How Israel plans to escalate its war on Hamas in Gaza
Advertisement
But if the maximalist tactics are implemented, they would represent an escalation of a 17-month operation that the Gaza Health Ministry says has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children. The war also has killed more than 400 Israeli soldiers.
And they would mark a significant departure for the Israeli military, whose previous leaders feared becoming mired in the Gaza Strip. A full-scale invasion and occupation would require up to five army divisions, people familiar with the planning say, and the Israel Defense Forces could become stretched, given that reservists are increasingly voicing skepticism about fighting an open-ended war.
But some officials say that only a full-scale invasion now, followed by a lengthy counterinsurgency and deradicalization effort, would accomplish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated aim of eradicating Hamas after the group launched the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 Israelis and sparked the war.
Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the military's Gaza division, said the IDF's campaign last year was constrained by disagreements between political and military leaders over tactics and strategy, and by the Biden administration's concerns about harm to Palestinian civilians. But the arrival of the Trump administration in the United States and changes in the Israeli defense establishment have loosened those constraints, Avivi said.
Advertisement
'Now there is new [IDF] leadership, there is the backup from the U.S., there is the fact that we have enough munitions, and the fact that we finished our main missions in the north and can concentrate on Gaza,' Avivi said. 'The plans are decisive. There will be a full-scale attack and they will not stop until Hamas is eradicated completely. We'll see.'
Israeli officials say they are still willing to negotiate with Hamas through mediators before launching any large-scale invasion. Before dawn Tuesday, Israel carried out a devastating aerial attack targeting dozens of Hamas leaders and fighters and conducted limited raids on the ground. Hamas launched rockets at Tel Aviv in retaliation.
An Israeli official denied that Israel broke the ceasefire agreement and said that Israeli officials had laid out, on the 16th day of the truce, their conditions for entering the second phase of the agreement, but that they were rejected by Hamas.
Hamas then declined a 'bridge' proposal by President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to extend the ceasefire by 40 days in exchange for 11 living hostages, and offered instead to release one American-Israeli hostage, the official said, adding that Israel then decided to resume hostilities - which the official claims was permitted under a clause of the ceasefire agreement if talks were deemed to have broken down.
That proposal is 'still on the table,' according to the Israeli official, who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive talks. 'But we're back to negotiating by different means: under fire.'
Hamas wanted to immediately open talks for the second phase, which would entail a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas releasing the remaining living hostages. Hamas said Saturday it was still considering Witkoff's proposal.
Advertisement
Israel has destroyed nearly all of Hamas's 24 fighting battalions, it says, leaving a few thousand fighters in Gaza. But to fully eradicate the remnants, it would have to hold the territory - which some officers and analysts say carries high risks for Israel.
'If you look at the French in Algeria, [the U.S.] Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Americans in Afghanistan, the history of counterinsurgency attempts teach us that even the Israelis will fail,' said Sascha-Dominik Dov Bachmann, an expert on warfare at the University of Canberra. 'It would undermine the moral and ethical basis of Israel.'
But supporters of a more intense and lengthy operation in Gaza argue that the campaign last year only resulted in Hamas reemerging from its tunnels in crisp uniforms in January, and that the political conditions are ripe now to further ratchet up military pressure and hold Gaza if necessary.
Last year, the Biden administration refused to send a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel unless it allowed more humanitarian aid into Gaza and did more to prevent civilian casualties.
But Trump, who took office in January, has approved the sale of the heavy bombs. And officials have said Israel consulted with the Trump administration before cutting off all aid to Gaza earlier this month.
A leadership shift within the Israeli military establishment, meanwhile, has produced a hawkish shift, analysts say. Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir replaced officials who sometimes clashed with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu last year asked the IDF to consider taking control of distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza to prevent Hamas from siphoning off supplies and profiting from their sale; Israeli assessments have estimated that Hamas made $1 billion in profits from skimming. Then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and then-IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi resisted the idea, arguing it would expose soldiers to unnecessary risk and amount to mission creep for the IDF, current and former Israeli officials said.
Advertisement
By February, the prevailing thinking had changed. Israeli officials informed international aid agencies that future humanitarian assistance would be screened and directed to new 'logistics hubs' established by Israeli authorities, agency officials told The Washington Post.
Another point of contention: Gallant and Halevi favored striking Hamas's military capabilities; Netanyahu wanted also to target the organization's civilian officials, who dominate the enclave's government posts.
After Gallant was dismissed in November, he told the families of hostages held in Gaza that Israel had achieved all its military objectives, media here reported. He also cautioned against trying to take control of the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Israel appeared to be taking a new approach, launching airstrikes that Katz, Gallant's replacement, likened to 'opening the gates of hell.' The strikes, which killed more than 400 people, targeted not only members of Hamas's armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, but also the director general of Gaza's Interior Ministry, the director general of the Justice Ministry, and members of the Hamas political bureau as they gathered at home for predawn meals before the daytime fast of Ramadan.
