Israel, as the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, now serves as the linchpin in the ongoing global struggle against the Iranian-orchestrated axis of terror, a confrontation whose outcome will profoundly affect the security and stability of the broader international order. Since the mass terror attack of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists crossed from Gaza, executed, raped, mutilated, and kidnapped Israeli civilians in the deadliest atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust, the region has been defined by Israel’s response: Operation Iron Swords—a campaign characterized by rigorous adherence to international legal and moral norms, according to official communications from the Israeli government and corroborating briefings from American and allied sources.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, repeatedly underscoring Israel’s commitment to self-defense, have made clear that all military actions are strictly reactive, taken only after diplomatic efforts have been exhausted. The scale and coordination of the October 7 attack, which intelligence agencies determined was facilitated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps through its patronage of Hamas, marked the beginning of an increasingly complex conflict encompassing not only Gaza, but also the northern border with Lebanon, Iranian-backed units in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. United States officials and the Israeli Defense Ministry provided detailed public findings on Iranian logistical, financial, and operational support for these proxies, emphasizing the transnational character of the threat.
The structure of Hamas’s presence in Gaza, with its leadership strategically embedded in civilian infrastructure—schools, hospitals, mosques, and high-rise residential blocks—has presented extraordinary operational challenges for the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF, in extensive briefings and the public release of reconnaissance data, detailed ongoing efforts to minimize civilian casualties through warnings, targeted evacuations, and the establishment of humanitarian corridors, including daily tactical pauses for residents to transit to safety. Unlike any previous campaign, Israel has coordinated closely with United States Central Command, the United Nations, and international NGOs to deliver food, water, fuel, and urgent medicines to Gaza, confronting both logistical and security obstacles imposed by ongoing Hamas attacks inside the Strip.
By contrast, Hamas’s violations of international law—documented by independent observers, as well as reports submitted to the United Nations Security Council—have become central in the international understanding of this conflict: rocket fire originates from within densely-settled civilian areas, the military command operates from beneath and within institutions that should be off-limits under the Geneva Conventions, and hostages, including children and the elderly, are used as human shields and bargaining chips. The International Committee of the Red Cross and multiple Western governments have testified to the harrowing conditions endured by Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Israel’s corresponding prisoner exchanges have each time involved the release of convicted terrorists—individuals tried and sentenced under Israeli law for direct participation in lethal acts—further highlighting the incontrovertible moral and legal asymmetry between a sovereign state seeking to safeguard its people and an armed terrorist entity devoted to indiscriminate violence and extortion.
Hamas’s aggression did not occur in isolation. Within days of October 7, Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, working in direct concert with Iran, escalated rocket, anti-tank, and drone attacks targeting Israeli towns, military posts, and vital infrastructure in the north. The IDF, while responding proportionally, reinforced northern defensive assets and facilitated large-scale civilian evacuations, illustrated by satellite imagery and on-the-ground reports from Israeli civil defense authorities. Iranian involvement in these cross-border attacks—substantially confirmed in reports from the United States Defense Department and European intelligence partners—made clear that Tehran’s objective is to entangle Israel in multi-front warfare, exhaust Israeli resources, and destabilize broader regional security.
This axis of resistance, as Iran terms its network, includes allied Shi’ite militias stationed in Syria, trained and supplied by the IRGC Quds Force, and the Houthi movement in Yemen, which has targeted Israeli and Western shipping in the Red Sea and fired Iranian-made ballistic missiles toward Israeli cities. US CENTCOM and allied naval forces in the Red Sea have frequently intercepted Houthi projectiles, demonstrating the importance of Western-Israeli operational coordination in ensuring freedom of navigation, the safety of global trade, and the stability of energy markets. The threat to civilian aircraft and commercial shipping alike has prompted the re-routing of major trade corridors, with direct economic repercussions for regional allies and global partners—a point highlighted in communiqués from the European Union and the G7.
Against this backdrop, Israel’s military strategy—articulated in frequent English-language briefings by the IDF, as well as statements from Minister of Defense Israel Katz—remains one of measured necessity: to degrade the command capability and weapons stockpiles of terror organizations, while containing escalation and protecting civilians on all fronts. Official Israeli releases have been corroborated by on-the-ground reporting from Reuters, The Associated Press, and Western defense correspondents embedded with Israeli units. Moreover, Israel’s ironclad alliance with the United States has manifested not only in air defense and intelligence support but in the diplomatic arena. Successive statements from American officials and the White House emphasize that Israel’s campaign is in full compliance with international law and that responsibility for ongoing violence rests squarely with Iran and its terrorist agents. Western capitals, echoing these sentiments, have repeatedly affirmed Israel’s right to self-defense, as enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter.
