Lebanon not being able to get rid of Hezbollah makes their problems Israel's problems. More over Lebanon keeps lying about their actions and willingness to take on Hezbollah. They said they had disarmed them south of the Litani river. This turned out to be a complete lie with Lebanon hoping outside powers could force Israel to keep quiet about it and be made to accept the threat against the Northern Command AO.
And that outside pressure is why Israel needs to keep coming back each time, they're not allowed to win decisively. Not by Europe, not by the US, not by Egypt, not by the Gulf States etc. They all need terrorist organizations to survive to keep pressure on and leverage over Israel for their own purposes.
Israel won't be allowed to occupy the strip of borderland for years due to international pressure, so clearing it out to limit shelter, emplacing weapons, providing clear fields of fire for outgoing fire and limiting the systems that Hezbollah can use for incoming fire through range and easier ISR observation as well as providing earlier warning for civilians to take shelter and more time for Iron Dome to intercept projectiles may be considered the best achievable outcome. Effectively creating a demilitarised zone. Ideally also occupying some of the high ground for additional observation posts.
Building a Lebanese state without Hezbollah isn't possible without militarily defeating Hezbollah which isn't an option internationally nor domestically in Israel as it would require a huge effort with large sacrifices. Also as long as the Iranian regime survives Hezbollah will always bounce back. Increased security of the homeland through expanding the buffer zone is the most viable outcome.
That Lebanon has to suffer for that through loss of territory is not Israel's problem. Unf*ck yourself or someone will do it for you. Lebanon doesn’t control it's own territory anyway and is quite ok with that. It sucks for the locals, but they should address their complaints to their own government for not lifting a finger against their Iranian overlords.
Yes, it´s a little bit like the Iranians in Iran who don´t take the "opportunity" to overthrow their government after all this help...heck, they even set the Tehran sewers on fire to help out...If you don´t throw your kitchen knife armed body against a goon with an automatic weapon, there is nothing more we can do.
Where do such things really happen without foreign support such as intel, weapons, organization...
Resistance movements during WWII were organized, weaponized and financed...from abroad...and still they needed an army to free themselves from a tyrannical rule. But you don´t even have to look so much back...Vietnam, Central America, Afghanistan during soviet occupation...all these rebels were always backed. The Iranians are not, neither are the Lebanese. Neither were the other people we invited to stand against their government: the Iraqi Shia in 1991, the Kurds on a regular basis. They sure remember our advice.
Then you can use proxies...at one point Christian militias in Lebanon cooperated with Israel...but I think that all went downhill for various reasons, including the fact that these militias were simply struggling to protect their community and not build a country at a time when it was really impossible.
Wars can come back and don´t always solve everything, but they should have the potential to bring decades of relative peace where things are taken step by step to the next level. The peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan were major outcomes done by brave leaders...I remember that they feared that Sadats plane in Tel Aviv was filled with soldiers who would start firing on the officials at the airport...that´s how bad the confidence level in the Arabs was.
So this "strike, destroy, and leave" war yields short term results...but no real tranquility in the long run for the inhabitants of northern Israel. That´s my opinion anyways.
