Yes, they usually do it slowly to avoid suspicion but when the situation is convenient they go ahead and take a big bite out of Palestine.

That's how they have been operating, even before the establishment of Israel:

Before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War broke out, the Carmeli Brigade's 21 Battalion commander had repeatedly damaged the Al-Kabri aqueduct that furnished Acre with water, and when Arab repairs managed to restore water supply, then resorted to pouring flasks of typhoid and dysentery bacteria into the aqueduct, as part of a biological warfare programme. At some time in late April or early May 1948, - Jewish forces had cut the town's electricity supply responsible for pumping water - a typhoid epidemic broke out. Israeli officials later credited the facility with which they conquered the town in part to the effects of the demoralization induced by the epidemic.[54]

Israel's Carmeli forces attacked on May 16 and, after an ultimatum was delivered that, unless the inhabitants surrendered, 'we will destroy you to the last man and utterly,'[55] the town notables signed an instrument of surrender on the night between 17–18 May 1948. 60 bodies were found and about three-quarters of the Arab population of the city (13,510 of 17,395) were displaced.[56]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acre,_Israel#1948_Palestine_War

It is evident that that is their modus operandi because now Gaza's water system is destroyed, and I suspect they will take Gaza just like they took Akka.

Israel taking over Palestine has been the plan since the beginning, as the founding fathers of Israel themselves announced:

Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewed the acceptance of the [United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine] as a tactical step and a stepping stone to future territorial expansion over all of Palestine.

Then they started.

Between 1947 and 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians from a 1.9 million population were made refugees beyond the borders of the state. Zionist forces had taken more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, ethnically cleansed and destroyed about 530 villages and cities, and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in a series of mass atrocities, including more than 70 massacres.

All the theatrics about Israel's right to defend itself etc. are just cover for the long history of horrible crimes and human rights violations Israel has perpetrated (and continues to perpetrate). There is a reason that people are mad at Israel, and it has nothing to do with being Jewish.

So yea, Israel is going to continue overtaking Palestine, unless they start being held to international law like everyone else. Germany and USA impede on that process, but hopefully the rule of law will triumph because

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

The Israeli government has no idea what it is doing. Literally. The current government was a barely held together coalition prior to October 7. In the direct aftermath, they formed a unity government and war cabinet that collapsed last week.

Their prime minister has been indicated on corruption and bribertmy charges, which are currently on hold for obvious reasons. By most indications his primary motivation in this matter is to stay in power himself, with Israel's national interests being secondary.

Individual members of IDF leadership have called Israel's stated objectives "unachievable".

Israel simultaneously wants to live in peace as a liberal Jewish state without commiting any form of ethnic clensing; and achieve its manifest destiny of establishing a Jewish theocracy across Judea and Samaria.

These are deep questions that get to the core of what Israel is and stands for. Questions that are to be answered by the Israeli constitution in the 50s. That never happened because Israel was never able to agree on a constitution [0].

Right now, Israel is just reacting, without any long term strategic vision. Various factions are trying to use that chaos to advance their own long term vision.

[0] Which led to the big judicial reform constitutional crisis that was a giant political crisis before October.

This may not be a popular response but when did the nazi regime stop? When did China stop with it's cleansing? America and manifest destiny? I could go on... Humanity needs to realize that we are pretty shitty in general and can't be trusted when it comes to hatred, entitlement, and tribalism.

The solution is a neutral third party with sufficient power to stop any country's bullshit through economic and military (actual) peacekeeping... which doesn't exist nor will it ever.

So the short answer is they will stop when the cleansing is complete.

After the deed is done we as 'civilized' nations will lament the tragedy and promise change... until the media cycle washes all those sins down the drain and it will be forgotten until next time.

Well, yeah. That's the idea. Why would they go this far and not go all the way? They know damn good and well that as long as they keep things just barely on the end where genocide isn't stated as a goal, and they maintain a position of alliance with most of the west, nobody is going to actually stop them.

Hell, without starting a world war, I'm not even sure they can be stopped.

On the world stage? There aren't enough nations with power that actually care about Palestine. Yeah, leaders will make noise and pretend to care, but Palestine offers nothing to the major powers worth intervening for.

Sounds sociopathic, right? That's the leaders of most of the world. People drawn to power rarely have the ethical rigor to wield said power. Those that do, still have to deal with oligopoly, hidden fascists, and the reality that no nation can really take action without upsetting the whole damn thing.

Yeah - it’s about regional control, and defensive positions.

This comment is sort of a continuation of this one, but not exactly. (Sorry about the link to my instance, I’m new and don’t know how to do the thing.)

The U.S. has long needed a bully in the area to prevent the Middle East from being too unified, so the west can get relatively inexpensive access to its oil.

