As the war in Gaza started by the Hamas attack on October 7 enters its twelfth month, pinpointed Israeli attacks continue to deplete the ranks of Hamas fighters to the point that Israeli defense minister Gallant has declared that Hamas “no longer exists” in Gaza as an effective military formation. That being said, surviving Hamas fighters still remain capable of mounting deadly guerilla-style hit and run attacks, using snipers, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), improvised explosives, its dwindling remaining supply of missiles and individual suicide attacks, both in Gaza against Israeli soldiers and against Israeli civilians living in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, the nearly daily tit-for-tat attacks between Hezbollah and IDF forces mostly along the border with Lebanon in the North continue to intensify. Hezbollah rockets and drones are inflicting some physical damage, but relatively few casualties in the largely evacuated Israeli towns closest to the border. Meanwhile the IDF has been retaliating with pinpoint accuracy, using accurate information from inside Lebanon to kill targeted senior Hezbollah military commanders and systematically degrade its missile launching capabilities.
HOPES FOR A GAZA CEASE-FIRE HAVE DIMMED
At the same time, a handful of seemingly unresolvable demands by Hamas leader Yahwa Sinwar and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have once again stalled progress towards a 90% completed agreement on the first stage of the proposed cease-fire and hostage exchange deal that has been on the negotiating table since May 27, as frustrated senior U.S. officials say they have indefinitely postponed their plan to present the two sides with a final “take it or leave it” proposal.
Both sides have hardened their positions, as Hamas has increased the number of its prisoners they want released from Israeli jails, and held fast to its demands for a complete Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza and the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egyptian birder, while Israel insists that the corridor must remain under Israeli military control to prevent Hamas from using the tunnels it controls there to smuggle in replacement weapons and smuggle out its top leaders, along with some of the remaining hostages.
President Biden’s chances of realizing his goal of at least temporarily ending the fighting in Gaza and bringing home some of the remaining American and Israeli hostages, being held by Hamas, dead and alive, before he leaves office has become increasingly difficult to bring about, further tarnishing his presidential legacy.
As the fighting in Gaza continues, it is marked by increasingly successful Israeli efforts to flush the surviving Hamas fighters out of their tunnel hideouts to the surface where they can be more easily hunted down and killed. Meanwhile, surviving Hamas fighters in Gaza are increasingly trying to pick off individuals and small groups of Israeli soldiers.
FIGHTING IN GAZA IS SHIFTING TO ABOVE GROUND
According to a Ynet report, Israeli military operations in Gaza going forward will shift their focus primarily from tunnel fighting to above-ground actions, based upon intelligence, with an emphasis on preventing the return of Hamas gunmen to northern Gaza through a continuing military presence and offensive actions by Israeli troops stationed along Gaza’s central Netzarim Corridor. Israeli military commanders will also avoid positioning their forces at static posts in the Netzarim and Rafah areas where they could become targets for Hamas guerrilla-style attacks. warfare, particularly
At the same time, the Hamas propaganda machine continues to issue inflated estimates of civilian casualties from the successful attacks, in order to keep up the domestic and diplomatic pressure on the Netanyahu government to give in to Hamas’ cease-fire demands.
MURDERED HOSTAGES HAVE MADE A DEAL MORE URGENT BUT LESS LIKELY
That pressure reached new heights two weeks ago with the tragic discovery in a Gaza tunnel of the bodies of six hostages, including Eden Yerushalmi, age 24; Ori Danino, 25; Alex Lobanov, 32; Carmel Gat, 40; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, age 23, H”yd. They were executed in cold blood by their Hamas captors who were under orders to prevent them from imminent rescue by approaching Israeli troops.
But as an outraged Wall Street Journal editorial observed, “Hamas probably can’t believe its luck—or the lack of moral seriousness by its enemies. The terrorists murder six Israeli hostages, including one dual-citizen American, and Israel is suddenly under pressure to make concessions—to Hamas. . .
