The third stage...the stage of what is known as de-escalation

Netanyahu insisted on going to the battle of Rafah in the hope that he would “bring victory from the well,” that is, that he would achieve the goals of his aggressive war on the Gaza Strip, which he was unable to achieve in the north, center, and south, that is, achieve the extreme strategic goals of the war he launched on the Gaza Strip, the judiciary. On the Palestinian resistance, with the Hamas movement at its heart, and overthrowing the authority and rule of Hamas and replacing it with the authority of local bodies (clans and mukhtars) not linked to Hamas and the resistance, implementing the projects and plans of the occupation. They tried it in the West Bank and in southern Lebanon in 2000, and their fate was nothing but miserable failure. To be able to recover his prisoners under military pressure or through special operations without an agreement with Hamas and the resistance, after he is able to capture or kill the resistance leaders, thus restoring his eroding image, not only in the eyes of the families of the prisoners and the Israeli public, but also the former military, security and political elites. Now, accusations have been made against Netanyahu that he is leading his country towards disaster and that his rule is the worst and most failed rule the occupying state has ever known. The matter has reached the point where retired General Major General Yitzhak Brik, the former official responsible for soldiers’ complaints, said that Israel will commit collective suicide with Netanyahu, Galant and Halevy, and that this trio is a Rusty, decapitated nails in the Israeli body are difficult to get rid of, and there is also a consensus in the military and security institutions, opposition leaders, and former leaders, that Netanyahu is leading this war to serve his political and personal interests and purposes, and to prevent his loss of parliamentary legitimacy, by blowing up his government from within by his partners in the government coalition. Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who are now holding the "neck" of his political decisions, in light of his constant fear that the collapse of his government from within will mean that he will be tried and spend the rest of his life in prison, not on the charges pending before his state's judiciary (bribery, bad credit, and breach of trust), but rather holding him accountable. Major responsibility for the security and intelligence failure and defeat on October 7th, and therefore he continued to try to evade this fate, by employing his partners to attack the army leaders and accusing them of responsibility for the failure, and that what he calls the defeatist approach by the opposition leaders and the leaders of the military establishment, would not achieve the goals of the war.

The important thing is that Netanyahu carried out his military operation in Rafah, and its results were not better than the battles in the rest of the Strip in the north, center and south. Rather, the results were worse: more diving into the sand and swamp of the Gaza Strip, greater military losses of human beings and military equipment, and no victory or image. Victory, no military or field achievements, no recovery of prisoners, no elimination of the remaining Hamas brigades. Rather, it was found that it was able to adapt to the conditions, restore and build its strength and military and armament capabilities, and its control over the areas vacated by the occupation, and to compensate for the loss of part of its strength through Recruiting new young men and personnel, while continuing training and manufacturing weapons and equipment in workshops within the Gaza Strip.

Under the pressure of the state of disintegration and collapse witnessed by the military institution, and the shortage of the human element, a series of crises exploded in the face of Netanyahu, not only represented by the dissolution of the mini-war council, which represented a national unity government, the departure of Gantz and Eisenkot from it, and the formation of a coalition of opposition party leaders from Lieberman and Lapid. And Sa'ar, and those demanding his departure and holding early elections, and the escalation of demonstrations by the families of the prisoners whose goals coincide with that of the opposition, as it no longer demands that the priority be only to recover its captive sons alive, but rather raise political slogans demanding the departure of Netanyahu and hold him directly responsible for not recovering their captive sons and sacrificing them on the altar. His political and personal interests.

Netanyahu, who is losing on the fronts of political and popular legitimacy, is spreading to his governmental house and parliamentary legitimacy, after the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice unanimously decided that it is necessary to conscript Haredi Jews for military service, and to stop funding religious institutions, institutes and schools whose students refuse to be conscripted into the army, and this This would destabilize the Netanyahu government, in light of the rejection of this decision by the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, which could open the door to their exit from the ruling coalition and the overthrow of the faltering Netanyahu government.

Netanyahu and his army commanders say that they will achieve their war objectives in the Strip within a maximum period of four to six weeks, and then they will move to the third phase, which means withdrawal from city centers and camps to the Gaza Strip border with Egypt and towards eastern Gaza adjacent to the cover settlements and the “Netzarim” line. “In the center of Gaza, which separates its north from its south, which means reducing friction with the population and the resistance, and providing the opportunity to transfer part of the forces to the northern front, in order to expand the circle of war against Hezbollah and Lebanon, a war that I believe has possibilities for expansion in light of the fall of the war phase.” The psychology in which Arab, regional and international forces participated, in order to pressure Hezbollah to break the relationship between the northern front and the Gaza Strip front, has failed, and the expansion of the war also requires an American decision that does not exist, and an army that has the capabilities and capabilities to resolve this war quickly, and this is not the case. It is available in an army that suffers from a shortage in its human cadre. It needs to recruit between 8-10 soldiers immediately, and to recruit at least 15 new battalions, and an exhausted army that suffers from low morale, a state of wear and tear, rebellion, resignations, evasion of service, and a shortage of ammunition and logistical support. It cannot afford to wage a wide or comprehensive war. The decision to launch a limited, wide or comprehensive war against Hezbollah may be taken, but controlling the rhythms of this war and keeping it from getting out of control, and not knowing the parties that may participate in it, and its repercussions, is not on the front. The Israeli Ministry of Interior, which, in the language of Israeli military and security leaders (including Ehud Olmert, former prime ministers Ehud Barak, and generals like Gantz and Yitzhak Burke), says that Israel’s internal front will suffer unprecedented damage, greater than what was inflicted on it dozens of times in all previous wars that occurred. Israel fought it, and it will take years to recover from it.
There is no such thing as the third stage of war, but rather the inability to proceed with the military operation at its previous pace, where there is a war of attrition and mounting human and material losses. Therefore, this concept was invented to stop the bleeding in losses and pay the high prices and costs, and this form of war that focuses on objective and limited strikes. By targeting gatherings, bases, centers of the resistance and its leaders, his goal is to reduce losses, evade admitting defeat before the resistance, and also evade accepting the conditions of the resistance by reaching an agreement that ends the war and completes the exchange of prisoners, in search of a no-agreement situation that reduces the size of his losses, by leaving city centers and camps, In a way that reduces friction, as happened in the decision to withdraw from the border strip from Lebanon in 2000.
The occupation is betting that this retreat may prolong the stalemate based on its survival in the Gaza Strip, and this illusion does not know that the resistance will continue until the occupation forces are expelled from the Gaza Strip or the conditions of the resistance are accepted to stop the war permanently.
America and Israel are promoting that reducing the escalation on the Gaza Strip fronts will lead to reducing the escalation on the support front in the north, allowing the return of the residents of the northern settlements. The important question is: If the northern front was opened to accelerate the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and end the war, will reducing the escalation serve this goal or will it give Israel the opportunity to evade implementing the agreement?
I believe that the goal of reducing the escalation is American-Israeli, to evade the need for an agreement that would lead to stopping the war, and therefore I do not believe that the axis of resistance, led by Hezbollah, will be concerned with this plan and project.
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There is no such thing as the third stage of war, but rather the inability to proceed with the military operation at its previous pace, where there is a war of attrition and mounting human and material losses, and therefore this concept was invented to stop the bleeding.