Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa's motorcade comes under fire in Ecuador
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Lebanon: Israeli quadcopter drops two shells on cafe in Houla town in South Lebanon
Informed source to Al Mayadeen: SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi demands that al-Sharaa approve the establishment of an autonomous region similar to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Israeli media: Three drones launched from Yemen toward Eilat in span of 20 minutes.
Qatari Foreign Ministry: "Israel" should have already ceased fire under Trump plan for Gaza
Qatari Foreign Ministry: Release of Israeli captives will mark end of war in Gaza in accordance with Trump plan.
Israeli media: Security incident in Gaza Strip classified as serious results in six wounded soldiers so far, two critically injured.
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in South Lebanon: Israeli drone strike targets vehicle in Deir Ames, Tyre governorate.
Lebanese Ministry of Health: Final toll from airstrike on car in Zebdine, Nabatieh District: Two martyrs, four injured
Egyptian media: Indirect talks between Hamas and Israelis begin in Sharm el-Sheikh.

A Coherent Regional Approach: Two Years That Rewired the Middle East

  • Amro Allan Amro Allan
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • Today 00:17
5 Min Read

Two years after Al-Aqsa Flood, Gaza endures, Hezbollah adapts, and Iran stands firm as Trump’s plan tests a region trapped between war and uneasy pauses.

Listen
  • x
  • A Coherent Regional Approach: Two Years That Rewired the Middle East
    Barring an unforeseen break, the trajectory will persist until one camp secures a strategic victory (Illustrated by Mahdi Rteil to Al Mayadeen English)

Two years on from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood (7 October 2023), which detonated the current Gaza war, the region has undergone convulsions that continue to reverberate. The year since the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (27 September 2024) has been especially consequential, not least for the movement’s internal recalibration and for the balance within the wider Axis of Resistance. The landscape has shifted again in 2025 with a 12-day “Israel”–Iran war in June, and, most recently, President Donald Trump’s twenty-point initiative that aims to end the Gaza war through staged withdrawals and a large hostage-prisoner exchange.

After Nasrallah: Shock, Adaptation, and Strategic Intent

The targeting of Sayyed Nasrallah, long the axis’s most recognizable strategist and public voice, was designed to fracture Hezbollah’s command system and political confidence. That did not occur. The party’s doctrinal resilience, deep bench of senior cadres, and external anchor in Iran enabled it to absorb the shock and re-constitute command channels, while keeping its operational tempo deliberately opaque. The assassination also forced a political reset inside Lebanon, where Hezbollah has signaled recovery without telegraphing the pace or shape of its military reorganization.

What the Axis Is, and Is Not

Despite frequent caricature, the “Axis of Resistance” is not a single, centralized operations room. It is a strategic alignment among movements and states that read the Israeli–American project as the primary regional threat and source of instability. The alignment’s logic has hardened in the wake of the Abraham Accords (2020) and continuing talk in Israeli and US politics of “reshaping the Middle East,” a motif that periodically reappears in official rhetoric.

Related News

Grains for Humanity

Israeli seizure of social media is a declaration of defeat

The June 2025 “Israel”–Iran War: A Fragile Pause

The twelve-day confrontation in June 2025 did not achieve regime change in Iran nor eliminate its core programs, but it raised the ceiling of direct engagement and expanded the geography of risk. The fighting ended without a formal ceasefire and with only an informal pause, leaving miscalculation highly likely absent robust de-escalation channels. Any subsequent “de-confliction packages” should be read, at best, as temporary palliatives.

Gaza: Trump’s Plan Meets Hamas’s Calculus

Washington’s latest initiative, a 20-point plan combining a large-scale hostage–prisoner exchange with phased Israeli withdrawals inside Gaza, has moved negotiations into a new phase. Reporting indicates Hamas has signaled conditional acceptance of core elements (exchange plus staged withdrawal), while refusing others, such as measures amounting to external tutelage over Gaza or pre-agreed disarmament without a broader political settlement. “Israel” has publicly tied any deal to the disarmament of Hamas, with talks shuttling through Cairo.

