This commentary considers the state of the West Asian regional resistance in July 2025, based on these premises:
– The Zionist regime is the central enemy of the independent peoples of the region,
– Resistance is necessary for the survival of the Palestinian people and for that of the surrounding independent Arab and Muslim peoples.
– While Israeli weaknesses have been exposed, especially its dependence on outside weapons and money, a crushing military defeat is necessary to collapse the regime.
– While extremely courageous and steadfast, the Resistance in Palestine is unable – by itself – to impose such a defeat and so dismantle Israeli apartheid.
– International support is necessary to legitimise such a defeat and dismantle the Jewish supremacist / apartheid regime, the mother of all great crimes.
– The self defence provisions of the UN Charter (Art 51) are important but provide insufficient rationale for concerted and effective resistance action.
– Iran, in concert with regional resistance forces, is capable of imposing a crushing military defeat on the Zionist regime, and thus force regime change.
But what is the current state of Resistance forces, after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, the collapse of independent Syria and the ongoing attacks on Lebanon and Iran?
A note on method:
These observations are based on the public record plus conversations with people in the region, including Resistance figures, plus site visits in Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Beirut and South Lebanon.
The rapidly changing security environment in West Asia, alongside the desirability of sharing timely perspectives, in between Round One (13-25 June) and an expected Round Two (perhaps September 2025) of fighting between “Israel” and Iran, has led to this rushed and abbreviated method, in point form and with limited referencing.
The perspectives and provisional conclusions are those of the author.
Palestine since October 2023
The Al-Aqsa Flood operation was a brilliant resistance initiative which galvanised the region and the world; reprisal massacres of civilians by the Israelis destroyed their image, despite all the doublespeak; the Israeli military was left utterly dependent on outside support.
While the Israelis had provided special treatment to Hamas in the past, to foment a sectarian split with Fatah, Hamas has moved from its Muslim Brotherhood sectarian phase to full alignment with Resistance forces in Gaza and in the region.
It is not true that the Israelis created Hamas, nor that they knew in advance of ‘Al-Aqsa flood’; they knew of training but not of the timing, scope or audacity of the operation.
The open Gaza genocide (classical fascist reprisals against a civilian population) galvanised the world against the colonisers, only intransigent Western and Arab elites still back the regime. Constant Resistance in Gaza persists, despite the ongoing Zionist holocaust.
A key internal problem is the Palestinian Authority, which collaborates to repress resistance and maintain the deceptive ‘two states’ illusion – a cover for ongoing colonisation and apartheid. Nevertheless, armed groups associated with Fatah form part of the resistance.
Gaza resistance forces continue to impose heavy casualties on the Israelis (Fabian 2025). Though the resistance cannot be eliminated yet, its actions are insufficient, in themselves, to impose a final defeat on the NATO backed Israeli military.
Within Palestine, several resistance factions remain active, and the constant Israeli crimes help in recruiting the next generation. US sources say the Israelis may have killed about 15,000 Hamas fighters, but that a similar number of young recruits joined.
While the al-Qassam brigades (of Hamas) has been the leading faction in Gaza, a coalition of groups remains active. Under #ResistanceOps, Iran’s Press TV listed the daily activities of these groups from October 2023 until the “ceasefire” of January 2025.
As well as al-Qassam, the other main active groups in Gaza have been the al-Quds brigade (of Palestinian Islamic Jihad), the al-Aqsa Martyrs and al-Asifah (both armed wings of Fatah), the Abu Ali Mustafa brigades (of the PFLP) and several other smaller groups.
Press TV has also listed Palestinian Resistance actions in the West Bank as well as “Axis of Resistance” actions against the Israelis, which have included those from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen and the Iraqi PMFs.
The courage and steadfastness of these young Palestinian fighters is extraordinary. They are the ones who woke the conscience of the world and of their regional partners.
As at July 2025, the Gaza Resistance keeps striking the Israeli invaders in Gaza, causing many casualties, but never enough – by themselves – to impose a crushing defeat on the Israeli occupation. This is why the regional Resistance remains so important.
Lebanon since October 2023
From October 2023 to November 2024, Hezbollah carried out courageous attacks on Israeli positions in South Lebanon and north Palestine, diverting Israeli forces from Gaza to the north, clearing most of the colonial settlements in northern Palestine, but losing at least 300 fighters from Israeli retaliation.