“The crime here is all on Hamas, which took the innocent hostages on October 7 and has refused to release them through multiple rounds of U.S.-brokered negotiations.
WHY HAS HAMAS ESCAPED WESTERN BLAME FOR ITS ATROCITY?
“Yet the reaction from the White House, the British government, the Western press and some parts of Israel is to blame the Israeli government. . .
“In a one-word answer to a [question from a White House reporter, Biden said “no” last week when asked whether] Prime Minister Netanyahu [was] doing enough to secure a hostage deal. . . [and] Britain’s new Labour government [led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer] chose to announce that, after a review, it is suspending 30 arms export licenses to Israel [because] there is [allegedly] a ‘risk’ the arms might be used in violation of humanitarian laws against Palestinians.”
The editorial also noted the irony in the fact that, “President Biden’s opposition kept Israel out of Rafah for three months. Vice President Kamala Harris claimed a Rafah invasion would doom its civilians. ‘I have studied the maps. There’s nowhere for those folks to go,’ she said. Israel proved her wrong, evacuating a million Gazans in two weeks, [and] Israel has dismantled Hamas’ Rafah brigade with notably low civilian casualties. . .
“In executing hostages, Hamas must have [correctly] figured it would increase pressure on Mr. Netanyahu. . . [to] make more concessions toward a deal [which] Hamas has rejected. . .
“The choices are heavy, and Israel’s leaders don’t need U.S. pressure driven by an American election calendar. . .
“Israel is offering unprecedented strategic concessions and risking its soldiers’ lives to free hostages. U.S. pressure should be on Hamas, which took the hostages and murders them,” the Wall Street Journal editorial concludes.
In a recent op-ed, Daniel Finkelstein the associate editor of the British Jewish Chronical, asks the basic question, “Why do you think Hamas took hostages?”
He also notes that “The fate of the hostages taken last October has rightly been on all our minds. Many of us know people who had family or friends who were taken. , ,
“So it is hardly surprising that in Israel the fate of the hostages has become deeply political. And it is now producing protests, strikes and demonstrations. . .
“Their demand is for Netanyahu to prioritize the fate of the hostages [even if it means compromising Israel’s national security].
HAMAS’ HOSTAGE STRATEGY IS WORKING
According to Finkelstein, that supplies the answer to his opening question. Hamas took the hostages “in order precisely to force Israel into the position it now finds itself. It took them as a way of forcing the Israeli government to come to terms with Hamas. This was always the ransom demand.”
But Finkelstein reminds us that the consequences of Israel accepting Hamas’ cease-fire conditions means “that Hamas retains part of its military structure and is able to regroup and [attack Israel] again. And there can never be peace in the Middle East while this holds.”
He concedes that “freeing the hostages [must be] part of [any cease-fire deal], but it cannot be the endgame. Because if it is, Hamas will simply take more hostages. This is not a prediction, it’s simply history.
“Israel has long made a policy of making huge concessions in exchange for those its opponents kidnapped. And the result, I’m afraid, has been more kidnapping.”
Finkelstein concedes that there is a compelling humanitarian argument for Israel to “come to terms and end this terrible war. . . [but only]if it can be done in a way that prevents the revival of Hamas. “
NEITHER SIDE SEEMS TO WANT TO END THE FIGHTINGRIGHT NOW
Meanwhile U.S, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators increasingly fear that neither Israel nor Hamas is truly motivated to reach a deal at this point.
Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently said, “Most days, it’s pretty clear the Americans are working much harder than the Israeli government is working [on a deal, which is why] I think [a cease-fire] has [not] been a terribly likely outcome. . . [But] I give a lot of credit to the Biden team for persevering and trying to restart and re-energize these talks.”
White House officials insist that agreement on a cease-fire deal is still essential to avoiding the escalation of the fighting in Gaza into broader regional war between Israel, the United States and its allies in the region, and Iran and its terrorist allies which have continued to launch attacks on Israel since October 7, including Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.
