Israel between the failure of October 7 and the impasse of the ground war

The Israeli emergency government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, resumed its aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip from the same point where it stopped before reaching a truce that lasted seven days. That is, it resorted to a war of extermination, displacement, and collective punishment, ignoring the advice of its partner, the American administration, which gave it the green light for several weeks, but while reducing the number of civilian deaths.

Just as the aggression government did not adhere to these advices, it may not adhere to the period of weeks proposed by Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, and follow the plan of Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Minister of Defense, which includes continuing the war for several months, and perhaps up to a year, if the occupying forces are able to achieve its goals.

During the three days after the truce, more than a thousand persons died, and many times more were wounded, and the war government continued the process of comprehensive destruction, but this time with greater claims not to target civilians, declaring safe areas that it did not exclude from bombing. Because it targets civilians who constitute the popular incubator of the resistance in an attempt to create strife between the resistance and its people, and in order to push the largest number of Palestinians to emigrate. Displacement was and still is one of the goals that are declared at times and hidden at other times. It has been an accompaniment to the thought and policy of the Zionist movement from the beginning, and it rears its head. Whenever the circumstance is appropriate.

It is noted that the American administration opposes forced displacement, and this implies that it does not oppose “voluntary displacement.” Indeed, at the beginning of the aggression, more than one American official had previously demanded that the Rafah crossing be opened for foreigners and those who wish to travel. There is also a project circulating in the US Congress that includes the displacement of our people in the Gaza Strip (one million for Egypt, half a million for Turkey, and half a million for Iraq and Jordan).

I warn that the situation will remain as it is in terms of gathering most of the people of the Gaza Strip in the south of the Strip and targeting them, while continuing the false talk about safe areas, without infrastructure and public services, nor enabling the displaced people of the north to return to their homes that are still habitable, and displacing more. As Israeli publications demand, they are without work, study, food, water, or medicine, and in the absence of humanitarian aid being allowed to flow or enter by train; It will lead to forced migration called “voluntary” sooner or later, especially since there are large areas in the Gaza Strip that are no longer suitable for human use, and will not be suitable even if the aggression stops and reconstruction begins for years to come.

Achieving Israeli goals is impossible

Although the leaders of the war, led by Netanyahu, repeated the same goals after the resumption of the war, they realize more and more that the ability of the occupation army to achieve them in the available time is non-existent, due to popular steadfastness and valiant resistance and the opening of the northern front and the Yemeni, Iraqi and Syrian fronts that target the Israeli forces, and keep the door open to a regional war that no one wants except Netanyahu, Gallant, and the Pentagon hawks, and because of the pressure exerted on Israel from the United States, Europe, and Canada as a result of the global popular uprising and an attempt to save Israel from itself and from remaining a prisoner of unachievable goals.

Therefore, the Netanyahu government is in a race against time in a hopeless attempt to achieve a victory, even if it is a semblance of victory, through the assassination of some of the leaders of the political and military resistance, or achieving a qualitative achievement by destroying large areas of the tunnel city and taking actual, not claimed, control over large areas, and killing a large number of resistance men in order to stop or limit the launching of rockets and the implementation of resistance operations that inflict the heaviest losses on the occupation forces.

Political war is more dangerous than military

The invading forces continue to commit the largest possible number of massacres, and destroy as many homes, public, private institutions and infrastructure as possible, until they make many areas of the Gaza Strip unlivable, and until the burdens of rebuilding what can be reconstructed, and building what was completely demolished, become an expensive process. It will be very, very long, and it will only take place under conditions that allow the continued pursuit of war goals through politics, economics, internal strife, the spread of chaos, insecurity, and multiple authorities and decision-making centers, until Israel achieves through politics what it was unable to achieve through war, aggression, and massacres.

In this context, we place Netanyahu's focus now on establishing buffer zones more than anything else, as he has realized that eliminating the resistance, specifically the Hamas movement, is impossible, as French President Emmanuel Macron said, who had previously called for the establishment of an international coalition against Hamas, similar to the coalition established against ISIS. Macron added that eliminating Hamas will take ten years, and Israel cannot wage a war for that long.

Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense, also made a statement that seemed striking, stating that the US administration would not allow the victory of “Hamas” and that Israel would be strategically defeated if it continued to fight in this blind manner. Of course, the statement was contradictory to itself, but it is noticeable that after the administration the White House is seeking a victory. Israel is working to prevent a Hamas victory. This means the beginning of the fall from the top of the tree, and the lessons of the war before the truce revealed the impossibility of defeating the resistance, or at least that it is very costly and very difficult. What is now required is to prevent Hamas' victory.

