Israel wages simultaneous wars on two fronts as Hamas and Hezbollah leaders fall

The Israel Defense Forces targeted another senior Hamas commander in Gaza on Tuesday, striking Mohammed Odeh, the newly appointed head of the group’s military wing and one of the masterminds behind the October 7 attacks. The killing came just days after the elimination of Ezzedine al-Haddad, who had himself replaced Yahya Sinwar as Hamas’s military leader.

Simultaneously, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to dismantle Hezbollah, setting the stage for Israel to once again manage a grueling two-front conflict.

Israel has considerable experience fighting on multiple fronts, but serious questions linger about what decisive outcomes these operations will ultimately produce.

The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed the strike on Odeh.

“At the direction of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, the IDF has just struck at Mohammed Odeh in Gaza, the new leader of the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization and one of the architects of the October 7 massacre,” the statement read. “Odeh served as the head of Hamas’s intelligence staff during the October 7 massacre and was appointed – about a week ago – to replace Ezzedine al-Haddad, who was eliminated in an IDF strike in the Gaza Strip two weeks ago.”

The successive killings of Hamas leadership suggest the group is struggling to maintain operational security around its senior figures. Previous leaders such as Yahya Sinwar, Marwan Issa, and Mohammed Dief proved far more elusive to eliminate. The removal of Odeh and Haddad evokes an earlier chapter of the conflict, when targeted assassinations were a centerpiece of Israel’s campaign.

A new normal?

In 2004, Israel carried out a month of high-profile targeted killings against Hamas leaders, striking Ahmed Yassin and Abdul Aziz Rantisi among others. At the time, such operations drew fierce debate. Today they are treated as routine.

Yet it remains uncertain whether the decapitation of Hamas’s leadership in Gaza will trigger a fresh wave of fighting or meaningfully weaken the group. Hamas has lost the bulk of its brigade and battalion commanders over roughly 961 days of war and has seen its top leadership eliminated. Still, the organization has not collapsed. It continues to exercise control over roughly half of Gaza, where it governs more than two million civilians — half of them under the age of 18 — trapped under a diminished but resilient Hamas. The group appears sustained in part by its proximity to the civilian population.

Hezbollah endures despite heavy losses

Hezbollah faces a comparable but distinct challenge. The group has also lost senior figures and commanders, yet it persists by embedding itself within Shi’ite communities across Lebanon — predominantly in the south, the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut, and the Beka’a Valley.

Despite its losses, Hezbollah continues to pose a threat. One of the more recent dangers has come from FPV optic-fiber drones, small unmanned aircraft carrying munitions that are difficult for Israeli defenses to intercept. Israeli troops have resorted to deploying nets — a tactic pioneered in Ukraine — to counter the drones, but the threat is proving persistent.

In Jerusalem, officials frame Hezbollah’s eventual “crushing” as a matter of policy. Yet after 960 days of conflict with the group, one might expect a more decisive outcome. The 2006 war lasted barely a month and secured over a decade of relative quiet in northern Israel. Now, despite the establishment of a security buffer in southern Lebanon and the razing of Shi’ite villages in a strategy borrowed from Gaza, there is no clear path to permanently neutralizing Hezbollah.

The IDF is now contending with a multi-front war once again. Tactical gains on each front have not yet translated into strategic victories. The Israeli public is asking whether the government’s approach needs recalibration. In the north, schools have been canceled anew, and the drone threat shows no sign of abating. While rhetoric about defeating Hezbollah is abundant, actual success may demand a fundamental reassessment of what comes next in both Lebanon and Gaza.

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