For the last two months, there was a relatively set narrative for Gaza after phase one of the hostage deal: Either Israel and Hamas would reach an agreement on the second phase of a hostage deal and bring the war closer to its end, or the military, under its new aggressive chief, Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir would open the gates of hell on Hamas.
If Zamir and the government chose to go “all-out” against Hamas, it was expected that the IDF would invade all parts of Gaza rapidly, as opposed to the very gradual staged invasion that the military spread out over late 2023-mid-2024.
This would also include moving all of the Palestinian civilians to the Al-Mawasi humanitarian area such that the IDF would have unprecedented freedom to unleash aerial bombing and tank and artillery shelling from the ground on all other parts of Gaza without needing to worry about civilians being mixed in with Hamas.
That was until this past weekend.
Suddenly, some defense and political voices returned to talks of gradual and targeted penetrations.
The question then is, how exactly would this be different from what the military carried out with former IDF chief Herzi Halevi?
The answer is that it wouldn’t be.
The biggest difference would really be that the IDF would theoretically go back to war in Gaza in a staged and gradual way but holding on to a threat that within some period of days or weeks if Hamas still did not relent, the military would take off all of the gloves for real.
The idea of this shift is to calibrate Israel’s escalation to give Hamas one last opportunity, under some but limited fire, to get smart and cut a deal more on Israel’s terms.
Yet, the problem with this thinking is that the initial gradual period would already be telling Hamas the exact opposite.
A gradual, staged return to battle will tell Hamas that Israel – even with Zamir in command and the Trump administration giving much stronger backing to dealing the terror group a fatal blow than its predecessor ever did – is still worried about the consequences of returning to full out war and whether it will get the desired outcome.
How many terrorists can still fight for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad?
Questioned about how a return to war will eliminate Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s new recruits – possibly as high as 25,000 and 5,000, respectively – when they can all just flee with the other 2.3 million Palestinian civilians running to Al-Mawasi, defense sources acknowledged that ending Hamas militarily will still not be all that simple.
SOME DEFENSE sources have expressed hope that intelligence in the last several months has done a strong job of finding and targeting Hamas fighters hiding in schools and other civilian facilities, which could lead to some more successful targeting operations.
But the bottom line is that if Hamas is ready to hide and temporarily put down its weapons, the only way Israel could truly root it out using force would be a very extended military occupation (Israeli soldiers in Gaza, not settlements), something which until now has not had the support of more than around 10% of the Israeli public.
The alternative remains some kind of imperfect diplomatic settlement that partially sets back Hamas but does not fully expel the terror group from Gaza.
Given these dilemmas and a sudden shakiness about returning to a full war in the enclave – which could lead to more dead soldiers, dead hostages, global criticism, and economic instability – the government has opted for “door number three,” avoiding a decision.
This is the reason Hamas has had more than two weeks of a ceasefire without having to give up a single hostage.It is the basis of the flurry of talks about another hostage deal returning 5-10 live hostages in exchange for extending the ceasefire for another 40-60 days.
It is also the reason that the IDF took a risky move attacking an Islamic Jihad drone recently, killing up to nine Palestinians under controversial circumstances.
The Jerusalem Post understands that the drone may not have been carrying out any terror moves at the time and that the IDF has said some of those who were killed wore dual hats as terrorists and journalists, such that targeting them would normally be preferable if they were actually in the middle of, or on the way to, some kind of violent act.
In other words, the military is being increasingly aggressive in small ways to try to intimidate Hamas. It is willing to risk harsher global criticism, but it may all be a partial cover for a hesitance to do something much bigger.
Eventually, though, Israel will either need to cut another deal, however imperfect, or choose between a new immense invasion or a return to smaller gradual invasions – with that third choice being a way to defer choosing between the first two.