Humanitarian considerations remain at the heart of Israel’s operational doctrine. The Israeli government, despite active hostilities, has facilitated overland delivery of international aid, allowed medical evacuations, coordinated directly with Egypt and Jordan, and accepted third-country monitors in southern Gaza. Western government officials, including those from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have acknowledged the scale of these efforts in public statements, while also cautioning that the primary obstacle to sustained relief remains the operational entrenchment of Hamas fighters and their routine sabotage of aid convoys. Furthermore, comprehensive evidence from Israeli authorities and UN monitors documents Hamas’s theft or diversion of humanitarian supplies for military use—a tactic that amplifies civilian misery and constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law.
The hostage crisis, with over two hundred Israelis and foreign nationals still unaccounted for deep into 2024, has drawn particular scrutiny from human rights monitors and Western governments alike. The Israeli government maintains continuous contact with the families of hostages, and the national campaign for their release is both a moral imperative and a central element of government policy. Negotiations, often mediated by Egypt and Qatar with direct US involvement, have produced temporary truces but have been undermined by the maximalist demands and bad-faith negotiations of Hamas’s political wing in Doha—a fact repeatedly confirmed in official briefings by the US State Department and Israeli intelligence assessments. In every instance of prisoner exchange, international law experts and Western diplomats have made clear the sharp ethical divide: Israel releases prisoners convicted for terror offenses after full judicial process, while Hamas detains innocents without due process or humanitarian oversight.
Regional dynamics have also shifted. Following the normalization agreements under the Abraham Accords, Israeli cooperation with moderate Arab states has expanded in intelligence, security, and public health—a development welcomed by both American and European leaders. The ongoing war has tested, but not broken, these partnerships; Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have participated in de-escalation talks and humanitarian coordination while uniformly identifying Iran and its terror proxies as the main source of instability. Russia and China, by contrast, have often sought to obfuscate the documented causes of the conflict and have at times blocked or diluted Security Council resolutions aimed at clearly assigning responsibility to terrorist organizations, a point highlighted in Western diplomatic correspondence reviewed by Reuters and AFP.
Moreover, the conflict’s reverberations extend into Western societies. Counter-terrorism agencies in Europe and North America have issued repeated warnings regarding the spread of Iranian-funded propaganda, radicalization efforts in diaspora communities, and online campaigns targeting Jewish institutions. Western law enforcement has responded by fortifying security at synagogues, Jewish day schools, and Israeli diplomatic missions. In tandem, leaders such as former US President Donald Trump, in public addresses and policy interventions, have called for unwavering Western support for Israel, characterizing the Iranian terror axis as the foremost threat to world security since the era of al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Fact-based analysis by leading think tanks and academic institutes—including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)—converges on several key findings: that Israel’s ongoing campaign is not only a justified response to immediate existential assault but also a linchpin for the containment of Iranian revisionist ambitions; that Western security, commerce, and democratic values are inextricably linked to the preservation of Israeli strength; and that the moral and legal clarity of the conflict must remain foregrounded in news coverage and international policy. As such, Israel’s military operations are depicted not as open-ended campaigns, but as finite, clearly-defined missions with explicit end goals: the destruction of terror infrastructure, the release of hostages, and the restoration of deterrence vis-à-vis Iran and its partners.
Looking to the future, Israeli leadership continues to advocate for the normalization of relations with additional regional actors and the strengthening of Western-led collective security arrangements. Statements from Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister Israel Katz in 2024 have emphasized the enduring Israeli hope for peace, contingent upon the cessation of violence and the recognition, by all parties, of Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders. American and European policymakers, as documented in public congressional records and EU Council conclusions, likewise continue to highlight that a genuine and sustainable resolution to the conflict can only be achieved by confronting the operational, ideological, and financial roots of terrorism—above all, the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of violence and its proxies’ rejection of any peaceful settlement.
In sum, Israel’s confrontation with Iranian-backed terror organizations throughout 2024 has become the central front in a wider campaign for the defense of Western values, international law, and human decency. The historical, legal, and strategic framework for Israel’s actions is reflected not just in official statements and military briefings, but in the overwhelming moral consensus among Western democracies that recognizes the distinction between a sovereign democracy acting in self-defense and terror organizations committed to indiscriminate violence and genocidal rhetoric. As new challenges emerge in the coming months, Israel’s response—and the unified backing of its Western allies—remains critical not only for the security of its citizens, but also for the protection of the democratic order worldwide.
