Six months ago, after the October 7 massacre, Beniamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, promised a “total victory” over Hamas. Today, this victory seems impossible. The military strategy is at a dead end and Netanyahu’s own political weakness prevents him from authorizing a Palestinian government in Gaza that would erode and end up eliminating the enormous political power that Hamas continues to have.
The army (IDF) claims that it has killed some 13,000 guerrillas and dismantled 18 of the 24 battalions that the Qasam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, had. These have lost almost all their combat capacity. The underground network from which they operate is badly damaged. They have lost weapons caches and a large part of the ammunition, especially the largest caliber. Even so, their two main military leaders are still alive and they have some 17,000 combatants, who attack the IDF and camouflage themselves among the population. Commandos like the one that managed to reoccupy the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City a few weeks ago force the Israeli military to fight in areas they believed to be safe.
The price of having reduced Hamas’s military capacity has been very high. More than 33,000 Palestinians have died – most of them women and children –, 1.7 million have been displaced and more than half of the buildings are in ruins. The life of Gazans is a horror, constantly threatened by violence, hunger and disease.
Israel, which until now has stopped the entry of humanitarian aid, has seen how it has lost much of the international support it had after October 7. His diplomatic isolation in the United Nations grows. The Arab countries, with which it aspired to establish relations, starting with Saudi Arabia, condition any dialogue on the creation of a Palestinian State.
Support for Israel has fallen even in the United States, its strongest ally. It has gone from 68% to 58%. The decrease is more pronounced among young people: from 64% to 28%. Most Democrats now lean towards the Palestinians, and President Biden, who is up for re-election in November, has increased pressure on Netanyahu. This Thursday, in a tense telephone conversation, he demanded more humanitarian aid, more protection of the population and a ceasefire that would allow the exchange of Jewish hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
Biden has also asked Netanyahu that the IDF not enter Rafah, the southern town where many of the 1.7 million displaced people have taken refuge, and that he think about a renewed Palestinian Authority as the best option to govern Gaza.
The prime minister, however, cannot accept these measures without endangering the governing coalition and his own political survival. He depends on an extreme right to protect himself from the corruption processes against him, and they do not want a truce, nor negotiate the release of the more than 130 hostages. Hamas claims that around 70 have been killed in the bombings, as they remain held in the same tunnels that the IDF bombs. Israel admits that more than 30 may be dead.
The far right has managed to distribute more weapons to settlers in the West Bank. It does not recognize Palestinian sovereignty over any of the occupied territories and Netanyahu himself has stated that Israel will not withdraw from any of them, and not from Gaza. “Every time we have retreated,” he said, “terror against us has resurfaced.”
The prime minister will do nothing to weaken his coalition. He has even stopped the recruitment of Haredim, ultra-Orthodox Jews who do not serve in the army so as not to alter their life choices.
These privileges divide Israel, but the war against Hamas is popular. The country has moved further to the right. The left has disappeared and so has the peace camp that advocated a political solution to the conflict.
The Israelis consider themselves fighting for their survival and seem willing to pay whatever price is necessary. More than 200 soldiers have lost their lives in Gaza and the economy contracted 19.4% in the last quarter of last year.
“Destroying Hamas,” as Netanyahu has promised, means eliminating the leadership and in March the IDF approved a plan to attack Rafah, where it suspects the bulk of the organization is resisting.
Killing Yahya Sinwar and Mohamed Deif, leaders of the Qasam brigades and the main perpetrators of October 7, would be cathartic for Israel and a great political victory for Netanyahu. The practical effects, however, would be more debatable. Hamas quickly replaces fallen commanders and maintains a dual leadership structure, one in Gaza and the other in Qatar. Its ability to recover after each blow is very high and its popularity is still twice that of the Palestinian Authority.
Attacking Rafah would have a very high cost in human lives and Israel’s international reputation would suffer even more.
Rafah is the dead end in which the IDF finds itself. The benefit of each military action is now lower, but the risks remain high. Shoot first and ask questions later, a widespread combat strategy, protects soldiers, but at the cost of many innocent lives. This week’s attack on the WCK convoy, in which seven aid workers died, is the latest example.
The IDF makes tragic mistakes in combat zones, but is most effective with fixed targets in other countries, whether it is an apartment in a Beirut suburb, where it killed Saleh Al Aruri, a prominent Hamas leader, on January 2, or the Iranian consular building in Damascus, where on Monday he killed seven guards of the Revolution and their Palestinian interlocutors.
Since the Munich Olympics massacre in 1972, Israel has carried out dozens of assassinations. He has killed Palestinian leaders as well as Iranian nuclear scientists, and he has done so all over the world, often clandestinely.
Today, bombings like the one in Damascus can escalate the conflict. So far, however, Iran and Hizbullah have reacted cautiously to IDF attacks against their interests in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
The deterrence of the Israel-US tandem works, but so does that of Turkey and Qatar, which have warned Netanyahu not to persecute Hamas leaders in their countries. This, however, is precisely what he has promised to do, and not just there, but wherever they hide.
Ending the Hamas leadership, in any case, will not solve Gaza. As the Biden Administration never tires of repeating, Israel needs a long-term strategy, one that involves the Palestinian Authority taking charge of law and order. Legitimized with a new leadership, supported with billions of euros and supervised by international organizations that facilitate reconstruction and the provision of social services, the Palestinian Authority could, in the long term, end the political power and popular support of Hamas. .
Netanyahu, however, prefers to act short. He has no long-term plans for the strip except to maintain a “security perimeter,” a euphemism to justify an indefinite military occupation. He may reduce the IDF attacks and increase the influx of aid, but he will not allow a truce or a political solution because he would lose the support of the far right and be finished.
Without a political solution, Gaza will remain a war zone for a long time.