In September 2024, the Israelis carried out terrorist attacks in Lebanon, using exploding pagers, and bombing South Lebanon villages and south Beirut, where they killed Hezbollah commanders, including Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on September 27.
On October 1, 2024, Israeli forces tried an invasion of South Lebanon, but fierce Resistance in the south meant they could not capture a single village; defending just the village of Khiam (for example) cost more than 300 martyrs; the resistance effort in the South was not just from the two Lebanese Shia parties (Hezbollah and Amal), but many Palestinian factions joined in and suffered losses as wekk.
The Israelis penetrated Hezbollah communications for their assassinations, and detected weapons caches; they destroyed much of Hezbollah’s missile stocks.
With the invasion failing, the Israelis agreed to a ceasefire on November 27 (between the Lebanese government and the Israelis), including a Lebanese pledge to allow only the Lebanese army (which had never engaged the Israeli enemy) in the South; however, the Israelis have repeatedly violated this ceasefire agreement.
Hezbollah, on the other hand, refrained from responding to Israeli aggression after the ceasefire and has concentrated on rebuilding its networks and supply chains.
The Resistance defended the south, albeit at great cost, while the Israelis bombed Beirut freely, in the absence of any air defence; several thousand Lebanese were killed, mostly civilians (and with many more injured and displaced), compared to only 100 Israeli soldier deaths (plus 900 injured).
The Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah, prevented the October-November 2024 Israeli invasion of South Lebanon, yet was seriously weakened by aerial attacks.
We could speak of the performance of the Lebanese Resistance in three sections:
In gains, they:
- Distracted the Israeli military from Gaza and cleared most of the northern settlements
- Reasserted their moral standing (in support for Gaza and in Shia-Sunni Muslim solidarity)
- Maintained their strong, core popular support base.
In losses they:
- Suffered some weakened domestic standing by “inviting” Israeli reprisals;
- Lost much of their leadership, many fighters and many of their weapons;
- Suffered huge civilian and residential losses and damage from the Israeli bombing;
- Suffered weakened deterrence, with no effective air defence of Beirut or South Lebanon.
- Lost independent Syria as a source of supply after the collapse of Damascus.
The challenges they face include:
- The need to rebuild leadership, security and military capacity,
- The need to develop a national air defence capability;
- The need to consolidate Hezbollah’s domestic political standing while rejecting Israeli and US disarmament demands.
- A need to face threatened aggression from foreign militants embedded in HTS-led Syria.
In the current situation, the Lebanese Army (which from its US and French patronage has always has not confronted Israeli invaders) is being tested in its role to defend the south, while Israeli occupation, assassinations and home demolitions continue. For Hezbollah, rebuilding is proceeding quietly with new security systems.
Syria since October 2023
In early December 2024, just after the ceasefire in Lebanon, an invasion of NATO backed terrorist groups from Idlib and Turkey (let by HTS-Nusra) rapidly took over the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs and then Damascus, facing a near complete surrender of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA).
This unexpected and rapid collapse of the SAA seems to have come from the purchase of a large number of Syrian commanders by the Qatari-Turkish side. It was soon followed by an Israeli invasion of the south and bombing of key defence installations.
The collapse of the majority of the SAA command was not along sectarian lines, as Sunni generals and those from the minorities appear on both sides. The traitors mostly remain in Syria, reportedly assisting the HTS regime from two bases, a luxury hotel in Damascus and from the village of Draykish, Tartous.
Russia intervened to remove the minority loyal commanders to Moscow, where (as with former President Assad) they remain; Russia rarely intervened in post-coup Syria.
Persecution of minority groups (especially the Alawis) and those associated with the SAA began immediately, but has been ignored by the Western sponsors of the HTS coup regime.
There are many rumours in Syria about how the SAA collapse occurred. Amongst the Syrian patriots (all of whom supported the SAA) there are some loyal to Assad who say he was kidnapped or betrayed, others say he was a traitor to leave without a word and to not stay and fight to the end.
