“Not every objective can be achieved through military means.” Those were the words of Israeli war minister Yoav Gallant on October 28, commenting on Israel’s war on Lebanon. “Painful compromises will have to be made,” he said.

Gallant’s comments came amid Israeli reports of a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon drafted by U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein. However, on Wednesday, the newly elected Secretary General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said in his inauguration speech that talks about a potential deal were “noise without results.” Qassem insisted that Hezbollah’s position is to have a ceasefire first, and then negotiate the details of a lasting agreement.

Nearly a month ago, Gallant’s rhetoric was different. The war minister took pride that Israel had, in his words, “destroyed most of Hezbollah’s infrastructure,” pledging not to stop the war until the Lebanese resistance group’s “full destruction.”

At the time, Israel had assassinated several top-ranking military and political leaders in Hezbollah, including its iconic Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, in the wake of the exploding pager and electronics attacks in mid-September. Israel was at the height of its euphoria, which gave it the confidence to escalate its attacks and launch a ground invasion. Even ten days ago, Gallant was saying that Israel had moved from “the phase of defeating Hezbollah to the phase of destroying it.” But Gallant’s tone would shift in a matter of days.

What happened in the interim was that Hezbollah regrouped and redoubled its military efforts in repelling the Israeli onslaught. Instead of collapsing after the assassination of its entire top military echelon, rocket fire from Lebanon increased in intensity and destructive capacity, challenging Israeli claims that the majority of Hezbollah’s arsenal had been destroyed or disabled. Haifa came under fire, as well as Akka and the northern suburbs of Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence in Caesarea was also struck by a drone while he was absent from his house.

Israel started its ground invasion of Lebanon in the first week of October, officially aiming to clear southern Lebanon of Hezbollah’s presence and create a buffer........

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