11 arrangement in Lebanon. However, it is clear that given the risk that this mechanism will not be effective, Israel must maintain freedom of action in this arena in order to prevent violations and erosion of the arrangement. Israel learned this lesson from Security Council Resolution 1701, which was put in place at the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006 with similar aims and which proved hopelessly ineffective. It was such an utter failure that Hezbollah succeeded in massively rearming itself and posing a dramatically greater threat to Israel. Israel cannot allow that pattern to repeat itself. Theprincipleofmaintaining Israeli freedomof action in Lebanon must be the basis for future cooperation between Israel and the US administration on the Lebanese issue in order to limit Hezbollah’s ability to recover while relying on Iran’s military, economic, and political assistance. It seems highly likely that an arrangement based on this principle will receive the backing of the Trump administration. The post-war challenge in Gaza will require ongoing dialogue with the US and assistance from the Trump administration in providing a political umbrella for moves on the ground During the multi-sector war in which Israel has been engaged since October 7, 2023, it has managed to create a new security reality on its southern border, opposite the Gaza Strip. The Hamas organization was hit very hard, most of its military command center in the Strip was eliminated, and its ability to conduct an effective guerrilla war against the IDF was greatly reduced. Hamas continues to wage terror against our forces in the Gaza Strip and maintain its position among the population through its control of humanitarian aid. It seems that during 2025, Israel will work to shape a civilian reality in the Gaza Strip that completely negates the possibility of the organization’s recovery and significantly erodes its civilian control over large parts of the population. At the same time, Israel will work to foster a local civilian alternative, with inter-Arab and possibly even international backing, that constitutes an alternative to Hamas’s civilian control in the Strip. This challengewill requireongoingdialoguewith the US and assistance from the Trump administration in providing a political umbrella for moves on the ground, including the possibility that the US administration will help encourage moderate Arab elements, such as the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, to contribute to building the civilian alternative in Gaza as part of the reconstruction of the Strip. In Lebanon, Hezbollah suffered severe blows. The organization’s charismatic leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed and its command center severely damaged. A large part of the organization’s missile and rocket arsenal was also destroyed and many of its operatives were killed. But the IDF’s main achievement along the border—the takeover of a security strip along Israel’s northern border while destroying the military array that Hezbollah had Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDU2MA==