There are also bad feelings towards the Russians, because they were seen to have the capacity to stop the HTS takeover, did not help resolve the occupation of Idlib (after a ceasefire which they organised in 2020) and, later, because they did not stop the biggest massacres which took place in Jableh, very close to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase.
However, from what I have heard, it seems that the fix was made by Syria’s enemies in Qatar and Turkey, and then Russia was faced with a ‘fait accompli’. With the command corrupted and the SAA dissolved, Russia then removed the loyal commanders (to Russia) and tried to protect its assets in Syria. I am fairly sure that Russia and Iran both concluded that, if the SAA would not defend Syria, they could not do it for them.
Many soldiers in the SAA would have fought (as they had for the previous 14 years), but, as a disciplined force and with their command corrupted, they dissolved.
After a one day resistance uprising on the coast, large scale reprisal massacres of the Alawi civilian community (in early March 2025) were carried out by gangs under the HTS umbrella.
Soon after, there were attacks on Druze and Christians.
HTS aligned gangs, pretending to represent Arab tribes, attacked majority Druze Sweida in July 2025. Hundreds were killed, but the Druze in Sweida resisted. The Israelis carried out some bombing of HTS bases and convoys in an attempt to portray themselves as the guardians and protectors of the Druze, but their masters in Washington persuaded the Israelis to disengage. The Western media falsely portrayed these attacks as tribal conflicts between Bedouin and Druze which the HTS was trying to resolve. HTS (which, despite its jihadist propaganda, had never attacked the Israelis) used false flag killings to fuel this disinformation, as they had throughout the long dirty war (2011-2024).
There is Syrian resistance, but it is weak and divided. The Alawis, who have suffered most, have no real leadership and are intimidated by the reprisals against civilians. The Druze are small and isolated. The Christians have suffered less, so far, except for the June 2025 suicide bomb attack on a church in Dwel’a (SE Damascus).
Washington’s claim to have been engaged in a “war on terror” has been exposed by its informal but open celebration of former ISIS /Nusra/HTS leader Jolani (al-Sharaa), installed as unelected President.
In the current situation, there is no effective Syrian state, and little prospect of an organised resistance to HTS/AlQaeda rule. No state yet recognises the Jolani regime, but Western governments are engaged in a de facto normalisation process. Syria’s role as a source of arms and other support for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance has been neutralised, for now.
Yemen since October 2023
Soon after effectively defeating the US-Saudi-Emirati led ‘coalition of aggression’ in the 2015-2022 war, the Ansar Allah led revolutionary government in Sanaa, which controls 75% of the populated areas of Yemen (but is called ‘Houthi rebels’ by the Western media) decided to come to the aid the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza; they saw this as a moral obligation.
The Red Sea operations of the Yemeni Armed Forces, from late 2023, which had demonstrable mass support in Yemen, were designed to impose a quarantine on the Israeli regime, in accordance with their Quranic moral duty to help the oppressed and to comply with their legal obligations under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The Yemeni naval quarantine forced Israeli linked shipping to avoid the Red Sea and, after some months, forced the retreat of a US naval counter force.
Ansar Allah officials have also confirmed (to this writer) that they felt their responsibility for the regional Resistance (and to Palestine) had ‘doubled’ since the fall of Damascus.
The Israelis keep bombing infrastructure and facilities in Yemen but, due to their poor intelligence and Yemeni air defence, have made minimal impact on Yemen’s military assets;
Yemen retaliates, striking the Israelis directly with domestically produced drones and hypersonic missiles.
In the current situation, Yemen maintains its operations in support of the Palestinian people and keeps communications with Iranian forces and Resistance groups in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, ready to coordinate in a regional response to the Zionist enemy.
Iraq since October 2023
Iraq remains occupied by the US military, ever since they called out for assistance in 2014 (after a surge of US backed ISIS terrorism), in a moment of weakness. US occupation troops had previously withdrawn in 2011, but then they pretended to be “fighting ISIS”.
As it happened, ISIS was defeated in Iraq by the popular mobilisation forces (PMF) assisted by Iran. On many occasions, the Iraqi resistance blamed the US military for obstructing this fight and covertly helping ISIS.
Some of the PMF (mostly Shia but also from Sunni communities) are now formally part of the Iraqi state security forces, while some other groups remain outside, yet still working closely with the state; that latter group has occasionally attacked US occupation bases in Iraq and Syria.
