Three months later, Israel entered a new phase of the war
Is he still trying to “destroy” Hamas? Three months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a promise in a speech to citizens shocked by the horrific day of Hamas attacks.
“The IDF will immediately use all of its forces to destroy Hamas’ capabilities,” Netanyahu said. “We will destroy them."
Today, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) enters a new phase of the war against Hamas in Gaza - and there are signs that their goals are changing too.
"The reports are not very positive for military campaigns aimed at rooting out entrenched political-military movements," Bilal Y. Saab, a Chatham House researcher on the Middle East and North Africa, told CNN.
“The IDF leadership understands very well that it can only seriously weaken Hamas’s military capabilities,” Saab said.
Israel had some success in this regard; Its forces say they have killed thousands of Hamas fighters, including several senior members, and dismantled parts of the group's vast network of tunnels beneath the enclave.
However, challenges remain and the end game is far from being in sight. Only a few countries at war set deadlines. Israeli officials have warned of a long war that could last until 2024 and beyond. This will play out before the eyes of an international community increasingly frightened by the extraordinary humanitarian crisis and the growing number of civilian deaths in Gaza.
As international pressure grows, so does domestic unrest over Netanyahu, a prime minister in a difficult position eager to tout tangible victories.
“It’s a race against time,” Saab said, describing the key issues facing Israeli leaders. “What will be the price of this tactical success and how long will the Israelis have to achieve it without risking even greater international outrage?
“A New Approach to Combat”
The destruction of Hamas – the goal announced by Netanyahu on October 7 – was noble, elusive and, in the view of many analysts, impossible.
“Missions of this nature cannot be carried out successfully – we have seen them fail many times over the years,” Saab said.
Hamas's influence extends well beyond the Gaza Strip, meaning that a total defeat of the group for Israel is, to say the least, very ambitious if it can be achieved.
In a speech marking the anniversary of the attacks, Netanyahu reiterated his goals for the conflict: "Eliminate Hamas, return our hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel." »
However, it is unclear whether IDF leaders place eliminating Hamas at the top of their priorities. Israeli media noted that IDF intelligence chief Major General Aharon Haliva mentioned military targets in his speech on Thursday but omitted the destruction of Hamas.
Also on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant unveiled his plans for the next phase of the Gaza war, highlighting a new approach to fighting in the north and continued attacks on Gaza leaders suspected of a Hamas presence in the southern area enclave. The third phase of IDF operations in the northern Gaza Strip will include "air strikes, destruction of terrorist tunnels, air and ground actions and special operations," according to Gallant.
“This phase will be less intense, but it will last longer,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute and a former Knesset member from the Kadima party, told CNN.
While a more realistic goal is significantly reducing Hamas's fighting capabilities, many analysts say noticeable progress has been made in the last three months.
“The definition of success will not be to capture or kill all Hamas members, but to ensure that Hamas can no longer effectively rule the Gaza Strip,” Plesner said.“Hamas is organized like an army, with command and control centres, regiments and brigades. This command structure is being seriously questioned and dismantled.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv last week, Netanyahu said the Israeli army "fought violently with new systems above and below ground" and claimed to have killed 8,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza, according to military radio.
CNN cannot verify this number. According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, nearly 23,000 people have died in the territory since the war began. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Still, both the Gaza and occupied West Bank ministries estimate that around 70 percent of those killed or injured were women and children.
Israel estimates that Hamas had about 30,000 fighters in the Gaza Strip before the war began on October 7, the Israel Defense Forces told CNN in December. The Israeli army told CNN that the fighters were divided into five brigades, 24 battalions and around 140 companies, each of which was equipped with anti-tank missiles, snipers and engineers as well as rockets and mortars.
Looking for Hamas leaders
Israel also managed to attack Hamas tunnel shafts, a complex tough for IDF soldiers to infiltrate. The Israeli army released a video this week showing the demolition of one of the tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza's largest medical complex, which Hamas blames for the excavations.
Last month, he released additional videos that he said showed a network of tunnels connecting the homes and offices of senior Hamas leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif. But the most important goal is to find and kill senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, something that has so far eluded Israel.
“Intelligence is king here,” said Saab. Gallant and other officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of their efforts to eliminate top Hamas commanders, with the defence minister promising in late December that Sinwar would "soon face the barrels of our weapons."
Sinwar, a longtime member of the Palestinian Islamic group, was responsible for establishing Hamas's military wing and then forged important new relationships with regional Arab powers as the group's civilian and political leader. Organizations like these replace commanders quite easily. I don’t think anyone in Hamas is irreplaceable,” Saab said.“But if we remove the symbolic leaders of the organizations, who knows whether that will have side effects, especially for those carrying out military functions.”
It seems unlikely that the new phase of Israel's war will bring relief to Palestinians stranded in the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian crisis has reached extraordinary proportions.
However, it is more likely that Netanyahu will give in to domestic political pressure, which is increasing particularly due to Hamas's ongoing detention of more than 100 hostages on October 7.
Israel estimates that 25 hostages have died and are still being held in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office told CNN on Friday. As a result, 107 hostages involved in last year's Hamas attack are believed to still be alive.
The return of these hostages remains a goal in the new phase of the war. Still, failure to achieve that goal would increase political pressure on a crucial leader whose popularity among Israelis has only waned since October 7.
"From day one there was a clear divide: There was support for the war goals and the IDF, (but) trust in the Israeli government is at an all-time low," Plesner said. “There is a huge gap.”