Meanwhile, last week, as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian negotiators were working through the final details of a “bridging proposal” aimed at resolving the remaining differences between the two sides, Hamas introduced the new demand that has now put a deal even further out of reach. That was in addition to a new demand for a continuing Israeli military presence on the eight-mile-long Philadelphi Corridor which makes up the border between Gaza and Egypt, that Netanyahu introduced on July 27, a senior Biden-Harris administration official told the Washington Post.
NEW DEMANDS AND “POISON PILLS”
In previous negotiations, Israel and Hamas had tentatively agreed that at a certain point, Israel would release jailed Palestinian terrorists serving life sentences in exchange for Hamas freeing Israeli soldiers. But last week, Hamas introduced what the administration official called a “poison pill” a demand that these long imprisoned Palestinians also need to be freed in order for the remaining civilian hostages in Hamas custody to be exchanged.
Another vexing question hanging over the cease fire talks, especially after the discovery of last week the six hostages recently murdered by their Hamas captors, is how many of the remaining hostages in Gaza are still alive.
While the Washington Post reports that there has been a debate inside the White House over whether to publicly call Netanyahu the key obstacle to a cease-fire agreement, that has become much less likely after the discovery of the six hostages, including an American citizen, who were executed by Hamas.
NETANYAHU IS NOW UNDER INTENSE PRESSURE
In Israel, the heart-breaking discovery caused the long-simmering anger toward Netanyahu by his political opponents boiled over, especially because at least three of executed hostages, had been on the list of those who were supposed to be released during the first phase of the cease-fire.
For months the family members of some of the hostages had been accusing Netanyahu of prioritizing his own political survival by extending the war in Gaza, over the deal that would bring their loved ones home.
Responding to the accusations, at a September 2 press conference, Netanyahu said “I was asked whether I am not doing enough to the release of hostages. . . . On August 28—that’s five days ago—[the] Deputy CIA Director said that “Israel shows seriousness in the negotiations. Now Hamas must show the same seriousness.”
I want to ask you something. What has changed in the last five days? What has changed? One thing: These murderers executed six of our hostages. They shot them in the back of the head. That’s what changed! And now after this, we’re asked to show seriousness? We’re asked to make concessions? What message does this send Hamas? It says, kill more hostages. Murder more hostages and you will get more concessions. The pressure internationally must be directed at these killers! At Hamas. Not at Israel. We say yes. They say no all the time, but they also murdered these people. And we now we need maximum pressure on Hamas.
I don’t believe that either President Biden or anyone serious about achieving peace and achieving the release would seriously ask Israel to make these concessions. We’ve already made them. Hamas has to make the concessions.”
WHY BIDEN HAS STOPPED HIS PUBLIC CRITICISM OF NETANYAHU
Liberal Democrat Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, complained that, “by not calling out Prime Minister Netanyahu’s intransigence, they have given him political cover to continue to stonewall. It’s a mystery to me as to why the administration doesn’t call him out more clearly, when the hostage families themselves know what an impediment he has been.”
But the reason why Biden has shied away from further penalizing Israel by imposing new conditions on U.S. military aid being sent to Israel is that Netanyahu agreed to Biden’s demands for a change in Israel’s tactics in Gaza following a tragic April 1 incident when an Israeli air strike mistakenly killed seven humanitarian workers from the World Central Kitchen who were distributing aid to civilians in Gaza.
Two weeks later, on April 15, the United States, along with several Arab and European allies, returned the favor by helping Israel to thwart a retaliatory Iranian attack consisting of a barrage of more than 300 missiles and drones.
Netanyahu then agreed to an urgent request from Biden to “take the win” and avoid further escalating the situation by shelving a planned major counter-attack against Iran, be satisfied with a symbolic, small precision strike on an Iranian facility outside of the city of Isfahan. That enabled both sides to “save face and de-escalate,” a senior Biden-Harris administration official told the Washington Post.
