Hamas’ decision to launch Operation al-Aqsa Flood on Israel last October took Hezbollah by surprise since all indicators at the time suggested that Hamas ought pacification with Israel and focused, instead, on managing Gaza and consolidating its rule over the besieged sector, the world’s most congested territory. Hezbollah was in no way interested in fighting Israel, despite its pompous claims to the contrary. Hezbollah’s anti-Israel role ended in 2000 when it pulled out unilaterally from Southern Lebanon without even reaching an agreement with Lebanon. Since then, the occasional minor attacks it launched on Northern Israel aimed at swapping Lebanese prisoners with Israelis to justify the usefulness of its military wing for Lebanese factions that resented its failure to disarm like all other local militias. While Hezbollah continued to express its ultimate objective of driving Israel from still-occupied Lebanese territory in the South, it practically served as Iran’s leading regional proxy in serving the interests of the Islamic Republic, mainly in Syria and Iraq.1
