It has been more than a week since the longstanding leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, has been eliminated by the Israeli strikes in Lebanon and thus has ended an epoch at the helm of one of the most serious terrorist groups which Israel has faced for decades.

The Lebanon question has been resurfacing for some time and even though it is far from over, which is rarely the case when speaking about terrorist insurgencies and considering the history of this form of political, guerilla and religious warfare, the actions which have been taken by the state of Israel in destructuring Hezbollah have turned the terrorist faction into a shadow of its former self, if compared to the previous status in 2006, when Israel last invaded the south of Lebanon.

It was not necessarily because of the lack of weapons or support from Iran and other factions, states and actors. It wasn’t even the lack of manpower or political power which it holds in Lebanon, Hezbollah having a strong political and physical grip on the Levantine state up to these times, but it was rather the context created by Israel and the actions and operations with which the Israelis have destructured and rendered the group paralyzed, facing a lack of decision makers, or a lack of speed in decision making. We can also safely assume that the group was taken by surprise altogether by the breach of intelligence security and operational security.

This time around, Israel had thoroughly prepared the ground before taking to military affairs in Lebanon and it has finally launched its ground invasion into the south of the Litani river area on the 1st of October. As it is the case in all wars, there is no lack of recorded casualties, either military or civilian ones. Airstrikes by the Israeli aviation have caused at least 100 casualties and over 690 injured among Lebanese children until the 5th of October, according to UNICEF.

For the purpose of destructuring Hezbollah, which has maintained a constant rocket barrage towards Israel after October 7, civilians have been caught into the crossfire and the war has expanded. As a response for the hits on Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran has once again responded with a large missile attack which has failed and caused little to no damage to Israel, according to the officials, for various reasons: it is thought that this, again, was a preannounced attack by the Iranians, weary of entering a full-scale war with Israel; many consider that Iran is not ready for such a vertical escalation, that it is spread thin in regards to logistics considering its involvement into the larger Middle East area and supplying the Russian Federation; also, while it is considered to have more than enough resources to defend itself, it does lack strength and capabilities to expand a projection and a physical presence required for a war against Israel.

Israel is planning to respond to this latest attack by Iran and it is not clear in what form this will take place, which are the targets – in this regard, an international debate has sparked – but, as it has been the case with the IDF since October 7, the operational security has been maintained to a high level, rendering any efforts to predict anything about this presumed response, useless.

UNIFIL has issued a statement on the 6th of October, 2024, in which it has declared its concerns about the IDF operations which are happening near the mission’s vicinity, near Marun ar Ras inside Lebanon.

Israel has launched another operation in northern Gaza Strip aimed at remaining Hamas fighters and for this purpose it has once again expelled the civilian population from the area, causing them to suffer another displacement.

One year later since Hamas’ attack in Israel and the war that sparked on that day continues unfortunately strong, with little hope that it might end in the near future. Hostages are still in the possession of Hamas, yet it is unclear how many are still alive, with another casualty being reported on the 7th of October, 2024.

Civilians will keep being multiply displaced for the foreseeable future, casualties will continue to mount up and an evermore shadow of war will continue to expand and to be cast upon the Middle East.