Operationally, “Israeli” captives have become a tactical burden for the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in protracted urban fighting; conversely, their survival is a political imperative for “Israel”. Completing an exchange now serves two aims for the resistance: (1) securing the maximum release of Palestinian prisoners while leverage remains highest; and (2) reducing pressure on combat units to re-task for any renewed campaign.

For “Israel”, a staged withdrawal that stabilizes lines and returns captives would be presented as a strategic reset pending whatever governance formula emerges for “the day after.”

Where Is the "Flood" Heading?

To call Al-Aqsa Flood a “strategic earthquake” is to view it as a process rather than an episode. Israeli Prime Ministerial rhetoric about “changing the Middle East” sits alongside an operational reality: “Israel” has not secured decisive outcomes in Gaza or Lebanon, even after extensive campaigns, leadership decapitations, and escalatory gambits. Three countervailing facts explain the stalemate so far:

⁃ Gaza’s endurance, militarily and societally, amid unprecedented destruction, coupled with Hamas’s political agility at the table;
⁃ Hezbollah’s shock-absorption and gradual recovery after September 2024;
⁃ Iran’s cohesion and its weathering of the June war without conceding strategic essentials.

“Israel’s” principal constraint is visible in the compulsory path now imposed by the conflict’s dynamics: it can continue to apply pressure at significant human and material cost, but cannot yet reach the threshold of decisive transformation required to lock in a “new Middle East.” The same constraint applies to external sponsors when diplomatic frameworks are used to launder military stalemates into political “resets.”

Necessary Conclusion

We are not at “the end of beginnings” but at “the beginning of endings.” Barring an unforeseen break, the trajectory will persist until one camp secures a strategic victory. The outcome turns on whether the axis can convert attrition plus political maneuver into cumulative advantage, and on whether the “Israeli”–American project can impose a durable post-war architecture, rather than episodic pauses, in Gaza and beyond. The weeks ahead, hostage exchanges, line stabilization inside Gaza, and any follow-on track with Lebanon, will test that proposition.

 

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • Palestine
  • Hezbollah
  • Lebanon
  • Gaza
  • Iran
Amro Allan

Amro Allan

Palestinian writer and researcher

Most Read

All
Charlie Kirk Murder Mysteries Multiply

Charlie Kirk Murder Mysteries Multiply

  • Analysis
  • 26 Sep 2025
From the beginning, GB News has been a Zionist asset. Is there any part of UK society that is not infiltrated and colonised by the Zionist movement? (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Reform UK, GB News and the Zionist infiltration of the British far right

  • Opinion
  • 28 Sep 2025
Barrack explicitly asserted that the US is supplying the Lebanese army to fight its own people, even laughing at the idea that this support is intended to confront "Israel". (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Why the US is so open about its intentions for Lebanese civil war

  • Opinion
  • 30 Sep 2025
There is a great uncertainty over how the president will use the remaining three years of his term, to say nothing about his prospects for re-election. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Iranian opponents of diplomacy have definitively won the debate

  • Opinion
  • 4 Oct 2025

Coverage

All
The Ummah's Martyrs

More from this writer

All
Trump’s Gaza Proposal Isn’t a Peace Plan, It Repackages the War

Trump’s Gaza Proposal Isn’t a Peace Plan, It Repackages the War

Manufactured Reach, Real Resistance: Gaza’s Attrition and the Fall of a Myth

Manufactured Reach, Real Resistance: Gaza’s Attrition and the Fall of a Myth

For now, Tehran waits in silence, but it waits on its own terms. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Ceasefire without terms: Iran’s strategic deterrence in shadow of 9,379 kg

Decoding Iran’s strategy in current war

Decoding Iran’s strategy in current war

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS