The biggest questions after Israel's killing of Hezbollah leader.

With Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the wars in the Middle East have reached a turning point – although it is difficult to say in which direction they will now go: towards an uneasy balance or an escalation of fighting.

Historians and strategists disagree about whether a “decapitation attack” – the assassination of a leader – has much impact on the course of a war. But Israel's latest tactics go far beyond beheadings. As a prelude to the bombing of an apartment complex south of Beirut under which Hezbollah had its secret headquarters, Israel detonated booby-trapped pagers held by thousands of high-ranking Hezbollah military personnel, did the same with their walkie-talkies and followed them as it came to air strikes on weapons depots and other infrastructure targets.

In other words, over the course of a week, through a combination of attacks, some planned in recent years, Israel not only killed Hezbollah's leader but also seriously injured many of its fighters and weakened Hezbollah itself as a military power – and perhaps an effective political organization.

And the operation isn't over yet.

Israeli special forces have reportedly entered Lebanon and dug into Hezbollah's network of tunnels – similar to those built by Hamas in Gaza. This could in turn be followed by a much larger incursion of regular army troops to clear part of southern Lebanon – and if necessary, occupy it.

Hezbollah fighters have been firing rockets from this area into northern Israel for many years – and this has increased in recent months. Last year the group fired at least 8,000 rockets into Israel, the country's US ambassador said this month. As a result, 65,000 Israelis have evacuated their homes near the Lebanese border. The main goal of the Israeli counterattacks was to pacify the area so that its citizens could return. One question Israeli leaders are now asking is how the area can remain safe in the years to come. Do they need to completely destroy Hezbollah – and if so, what will that require?

In retaliation for last week's attacks, Hezbollah fired multiple rockets and missiles at targets much deeper than usual in Israeli territory, hitting Haifa and Tel Aviv but causing little damage. There has been little follow-up since then – and there has been no response other than rhetoric from Iran, Hezbollah's main ally and presumed protector.

The big question is what they, especially the Iranians, do next. Hezbollah was the main word on Iran's “Axis of Resistance,” a network of terrorist militias – including Hamas, the Houthis and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – that have acted as proxies in various conflicts in the Middle East against Sunni Arab countries and, in particular, Israel have served Tehran. (These proxy wars had the unintended effect of bringing Israel and some Sunni Arab nations, once enemies, into an alliance.)

Hezbollah still has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles (it had at least 100,000 before the volleys increased last year), but it is unclear whether the group may launch coordinated attacks in the face of the destruction of its command and control systems – and the question also arises as to whether this is the case wants to launch large-scale attacks in the face of Israel's demonstration of its destructive power.

Which raises even more questions about Iran. Tehran's leaders have fought their battles through proxies to keep their own territory and survival at a distance from the fighting. Now they face a dilemma. On the one hand, they do not want to wage direct war against Israel – let alone against the United States, which would probably intervene if Israel were attacked. On the other hand, they cannot stand idly by and watch the blows on their main ally, lest their other allies begin to doubt Tehran's reliability – in other words, lest the entire axis of resistance fall apart.

According to reports, debates are raging in Tehran's ruling circles. The hardliners are calling for severe retaliation against Israel. The more moderate factions, including the new President Masoud Pezeshkian, advise restraint. Pezeshkian campaigned for office by turning to the West for much-needed investment and sanctions relief. In his speech last week to the UN General Assembly, he said Iran wanted to play a “constructive role” in world politics. He brought with him to New York a large delegation of experienced diplomats, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, who as foreign minister negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (which President Donald Trump collapsed three years later).

After the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, President Joe Biden, along with some European allies, proposed a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would seriously consider it, but it is now clear that he must have rejected the idea outright. He flew to New York, gave a blatantly aggressive speech to the General Assembly (many members left the room as he began to speak) and then ordered the attack on Nasrallah's bunker – or rather, he confirmed it, since it was well planned Advance – before you board the plane back to Tel Aviv.

Biden is still pushing for a diplomatic solution before the war spreads across the region, although likely without success. Netanyahu is ignoring these calls for two reasons. First, he learned from the 11 months of Gaza negotiations that the American president did so despite Biden's vocal pressure on Israel to adjust its war tactics Completed little or nothing to compel Israel to obey.

Second, and more importantly, Netanyahu appears to have concluded that it is better for Israeli security and his own political standing to brush aside these external pressures, a position he tends to take anyway. He did not inform U.S. officials of the pager operation, nor did he inform them in advance of the bunker bombing, knowing that they would likely deter both of them – and yet he can't help but think about what successes they achieved! Nasrallah, one of the most powerful terrorists in the world, responsible for death and misery not only in Israel, but also in Syria, in Lebanon itself and in countries around the world – suddenly, in one fell swoop, dead! Hezbollah: almost destroyed! Iran: seriously weakened!

Now Netanyahu is pushing what he sees as his strength. On Monday he even hinted that he was planning a policy of regime change in Tehran. “When Iran is finally free – and that moment will come much sooner than people think – everything will be different,” he said in a video aimed at the Iranian people, many of whom loathe their rulers. “Our two ancient peoples, the Jewish people and the Persian people, will finally have peace. Our two countries, Israel and Iran, will have peace.”

Was Netanyahu incite Tehran to war – do you dare attack Israel and provoke a catastrophic retaliation?

The prime minister – whose ruling coalition is the narrow minority in the Israeli parliament and who has provoked mass protests over his failure to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza that would release the more than 100 Israeli hostages who remain under Hamas' control – has one experienced Since the decimation of Hezbollah, its popularity has skyrocketed.

Still, the killing of Nasrallah and his entourage does not necessarily mean the end of Hezbollah or similar groups. As Robin Lustig, a former longtime Middle East correspondent, noted on his Substack on Monday, Nasrallah became Hezbollah's leader after his predecessor Abbas al-Musawi was killed in an Israeli airstrike. Similarly, Yahya Sinwar became the leader of Hamas after Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a bomb planted by Israel. Even further back, Ahmed Yassin, who founded Hamas in 1987, was killed by an Israeli rocket attack in 2004, followed by Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, who was killed by another Israeli rocket two weeks later.

“Israel has a long history of murdering its opponents,” Lustig wrote. “Whether it is a policy that has reduced threats to the country’s security is, in my view, questionable.”

The prime minister is seeking “total victory” in his wars – north and south – to remain in power. The temptation is clear, but so are the risks terrible.