Ynet reports that “signs have been mounting since May of this year that it’s not just the defense establishment towing the American line, but also the prime minister and his people have been exhibiting maximum willingness to meet the [Biden-Harris] administration’s demands.”
HIGH HOPES FOR A GAZA PEACE DEAL ARE FRUSTRATED AGAIN
By May 27, it looked like the stalled Gaza cease-fire negotiations had taken on a new life. Four days later, on May 31, Biden delivered a speech from the White House laying out the Israeli proposal, making it more difficult politically for Netanyahu to back away from the deal, while trying to build international support and increasing the pressure on Hamas to approve the agreement that Biden had just announced.
On July 2, Hamas agreed for the first time to a cease-fire whose first six-week phase did not include a permanent cease-fire. But that progress towards a deal was halted on July 27, when Netanyahu explicitly demanded for the first time that the cease-fire agreement permit the continued presence of Israeli troops along the Philadelphi Corridor.
On the other hand, U.S. officials have also said that negotiating with Hamas has also proved to be anagonizing experience. because only its leader in Gaza, Yehiya Sinwar, can sign off on cease-fire deal. In addition to his new demand for the release of certain number of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails regardless of how many Israeli hostages Hamas releases from Gaza. Sinwar has also reportedly told his associates that he wants the fighting in Gaza to continue until the growing internal political pressure and diplomatic pressure from the U.S. on Netanyahu to give in completely to Hamas’ demands becomes irresistible.
Most recently, the discovery of the six murdered hostages in a Gaza tunnel has further raised Biden-Harris administration fears that a cease-fire deal is now out of reach, because neither side is willing to give in to the demands of the other.
AT SOME POINT YOU HAVE TO ADMIT YOUR PLAN ISN’T WORKING
As Ivo Daalder, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama has observed, “You can’t be the mediator between two sides when you want something more than the two sides want it. Just because there isn’t an alternative doesn’t mean this [diplomatic] strategy is working. The amount of talent we’ve deployed to get [the cease-fire negotiations to] where we are, which is nowhere, is really remarkable, and at some point you need to decide it doesn’t work.”
In addition, Ynet reports that “Israel’s political and defense establishment has reached a consensus that the chances of securing a breakthrough deal leading to a six-week cease-fire are slim to nonexistent. In response, Prime Minister Netanyahu convened a security meeting. . . with negotiating teams and top defense officials to prepare for the likelihood of an extended war on all fronts, without a hostage deal in sight.
At this point, Ynet reports that Israeli officials are continuing the stalled Gaza cease-fire negotiations to avoid giving Iran and its allies an excuse to escalate the war in Gaza into a broader regional conflict. At the same time, the IDF has been making preparations “for an intense and prolonged military campaign, including potential escalations in the north and the West Bank.”
A NEW U.S.-ISRAELI AGREEMENT ON DEALING WITH HEZBOLLAH
The Ynet news website also reports that U.S. officials have quietly come to a new working arrangement with Netanyahu and Israeli military leaders on an endgame strategy to halt the near-daily missile and drone attacks by Hezbollah which have driven more than 60,000 residents from their homes in near the Lebanon border with northern Israel.
According to Ynet’s veteran military reporter, Ron Ben Yishai,(no relation to Avi Yishai), the recent top level Israeli military’s strategy also discussed “the growing need to return displaced northern residents to their homes and ensure both a sense of security and physical safety that [has been] lacking [since October 7.”
The original plan was to hold Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s to his informal commitment to halt the attacks on northern Israel after a cease-fire deal is reached for Gaza. That would lead to negotiations for a new arrangement in the north that would at least partially implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and which calls for Hezbollah fighters and their heavy weaponry to be moved to the other side of the Litani River in southern Lebanon, about six miles from Israel’s border.
