategic position. They can attack Iran without fear of reprisals from any military force on their borders.
I would argue that Israel, at the start of their war with Iran, was in the strongest position they have ever been in. It is a remarkable change from five or ten years ago.