Fueling antagonism only intensifies spiral of violence in the Middle East

After the Oct 7 Hamas attacks on Israel last year, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to eliminate the threat of terrorism.

At first, it was a war on Hamas, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage in those attacks. Then, as the war in the Gaza Strip expanded, Israeli offensives have invoked counterattacks from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, militia forces in Iraq, and finally Iran.

As Israeli military operations crossed the one year mark on Monday, there is no sign of the cross fire between the Israel Defense Forces and its regional foes nearing an end. Instead, as Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the United Nations, has warned, the situation threatens to spiral out of control and is now "hanging by a thread".

Netanyahu's insistence on accomplishing his war aims is sinking Israel deeper into a vicious spiral of violent exchanges with hostile neighbors. If there is any lesson worth learning, it is the same old one many have correctly brought up: Violence is not the answer to any country's security concerns, including Israel's.

All the enemies Israel has targeted, from Hamas to Hezbollah and Iran, remain defiant. Ironically for the Israelis, the harder the Netanyahu government pushes to realize its set goals, the more threatened and isolated they are. The more Netanyahu sticks to his guns, the greater the humanitarian disasters being caused — Gaza has become "hell on Earth", as Fu said — and corresponding alienation of Israel within the international community.

Given Israel's unrivalled military strength across the Middle East, many, including Netanyahu and his Cabinet, seem to assume it is only a matter of time and resolve for the country to eliminate the outstanding security threats surrounding it. That is why Netanyahu has defied calls for restraint from his country's closest allies, from the United States to France. That is also why, despite repeated warnings against Israel escalating and expanding the conflicts, the Joe Biden administration has offered persistent support for the Israeli offensives.

Yet, in contrast to Netanyahu's repeated claim to be near to reaching that set goal, the continuously expanding military operations say something very different. After round after round of violent offensives in the Gaza Strip, the IDF seems to be repeating what it has done since October, revealing the simple fact that the overwhelming previous onslaughts didn't work as anticipated. The Israeli military on Saturday warned residents in parts of central Gaza to evacuate. An early Sunday air strike reportedly killed at least 21 people in central Gaza. The IDF's killing of Hamas official Saeed Atallah Ali and his family in a refugee camp in north Lebanon on Saturday is a fresh reminder of how broadly and deeply the militant group is spread and embedded across the region, not just Gaza.

The same is true of Hezbollah and the Israeli campaign against it. After killing its longtime leader, and a couple of his potential successors, the IDF has had to resort to "limited" ground operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Just as the war on Hamas in Gaza has been less than successful, the ground intrusion in Lebanon may not achieve as much as intended.

After all, Israel and Hezbollah and other regional enemies of Israel are still trading fire across the Israeli border. And while the enemies of Israel with target on their backs are eliminated one after another, countless innocent civilian lives are also being extinguished as "collateral damage". As the blaring rocket alert sirens in northern Israel indicate, the military operations have not brought peace, even to Israel.

Not to mention millions have been displaced since Israel launched its first military operations.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned "the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation" on Tuesday, and appealed for the violence to end now.

As China has repeatedly said, a cease-fire is indeed the essential first step toward lasting peace in the region. But until the US stops using Israel as a battering ram to advance its own agenda in the region, an end to the violence seems to be ever more remote.