On Friday, Katz threatened to not only temporarily occupy Gazan territory, but to annex it, if Hamas did not make concessions with hostages. 'The more Hamas persists in its refusal, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed to Israel,' Katz said in a statement.
Advertisement
'There is less opposition now with Zamir and Katz. They are more ready' for a more aggressive approach, said Yossi Kuperwasser, a former senior IDF intelligence official and head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security think tank.
'The government was committed to removing Hamas from power,' Kuperwasser added. 'The security establishment was not happy with this idea. They were trying to focus more on military assets and less on civilian assets. Because once you remove Hamas from Gaza, the IDF would have to rule Gaza.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Israel-Iran War Reaches Second Week as Trump Sends Mixed Signals
Israel and Iran launched new strikes in a second week of hostilities, as Donald Trump deepened uncertainty about his readiness to join the conflict and dismissed European efforts to find a diplomatic solution. Israel struck several targets in central Iran on Saturday, including the Isfahan nuclear site, the semi-official Fars News reported. There were no casualties or leaks of hazardous material, it said. The Israel Defense Forces earlier said it had identified missiles launched from Iran and was working to intercept them. Sirens sounded in central Israel.
American Press
an hour ago
- American Press
Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after 104 days by a judge's ruling after becoming a symbol of President Donald Trump 's clampdown on campus protests. The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his U.S. citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was detained. 'Justice prevailed, but it's very long overdue,' he said outside the facility in a remote part of Louisiana. 'This shouldn't have taken three months.' Email newsletter signup The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil over his role in pro-Palestinian protests. He was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan. Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be 'highly, highly unusual' for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn't been accused of any violence. 'Petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,' he said. 'Period, full stop.' During an hourlong hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had 'clearly not met' the standards for detention. The government filed notice Friday evening that it's appealing Khalil's release. The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that the same day Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release, an immigration judge in Louisiana denied him bond and 'ordered him removed.' The decision was made by Judge Jamee Comans, who is in a court located in the same detention facility from which Khalil was released. 'An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,' the post said. Khalil was the first person arrested under Trump's crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel's devastating war in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy. The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be deported as it considers their views antisemitic. Protesters and civil rights groups say the administration is conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to silence dissent. Farbiarz has ruled that the government can't deport Khalil on the basis of its claims that his presence could undermine foreign policy. But the judge gave the administration leeway to continue pursuing a potential deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card application, an accusation Khalil disputes. The international affairs graduate student isn't accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. He served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists and wasn't among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics. The judge agreed Friday with Khalil's lawyers that the protester was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention. The judge noted that Khalil is now clearly a public figure. Khalil said Friday that no one should be detained for protesting Israel's war in Gaza. He said his time in the Jena, Louisiana, detention facility had shown him 'a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice.' 'Whether you are a U.S. citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land doesn't mean that you are less of a human,' he said, adding that 'justice will prevail, no matter what this administration may try to portray' about immigrants. Khalil had to surrender his passport and can't travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress. In a statement after the judge's ruling, Khalil's wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she can finally 'breathe a sigh of relief' after her husband's three months in detention. 'We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others,' she said. 'But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family.' The judge's decision comes after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri. ___ Marcelo reported from New York. Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.
an hour ago
Police in northeast Ohio arrest man who allegedly menaced GOP US Rep. Max Miller on interstate
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A northeast Ohio man was arrested Thursday on allegations that he threatened and spewed antisemitic epithets at Republican U.S. Rep. Max Miller while the two were traveling on an interstate highway near Cleveland. Police in Rocky River said Feras S. Hamdan, 36, of Westlake, voluntarily turned himself in with counsel present and is awaiting an appearance in municipal court. A message was left with his lawyer seeking comment. Miller, who is Jewish, called 911 while driving on Interstate 90 on his way to work Thursday. He reported that another driver was cutting him off, making profane hand gestures, showing a Palestinian flag and shouting death threats targeted at him and his 1-year-old daughter. After an interview with police, Miller filed a complaint against Hamdan alleging aggravated menacing and sought a criminal protective order. Local police continue to investigate with assistance from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorney's office and the Rocky River prosecutor. The Ohio Jewish Caucus praised Rocky River police and extended their thoughts to Miller and his family, noting the incident followed by just days the politically motivated shootings in Minnesota, which left two people dead and two others injured. 'Enough is enough," the all-Democratic legislative alliance said in a statement. "There is no place for this type of violence — whether it be political, antisemitic, or ideological — whatsoever. We believe we can solve our differences with humility, not hatred.'
