Since the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas in which it took hostages, Israel has been engaged in a series of conflicts against Iran and its proxies, saying it needs to eliminate the security threats they pose and ensure that such an event can never be repeated.
Israel has sought to destroy Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and found itself in direct conflict with Iran—the chief funder of these militant Islamist groups—with the two exchanging missiles, though it has not so far broken out into a full war.
After the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, Israel has struck a number of targets there, such as suspected chemical weapons stores.
With the coming year bringing a new dimension to Middle East politics—the return of Donald Trump to the White House—Newsweek asked experts: Will Israel's wars in the Middle East end in 2025? This is what they said.
Fawaz A. Gerges, is a Professor of International Relations, London School of Economics
The hundred years' Israel-Palestine conflict will only end when Israel ends its occupation of Palestinian lands and grants its neighbors the right of self-determination.
The current round of intense hostilities will end in 2025, but there will be other rounds sooner or later.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said, the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire and (likely) Israel-Hamas ceasefire does not mean the end of Israel's wars.
Both the Netanyahu-led coalition and the opposition vehemently oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. If this is the case, Israel faces the risk of a forever war.
Eyal Zisser, Vice-Rector, The Yona and Dina Ettinger Chair in Contemporary History of the Middle East, Tel Aviv University
Over the past year, Israel has achieved most of its goals in the war that Hamas and Hezbollah launched against it in early October 2023.
Hamas was defeated as a military and governmental power in Gaza, Hezbollah suffered a severe blow that deprived it of the ability to deter and threaten Israel.
In Syria, Bashar al-Assad's regime fell and Iran was pushed back, weakened and deterred.
These are favorable circumstances to end Israel's wars during 2025 and translate the military achievements into a political move with moderate Arab states and perhaps also the Palestinians.
It is not clear whether this serves the political interests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or whether he is capable of such a move due to pressure from his political partners.
Hence, the one who will really decide whether the war in the region will come to an end and economic rather than military pressure will be applied against Iran, is Donald Trump.
Mehran Kamrava, Professor of Government, Georgetown University in Qatar
In 2022, then prime minister Naftali Bennett likened Iran to an octopus whose tentacles—Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, etc.—are trying to strangle the Middle East. Bennett called for decapitating the octopus. That has not happened yet.
But, to use Bennett's metaphor, most of the octopus's tentacles have indeed been severely weakened if not altogether eliminated.
Emboldened by its military successes since late 2023, and led by a politically beleaguered prime minister with multiple court cases hanging over his head, the Israeli government is unlikely to stop its campaign to try and antagonize the Iranian octopus.
But PM Netanyahu's biggest ally, Donald Trump, does not like wars—they're not good for business—and so the pursuit of a full-scale war by Israel is unlikely.
We are instead likely to see more of the same poking and prodding of Iran and other adversaries in which Israel has been so successful.
Lior B. Sternfeld, William J. and Charlotte K. Duddy University Endowed Fellow in the Humanities, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Pennsylvania State University
Israel would not end the war without outside pressure.
Netanyahu's legal and political predicaments are being subsided when the war is still ongoing. He can create multiple personal safety nets, ad hoc political arrangements, and enough public support.
Although growing parts of the Israeli public came to realize that the hostages were nothing more than a distraction for him, the so-called opposition in Israel remained careful not to suggest any meaningful change in policies to widen the political conversation.
So, we are left with outside pressure that can move things in different directions.
Among those, from the unlikeliest to the likeliest, would be a resounding endorsement of the ICJ arrest warrants, more countries that would stop their arms shipments to Israel, or President Trump's understanding that Israel is becoming more of a liability to the U.S.
He would force a ceasefire that would be more temporary and would be followed by additional rounds in the near future.
Alex Vatanka, Director, Iran Program, Senior Fellow, Frontier Europe, Middle East Institute
It is very hard to present the fall of the Assad regime in any way other than as a loss for Iran and for the Axis of Resistance.
All Iranian analysts accept this and most also accept that the last 14 months— since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel—has been the worst year for the Axis of Resistance.
As we know, Iran's defense posture had in the last few decades been built around three pillars: the nuclear program, missiles, and the use of pro-Iran proxies around the region.
At the heart of this strategy rested the idea that Iran has to fight the Americans out of the Middle East. Once America was out of the region, Israel would fall, so has been Ali Khamenei's thinking.
But now, Hamas is almost entirely destroyed; Hezbollah is hugely weakened; Assad is gone.
Most Iranian analysts expect that the pro-Iran forces in Iraq and in Yemen will be next as the U.S. and Israel continue to dismantle the Axis of Resistance across the region.
Meanwhile, some basic realities are that Russia is distracted by the war Ukraine, and is not of much help to Iran's regional military strategy.
On the other hand, the Israelis appear determined to continue to hit Iran and its proxies in Lebanon and Syria, and soon maybe in Iraq and in Yemen.
Assad's fall is also raising more fundamental questions in Tehran.
Iranian officials are saying the Assad regime began to lose its will to stay in power in the last few months due to corruption and Assad's inability to deliver for the people who backed him.
This raises a much bigger question about the future of the Axis: Iran can enter various theaters in the Arab world and provide support as it has with Hezbollah or Hamas or Assad regime.
But can Iran control these members of the Axis? For example, the Iranians were very frustrated that Assad's regime did not help Iran in the last year in the conflict with Israel.
In other words, there is a new trend in Iran where the entire value of the Axis of Resistance is being questioned. It is a consequential debate that will shape Iran's next steps in the region.
Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations, St Antony's College, University of Oxford
Israel's wars in the Middle East are unlikely to end in 2025 or for that matter any time in the foreseeable future.
The immediate reason for that is that Benjamin Netanyahu needs to prolong the ghastly war in Gaza to avoid standing trial at home on corruption charges which carry a prison sentence.
The deeper reason is that Israel is a settler-colonial state addicted to occupation, ethnic cleansing, and territorial expansion.
The present government claims Jewish sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel which includes the West Bank and therefore precludes an independent Palestinian state. This is a recipe for permanent conflict.
All of Israel's wars since June 1967 have been caused by its occupation of Arab land.
The United States, because of its unconditional military and diplomatic support, has been complicit in all of Israel's wars as well as war crimes, including the genocidal campaign against the people of Gaza.
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