But since the likelihood of a reaching a Gaza cease-fire deal in the near future appear to be slim, Ben-Yishai reports that the U.S. has begun secret negotiations with Lebanese officials in an attempt to secure an agreement to halt the tit-for-tat fighting in the north independent of the situation in Gaza.
HEZBOLLAH’S LEADER IS REFUSING TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE U.S.
However, according to U.S. sources, Hezbollah leader Nasrallah remains adamant in refusing to reposition his Hezbollah his fighters and weapons that distance away from the Israeli border. That is why Israeli military officials are preparing for a large-scale military offensive in southern Lebanon using air, naval and ground forces, with quiet backing from both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, if Nasrallah continues to resist U.S. mediating efforts.
A preview of Israel’s military plans to neutralize the Hezbollah missile threat was the IDF’s successful preemptive strike on August 25, which largely prevented Hezbollah’s plan to launch a massive retaliatory rocket and drone attack on northern Israel as well as two key military targets in central Israel. The air strike destroyed hundreds of rocket launchers aimed at northern Israel just minutes before they were scheduled to launch an attack, and despite the fact that most of the launchers were concealed underground or in the dense foliage of southern Lebanon.
A SUCCESSFUL TEST RUN FOR AN ISRAELI ATTACK ON HEZBOLLAH
The pre-emptive strike involving 100 Israeli warplanes greatly reduced Hezbollah’s ability to paralyze normal life throughout Israel’s northern region with a mass missile attack. It also enabled Israel to shoot down virtually all of the roughly 230 missiles that Hezbollah eventually launched that day in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of senior Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr, who was one of Nasrallah’s closest and most trusted advisers, earlier this summer in Beirut.
Recent satellite post-strike images of the Hezbollah launchers reveal the charred remains of launchers, as well as scattered debris and exposed terrain where the launchers had been hidden. The Israel Air Force’s post- strike assessment concluded that Hezbollah’s ability to launch short-range rockets at targets as far south as Acre and the Haifa Bay, had been significantly diminished.
While Hezbollah still retains massive missile launching capabilities, the Israeli Air Force is preparing for a large-scale, systematic campaign to destroy the Hezbollah launchers based upon precise intelligence gathered by a specialized “launcher-hunting” method which enables the Air Force to locate and destroy any missile launcher in southern Lebanon within minutes after it fires its missile.
Meanwhile, the Israeli has made great progress in improving its ability to detect, intercept and destroy Hezbollah’s drones before they reach their targets inside Israel.
IDF PREPARING CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR A WAR IN THE NORTH
The Israeli military has also been making contingency plans for ground and air operations to deal with two major concerns. First, it is hoping to minimize Hezbollah’s ability to strike the Israeli home front during a major or full-scale conflict. Second, it is preparing for the possibility that Iran could intervene in support of Hezbollah in response to a successful Israeli attack, potentially sparking the regional war that the Biden-Harris administration has desperately been trying to avoid.
Ben Yishai reports, “Should an intense and prolonged war erupt on multiple fronts, the IDF’s primary challenge will be stretching its manpower, including reservists, to the limit—an issue whose sustainability remains uncertain. “
As a result, an Israeli defense official said, the IDF is working to satisfy American demands to reduce the danger such a broader conflict, because, he said, “We will need the U.S. with us in the north—whether through diplomatic negotiations to secure an agreement or, more likely soon, in a military campaign in Lebanon that will allow displaced northern residents to return to rebuild their homes and feel secure.”
Because Israel’s political and military leadership is closer than ever to launching such an operation, the IDF Northern Command is busily making intensive preparations. Meanwhile, the U.S. has already positioned two naval and air task forces in the region, including aircraft carriers and destroyers stationed near Iran and the Red Sea, ready to any time to go into action in defense of Israel, or in support of the IDF’s long anticipated attack on Hezbollah to enable the 70,000 residents exiled from northern Israel to return safely.