Barnea: Israel will not win if Sinwar surrenders himself

In order to understand the significance of Austin’s statement, we cite what Nahum Barnea, the famous Israeli analyst and writer close to the Israeli security services, wrote in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, with the text: “One of the right-wing ministers told me that even if Yahya Sinwar came out of the tunnel with his hands raised, and all the kidnapped people walked behind him in a row... "This war will not end in victory."

Ben Dror Yemini, a right-wing Israeli writer, wrote in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper an article titled “The Failure of the Hammer Strategy,” which stated: “It is better to admit, Israel has not achieved much, and certainly has not achieved a transformation. It is possible that 5,000 “terrorists” were killed. Only a portion of the tunnels were discovered and neutralized. Most of the tunnels are still under Hamas control. About 10% of Gaza’s buildings were destroyed, and perhaps more. It is not clear if this in itself is an achievement, but Hamas and Jihad are alive and present, and they are still the rulers of the sector.”

What can be concluded from what Barnea wrote is that what happened on October 7 caused damage to Israel’s strategic position and its deterrent power, and it cannot be remedied regardless of the outcome of the war. As for what Ben Dror wrote, it confirms that the conduct of the war, specifically the hammer strategy, which means launching violent, deadly raids, it creates great devastation, but achieves very few results. He added: “Israel failed because it does not control the northern Gaza Strip or Gaza City. Rather, it only controls part of the northern Gaza Strip, and it is far from controlling the tunnel city, which is still under the control of terrorist organizations.” He continues: “The ceasefire has barely ended. Until Hamas began firing rockets on Friday morning, not from the south of the Gaza Strip, but from the north.”

The dilemma that the Israeli government is suffering from is evident from the increase in demands for Netanyahu’s resignation and accountability, and the differences between the pillars of war, as was evident in the failure of Netanyahu and his Minister of War to appear in a joint press conference, even though Netanyahu asked Gallant - as he said - to hold a joint press conference, but the latter refused and held a conference alone. This is despite the fact that the two are in the same boat. Together they bear more responsibility for the strategic failure that occurred on October 7th than others. However, they are looking to escape the results of the investigation by placing responsibility on each other.

It is in the interest of Netanyahu and Gallant to prolong the war in search of a victory that will not be achieved, despite the great Palestinian pain, as a result of all these human losses. The war left about 65 thousand dead, wounded, and missing people under the rubble, in addition to more than a million displaced people outside their homes, without safe shelter, food, water, or treatment, and no guarantee that they would not be bombed and die at any moment.

In such a war, everyone emerges a loser, or in an equation with neither victor nor loser, and this is calculated in favor of the weak party that held out and did not enable the strong party to achieve its goals. Israel did not achieve any of its goals. It did not eliminate the resistance, nor did it release the prisoners. It does not guarantee that the Gaza Strip will not pose a threat to it in the future, and it has so far lost about 1,400 dead, including 401 soldiers and officers, including 77 since the ground war, and thousands of wounded, hundreds of them seriously injured and weakened, and more than 240 prisoners, a number of whom were released in a deal and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Israelis from their homes around the Gaza Strip and the northern border settlements, in addition to Israel losing more than 50 billion dollars at the lowest estimates, in addition to the travel of more than half a million Israelis during the war, with the intention of obtaining safety or seeking immigration.

Israelis are also now more concerned about their fate and the fate of their state and its future in the region, especially after the Palestinian issue has become more present than before, after it had been marginalized and forgotten before October 7, and it was imagined and promoted that it could be avoided and a new Middle East created at its expense. .

As for Palestine, it has not achieved, despite the importance of what has been achieved and in light of the humanitarian catastrophe that is open to more and the enormous suffering, the goals of the resistance declared so far, namely liberating the prisoners, lifting the siege, and stopping the attacks on Al-Aqsa, but it has made many people, both friends and enemies, convinced that Israel is not a country that is neither invincible nor defeated, but it can be defeated, and without absolute American support to the point of partnership, it was defeated to a defeat that it will never stand on its feet again.

The final word remains with the field, which will determine who is victorious and who is defeated. If the resistance remains standing on its feet, this is sufficient to continue the struggle round after round until victory is achieved. In light of the outcome of the current battle, the features of the new Middle East will be drawn, and it will be determined who rules the proud Gaza, who exploits its gas, and who wins or loses from the success or failure of the Ben Gurion Canal project, the Indian Economic Corridor project, and others.