Gabriel Colodro’s interview with Sarit Zehavi reads like a warning siren dressed as strategy. In this sharp report for The Media Line, Colodro shows Zehavi arguing that Israel’s fight in Lebanon cannot be reduced to another short ceasefire or another round of familiar diplomatic language. For her, the real issue is whether Hezbollah can be pushed far enough back—and weakened deeply enough—that northern Israel is no longer living on borrowed time.
Zehavi, who heads the Alma Research and Education Center, says the old formulas failed. She points to the years after Israel’s 2000 withdrawal, arguing that the area south of the Litani River was supposed to be free of unauthorized weapons but never was, allowing Hezbollah to build up its presence and keep threatening Israeli communities. In her telling, the current campaign is not about “occupation” but about preventing Hezbollah from returning to the border zone and restoring a level of security that residents in the north have not had for years.
The interview then widens the frame. Zehavi argues that Hezbollah is not simply a Lebanese actor with a local grievance but an Iranian asset funded, armed, trained, and shaped by Tehran. Its role, she says, reaches far beyond fighting Israel and fits into Iran’s broader effort to export the Islamic Revolution across the region. That is why, in her view, what happens in Iran will directly affect Hezbollah’s standing in Lebanon—and why any real change in Lebanon would also strike at Iranian influence.
Colodro also brings out her deeper point about Lebanon itself: Hezbollah, she says, has become a “state within a state,” deeply rooted in parts of Lebanese society, with its own service networks, armed power, and political leverage. That leaves Lebanon’s leaders facing the central question she poses: are they brave enough to confront it, even at the risk of civil war?
The piece gets more personal when Zehavi describes evacuating her children, sleeping in shoes, and hearing blasts near her home. That shift gives the strategy flesh and pulse. Read Colodro’s full article—and watch the video interview—for the fuller picture of why she believes another ceasefire would only reset the clock on the next war.