Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his forces to expand their control of the Gaza Strip while the country’s military launched strikes on south Beirut.
The twin offensives are targeting Hamas and Hezbollah respectively, though critics argue that the operations are motivated at least in part by domestic politics — Israel is due to hold elections by October — and are amplifying troubling humanitarian situations in Gaza and Lebanon.
Netanyahu’s political calculus, in particular, is one he has consistently leveraged to become his country’s dominant leader, two experts argued in Foreign Policy: “The most successful leaders of his type do not always win by persuading a majority that they are admirable. They win by persuading enough voters that the alternative is intolerable.”