Will Gaza negotiations slow down Iran’s response?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up a medal to an audience in Israel showing how his army thwarted a large-scale attack from Lebanon: 100 fighter jets preemptively struck the neighboring country. For his part, Hassan Nasrallah stressed that the operation, “despite the difficulties,” was revenge for the assassination of Commander Fouad Shukr, last month in Beirut, and that even if Israel tried to hide it, it had acquiesced. “They successfully achieved their goals.” The Hezbollah leader stressed in his speech that the response to Shukr’s killing took place in two stages, the first by firing hundreds of missiles to confuse the Israeli air defense system and the second by hitting “the strategic target with explosive drones.” Al-Buhaira explained that “his revenge will be complete and there will be no need for further retaliatory attacks.”

Following the assassination of Shukr in Beirut and Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, there were fears of an escalation of violence with major implications for the Middle East and for ceasefire talks in Gaza. But for now, tensions are easing. “Hezbollah’s attempt to restore deterrence, even if it has not gone as expected, seems to be successful so far,” the Lebanese analyst said, not ruling out the possibility of “a greater escalation in the long term.”

“The battle is not over”

But what is being plotted is only the end of a chapter in a story that will be longer. “It was an initial reaction, but the battle is not over,” notes Mohammed Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center. Indeed, Netanyahu said on Sunday that although the Israeli army had “destroyed thousands of rockets, this is not the end of the story.” Nor is it the end for Nasrallah, who has warned that “high-profile attacks await the Israelis in the future.” “No one can determine the course of the confrontation,” Hage Ali warns.

One of the biggest concerns that has fueled the diplomatic effort is that promises of retaliation against Israel could come together or separately from various fronts of the “axis of resistance,” creating a cycle of violence in parts of the region, such as in Iraq, Iran, and Yemen. The question now is what Tehran will do after its first response. proxy Lebanese

Iran still seems to want to give diplomacy a chance, and delay its response to Haniyeh’s killing, in a facility belonging to the elite Revolutionary Guards, while he was a guest in the country to attend the inauguration of the new government. In this sense, Nasrallah reminded Israel in his speech that it still has to wait for a response from Iran, but also from the Houthis in Yemen, to attack the coastal city of Hodeidah.

Tehran spoke again after several weeks of silence. After praising Hezbollah’s “successful” attack, Iran warned Israel against the myth of its invincibility. “Despite the support from the United States, Israel has not been able to predict the time and place of a limited and controlled resistance response,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kenani said in a message to X. “Israel has lost its deterrence capability.” Kenani added that Israel “now has to defend itself within its occupied territories” and that “strategic balances have undergone fundamental changes” to the detriment of the State of Israel.

Sunday’s events have added pressure to ongoing talks in Cairo to try to advance a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages. Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian groups have given assurances that if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza they are committed to ending hostilities with Israel, but if there is no agreement they will resume them. On the ground, Israeli forces are continuing to press central Gaza, and on Monday ordered the evacuation of Al-Aqsa Hospital, the last remaining hospital in the area.