Israeli Opinion| We must not be blinded by our tactical successes in Gaza, as the decisive stages are still ahead of us

Tamir Heyman

The war in the Gaza Strip began in the worst way imaginable. Hamas took the initiative, Israel was caught by surprise, and the costs were too heavy to bear. On the battlefield itself, the magic turned against the magician, after the first days, and since then, the hostilities have continued as planned, but the battles have now reached a major point that requires a decision.

How can we end the current battle and move to the next battle in a way that enhances our movement towards achieving the goals of the war? Israel wants to achieve three things: replace the Hamas authority with another authority; eliminating the movement’s military capabilities; And recovering the kidnapped ones. If we can achieve all three goals, we will implicitly achieve the goal of improving protection. Meaning: a sense of security will be restored, the population will return to the “Gaza envelope,” and our military position in the Middle East will be restored.

The first battle is behind us, and the second

At its height, and the battles ahead of us

The first battle was fought by fire, as Hamas' capabilities were destroyed from the air, and the ground was prepared for the ground campaign. As for the second battle, it was represented by the joint ground operation, which brought the Hamas brigades to their knees in the northern Gaza Strip. The maneuver proves that the movement does not have the ability to stop the Israeli army, and the cumulative achievement of defeating the Hamas brigades will ultimately lead to the defeat of the entire organization.

The above does not mean that all 27 Hamas brigades must be defeated, but it is reasonable to assume that the defeat of most of them, in addition to the elimination of the organization’s senior leaders, especially the “unholy” trio (Sinwar, Deif, and Issa), will constitute a sufficient critical mass. To create a feeling of defeat among the movement's leaders.

The difficult decision that Israel will have to make

Let's start from the end. As the Prime Minister said, in the end, Israel will be responsible for the Gaza Strip, security-wise, but it will not occupy the Strip. This means that we will continue to work in the sector, militarily, in order to “mow the grass,” no matter how long it takes. An official ceasefire will not be announced, and there will be no understandings with the Hamas movement, nor mutual deterrence equations, as is the case today in confronting Lebanon. In addition, we do not intend to restore military rule to the Gaza Strip and manage the lives of the two million Palestinians living there. We will leave this task to the new authority that will be formed in the sector.

What is this administrative body, and when will it be formed? Well, one has to be very humble in one's assessment of the matter, there will be a semi-disciplined authoritarian body, which will be formed over the course of a few months, and it is very much a question of the decisions that must be made from now on.

How can we proceed from this point?

Israel must discuss some issues from now on: First, it must work to accelerate the victory, and accordingly, it must consider the battles that must be managed now, in order to increase pressure on the leadership of Hamas, in a way that pushes it to prepare for the release of the kidnapped people, which will be accompanied by Humanitarian truces and cessation of hostilities. Accordingly, we must decide what is the situation in terms of a stable and safe ground operation that allows us to establish truces in hostilities that allow negotiations and the release of the kidnapped persons.

In addition, war is a series of battles. Therefore, the following question arises: What is the final state of the current battle? How can it be linked to the next battle that follows? Besides, we must ask ourselves the question: What is the final status of military warfare? When will we withdraw from the Gaza Strip, and what will we leave behind?

We must remember that all these battles, up to the end of the war, require time that we do not have. Israel needs to realize how it can “produce” the required time, in the face of mounting pressure demanding an end to the fighting. There will also be pressure related to the necessity of demobilizing reserve soldiers, in order for the wheel of economic production to return to rotation. All of this is accompanied by mounting international pressure, represented by anti-war protests, waves of extremist anti-Semitism sweeping the world, and the approaching winter, which, when it arrives, will exacerbate the humanitarian problems inside the Gaza Strip. The clock is ticking, and time is running out.

On the military and international arenas,

This is what needs to be done from now on

We must not be blinded by tactical military success, lest we falter in the current battle. The battles that our fighters heroically fight are aimed at serving the goal of winning the battle. We must know the meaning required for the end of this stage, after which we move on to the next battle, and so on, forward, until victory in the entire war is achieved, and we must not drift with the flow, nor stumble.

In addition to the above, there must be strategic clarity, accompanied by operational ambiguity (I apologize for the complexity). I will try to translate the matter into simple Hebrew: We must clarify to the Israeli people and the international community our vision for the course of this war: How will we reach the end stage in the Gaza Strip? How does the matter relate to international bodies, Arab countries, and the Palestinian Authority? We must clarify how we can deal with the Gaza Strip from a humanitarian perspective, starting today, and continuing until the day after the end of the war.

In addition to all of this, what is required here is calm and firmness regarding the issue of the kidnapped persons. We must continue to raise awareness about this terrible tragedy, on the one hand, and exert all required pressure on the government, and on the international community, in order to return the kidnapped people. On the other hand, we have to realize that it will take a long time. We all hope that the kidnapped people will return, and it can be assumed that the matter will take place within the framework of an exchange deal, but this deal will not be achieved in one step.

Hamas has no interest in reaching a comprehensive agreement, in the sense of “everything for everything,” and it is safe to assume that it will want to undertake this process over a long period of time. The matter includes an opportunistic psychological war, waged by the Hamas movement, aimed at pushing the Israeli government to stop military pressure. The more our enemy’s feeling of distress worsens, the more he will intensify his opportunistic use of the kidnapped people and use them as a tool for pressure on Israeli society.

This war started very badly, in the worst way a war could begin. The enemy's opening blow against us was brutal and terrible. “Black Saturday,” on October 7, represented a general failure of the Israeli security system. We must say, with integrity and honesty, that no victory, no matter how great, can erase the shame of this trauma. Despite everything, and as I have pointed out more than once, the strength of the army, and the strength of any system, is tested in its ability to recover from severe crises, completely turn the situation around, and achieve victory in the battle.

It is true that the price is high, but the achievements achieved on the battlefields so far are good. It is appropriate to determine the precise point in time at which we achieve the exhaustion of the tactical move, before the matter turns into a vicious cycle, which is represented by a strategic move that provides justifications for its continuation, due to tactical successes. Vietnam constitutes the best historical example of this situation in the history of armies.

Specifically now, before we reach that point, it is time to think about the next stage, and it is time to prevent being sucked into the military vortex. This is the job of political decision-making circles: to be able to look beyond tactical successes.