Jamie Dettmer
TEL AVIV, Israel — “We are winning.”
That’s the unwavering refrain from senior Israeli officials when asked about where all the warfare roiling the Levant will end.
Astonishingly scything through arch-foe Hezbollah’s upper echelons, remorselessly picking off leaders and military commanders one after another, Israel’s becoming increasingly bullish, convinced the disaster of Oct. 7 is being paid back.
Israel is being made safer, victory snatched from the jaws of defeat — or so its leaders argue. And soon, they believe, it will achieve the unbelievable — vanquishing both of Iran’s key allies in the region: Hamas and Hezbollah — the redrawing of the Middle East’s geopolitical map within its grasp.
Of course, how Israel’s military campaign actually fares — whether Iran and Hezbollah find a convenient hook to disengage, are thoroughly defeated on the battlefield or, as some fear, Israel is beckoned by a quagmire in the stony, ravine-filled terrain of southern Lebanon — only time will tell. But whatever happens, the cost in human misery and lives will be high. And as Israelis continue to mourn those murdered in Hamas’ slaughter of innocents, many are in no mood to think much about the human toll in Lebanon or Gaza.
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