Over 2024, some of the PMF groups launched missile attacks on Israeli facilities, in support of Hezbollah and Yemeni operations.
There is widespread dissatisfaction in Iraq with the continued US occupation, which heavily constrains independent policy; the parliament and government have demanded their withdrawal, but they refuse to leave, falsely claiming an ongoing mandate to fight ISIS.
More recently, Iraqi dissatisfaction focused on Iraqi airspace being used for the Israelis to attack Iran, against Iraq’s will. Some PMF factions stand ready to join with Iran and the Palestinian resistance to help remove the US military presence from the region.
Iran since October 2023
Since the Iranian revolution of 1979, support for the Palestinian people has been set in the “principles of the country’s constitution” and developed through a number of cultural, military and political initiatives.
Iran supports all the Palestinian Resistance factions, the Resistance in Lebanon, the Ansar Allah led government in Yemen and (previously) the Assad government in Syria (which in turn helped arm the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance).
However Iran’s direct engagement against the Israelis has so far only come through a self defence rationale, on three occasions: (1) True Promise 1 in April 2024, after an Israeil attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, (2) True Promise 2 in October 2024, after several Israeli assassinations, including of Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Both these operations were demonstrative, probing Israeli defences and showing Iran’s missile capability.
Operation True Promise 3 was set to happen earlier, but only came about after the sneak Israeli attack on Iran on 13 June (in the middle of Iran’s much hyped indirect nuclear talks with Washington); Iran’s substantial retaliation in this 12 day war targeted Israeli military bases and infrastructure. After 12 days, with Israeli weapons stocks running low, President Trump intervened to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and unilaterally declare a ceasefire; both sides accepted this, and both sides declared victory.
While Tehran did much damage to Israeli military and infrastructure, the Israelis caused more deaths, 1,190 in Iran compared to 28 in “Israel”; yet “Israel” claims Iran ‘targeted civilians’. The Israelis hide their damages but admit that, in the second half of the 12 days war, at least 16% of Iran’s incoming missiles breached Israeli air defences (Silver, Stephen 2025).
Currently, Iran has replaced its damaged air defences, and will respond to a second attack from the Israelis, relying on the self defence right. Tehran needs a wider anti-apartheid mandate to respond (with its allies) with overwhelming force and destroy the Zionist regime. Yet so far, it has sought to contain escalation with Washington, which is likely to intervene in the event of an existential crisis for the Israeli regime.
Overall: The Axis of Resistance since October 2023
The Palestinian resistance has fought bravely since October 2023, despite its limited capabilities and despite the massive reprisals against the civilian population of Gaza and the renewed ethnic cleansing on the West Bank. The resistance has seriously weakened the occupation, but international sponsors keep giving the upper hand to the apartheid regime.
The Gaza genocide continues, fuelling the expansionist ambitions of the NATO backed apartheid regime.
Hezbollah and its allies prevented a wholesale occupation of South Lebanon, but were weakened by aerial bombing; Hezbollah is now quietly rebuilding and resisting demands to disarm.
The regional resistance lost Syria (which contained northern Israeli expansion and provided weapons to Lebanon and Palestine) but gained Yemen (which strikes the Israelis directly and blocks shipping supply to the Zionist regime).
Significant resistance support remains in Iraq but is constrained by the US occupation.
Iran was finally attacked directly by the Israelis (jubilant that they managed to drag the US into their aggression), but that attack unified Iran’s political factions and ensured strong retaliation.
It seems likely that the Israelis, after rebuilding their war inventory, will initiate a second round against Iran, perhaps in September; Iran has also been rebuilding its defences. Iran seems likely to maintain its retaliation on a self defence rationale, yet a new rationale is required to impose a crushing defeat on the Israelis, end the genocide and dismantle the apartheid regime.
Currently (July 2025) the initiative remains with the Israelis, but Iran and its regional allies have the capacity to bring down the Israeli regime.
When this happens, the post-apartheid dilemma will be defeating the rise of a revised “Israel” (i.e. the embedding of colonial privilege, such as land theft and diaspora immigration) by liberal Zionists, their sponsors and the comprador Arab regimes.
source: Al Mayadeen