The state of play right now is that the U.S. actually produces enough petroleum for its own needs, but our western allies do not, and supplying them with enough oil will raise the cost to an unacceptable level/a level where they’ll have to channel money to the Middle East (which hates the U.S. for its meddling, or to Russia, which also hates the U.S.)

In about 10-15 years, technology and renewables will advance to a point where oil demand is going to have decreased to the point where the U.S. can supply all of its needs and those of its western allies without jacking the price up.

That means the U.S. won’t need a bully. But it will mean that the U.S. will cut funding to Israel, and more or less stop coming to their defense. Israel’s plan is to push out every non-Jew, using Zionism as an excuse for awful statecraft, and they’re going to push their borders to easily defensible geographic areas.
Once they do that, they’re going to basically become North Korea of the Middle East - armed to the teeth and hard to get into. Because if they don’t, everyone they’ve been bullying for the past hundred years (yes, this started before the declaration of statehood), is going to wipe them from the map - potentially leading to them launching the nukes they keep pretending they don’t have, so they don’t have to undergo international monitoring.

Assuming, of course, the plot by other countries to destabilize the U.S. fails and U.S. is still major player by the time Israel’s plan is accomplished. If the destabilization effort succeeds, we may see a full scale war against Israel before their aims are achieved.

That’s my take on it, anyway. They won’t stop because they don’t think they can stop, due to how horrible they’ve been. (At the behest of the U.S., who will begin dropping them once their usefulness has ended.)

Sorry, meant to reply to a Zionist comment justifying the Genocide. My sincere apologies.

To actually answer the question:

The war with Hezbollah is in my opinion likely. It has popular support among the Israelis and Netenyahu has been doing whatever to stave off an election. It'll still be an enormously costly war which will fill people with regret a couple of months after starting it.

There's another angle where he'll say "If you vote for me I'll get rid of Hezbollah once and for all like I did with Hamas" and then delay until he can say "Circumstances have changed" which I think is a better move.

PLEASE ASSUME EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE IS OUT OF CONTEXT AND MEANT AS A RESPONSE TO A GENOCIDAL ZIONIST BECAUSE I'M AN IDIOT

What kind of bubble do you live in? If you take 2 million people, close their airspace, ports and land borders they're not going to be happy.

On top of that Israel does the following:

• imprison kids for throwing rocks at soldiers wearing armor
• take people's houses, most recently in Sheikh Jarrah
• Ban farmers from using water, promise water from other sources and don't deliver.
• Close West Bank Airport
• Settle lands in he West Bank.
• Make Palestinians go to Military court with 99% conviction rate instead of a civil court.
• Administrative detetention without giving any reason. (Because classified)
• Withold evidence from courts that's used to convict them. (Because classified)
• Settlements are both within the 1948 borders and even within the Olso accord Green line.
• Beat people up and throw tear gas that go play at Al-Aqsa mosque.
• Don't convict any settlers of violence.
• Fondle women at check points when they open the trunk of their cars.
• Limit imports to single item per pallet.
• Limit work visas.
• Limit family reunification as a way to immigrate across the border.
• Random checkpoints that destroy tourism such as in Jericho.
• Open policy of disproportial response to every reaction the Palestinians have.
• Raid refugee camps and destroy their roads like in Jenin.
• Kill journalists that cover the story such as Shireen Abu Akleh
• Don't even convict the murdered because he was a soldier.
• Oh and kill/wound 5% of Gaza, half of which are children, for good measure.

When people are suffocating because someone has their foot on their throat they react. Nobody should be surprised that Oct 7 happened. Especially after Israel was warned many times that they would do something if they continue raiding one of the holiest sites in Islam.

For decades, Israel and the US (and European countries) have pursued a policy to destabilize middle eastern regimes.

People don't realize this, but there was a wave of Arab nationalism that was killed by sponsoring Islamic extremists. Had that not happened, the middle east would be much more secular today than it is.

Israel attacking and destabilizing Lebanon and Syria and the US maintaining a dictator in Egypt are part of this strategy.

In turn, this leads to hate towards the West and Israel by the Muslims affected.

It won't stop as long as American voters care much more about gas prices than about human rights. American politicians are willing to sponsor genocide to have some control on oil prices in order to win elections.

As longs as inertia prevails in the world stage, sadly, I don’t see a near term future where a light might shine in the end of the tunnel for Palestine’s future.

But if it serves a consolation, simmering tensions are purging therein the Netanyahu’s regime. His close allies aren’t aligned with the PM’s vision of the plausibility of defeat of Hamas (as if the Israel’s anger agains Palestine had anything to do with Hamas; it’s was a fallacious pretext).