Israel’s military operations against Gaza City have begun, accompanied by protests in Israeli cities and widespread international condemnation. Envisaged as the last stage in Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas as the force responsible for the 7 October attacks, the ground offensive is as high-risk as any of the previous Gaza assaults by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) – and one of the most contentious.
The security cabinet took the best part of a day to sign off on it two weeks ago, with senior military figures publicly voicing misgivings. Ongoing street protests swelled: against the perils of the operation itself, against the call-up of 60,000 reservists (with highly unusual appeals from some for recruits to refuse the call-up), and fears that this new operation in Gaza will make the return of Israel’s remaining hostages, of whom 20 may still be alive, an even more remote prospect than it already is.
Negotiations for a new ceasefire and possible hostage releases have been resumed with Qatar and Egypt, but with Israel’s position being that any ceasefire is conditional on the return of all hostages, and previous rounds of talks having failed, there can be little confidence in success. Meanwhile, the enforced evacuation of more than a million people from Gaza City into the rest of the devastated Strip is in progress.
Presiding over all this is the prime minister who has dominated Israeli politics for nearly 30 years: Benjamin Netanyahu, whose political stamina has helped to keep him in his job, even as crises and scandals have threatened to topple him. As the Gaza City operation begins, a legitimate question is whether this could finally prove a risk too far.
Israel’s operation against the Gaza Strip, whose professed aim was to destroy Hamas, has turned out to be in many ways a very uncharacteristic campaign on the nation’s part. It has appeared clumsy, lacking in overall direction, extravagant in firepower, ruthless in the scale of casualties, and inefficient and vindictive in the provision of humanitarian assistance. It is hard to understand how, facing an adversary so relatively poorly equipped, a country and a military known for their precision elsewhere could have caused such devastation over so long in a territory it well knew from its earlier occupation.
Part of the explanation may be the very asymmetry of capabilities and the extent to which Hamas was, and remains, embedded in the population. But another has surely been the presence of Israeli hostages, with Israel essentially pursuing two incompatible goals: rooting out Hamas and securing all the hostages’ release. If possible, alive.
With no hostages, Israel’s operations in Gaza could have been a great deal simpler, if no less brutal. Hamas’s apparent understanding of the value Israel places on the lives of its own may have been part of its rationale on 7 October. But the effect has been not only to complicate Israel’s military plans, but to divide Israelis between those who think their leaders should have been more amenable to ceasefires in the hope of speeding the safe return of the hostages and those for whom defeat of Hamas, and vengeance for 7 October, was paramount.
Fractures have also opened up between sections of the military, with the army’s chief of staff among those publicly questioning the wisdom of the Gaza City offensive. Divisions are also evident among some veterans refusing to re-enlist, and reservists saying they will refuse the call-up. This is a level of dissent perhaps unprecedented in a country where, except for the Orthodox Jews, the duty to serve in the military is an article of national faith.
These divisions may eventually prove fatal for Netanyahu, but not yet.
He has remained in power precisely because he remains the only person able to maintain the complex coalitions that Israeli elections produce. Maybe, as is sometimes said, his concern to hang on to power reflects his risk of prosecution for corruption if and when he leaves office. But his longevity probably reflects more a popular reluctance to change leaders when the security of the state may seem under threat.
As for whether what appears at this point to be a murderous and mismanaged operation that has still not defeated Hamas will turn out to be the failure that ends and defines Netanyahu’s career, I would rather suggest the events that precipitated it will. The killings of 7 October 2023 stand as a colossal failure of intelligence and security in a country widely seen as a byword for both, and they happened on his watch. It is understandable that he would choose to stay in office to initiate the response and then relentlessly defy every setback in pursuit of the desired end.
Whatever the future of Gaza, however, it is 7 October that will forever be the beginning of Netanyahu’s end.
