Race against time
Why Israel cannot achieve a strategic victory, the factors driving Israel towards a temporary ceasefire, and why it won't last.
Negotiations are underway to establish a new, two to four week ceasefire where Hamas would release 30-40 Israeli captives in exchange for 10 times that number of Palestinian prisoners. These captives would not be active duty soldiers of either gender, and they likely would not be former senior IDF officers.
Israel is still committed publicly to eliminating Hamas, and has repeatedly affirmed its willingness to continue fighting for several months. Backing down without the Israeli public demanding an end to the war would be political suicide. The Israeli public is demanding the return of prisoners, not halting attempts to destroy Hamas.
Israel is able to enter most parts of the Gaza Strip that it decides to target, albeit at heavy cost and without being able to prevent resistance from re-emerging. That said, Israel is struggling to translate these advances into meaningful victories.
Israel has largely silenced resistance in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia, the two northernmost towns in the Gaza Strip, though fighting still occurs sometimes, meaning that many tunnels remain undetected.
Gaza City and Khan Younes are still offering extremely stiff resistance. Israel is suffering a steady stream of casualties in these two cities, despite these being main targets for its operation.
Resistance activities continue in areas that Israel entered in the first days of the war which are of strategic importance, like Johr a-Deek.
This suggests that Hamas chose to deprioritise the two northern towns to focus on the centre, and that its ability to direct operations remains.
Crucially, Rafah remains uncontested, and is another Hamas stronghold. That operation would take another month or two.
Moreover, Hamas is still able to fire missiles at downtown Tel Aviv, despite incessant airstrikes since 7 October. This reflects the success of Hamas’ tunnel network.
Significantly, Israel has not managed to find a single Israeli captive - with the exception of three formerly captive unarmed Israeli soldiers that the Israeli army shot while they were trying to surrender - approaching while undressed, carrying a white flag, and speaking Hebrew.
Furthermore, even if Israel detects some tunnels, it is only likely able to destroy their entrances and some nodes within them, not collapse the tunnels in full. Meaning that Hamas can restore its fighting capabilities, and that any Israeli advances and successes are tactical, not strategic.
Hamas is also fighting in a highly decentralised manner - its commanders control events at the strategic level, but not at the tactical level. This means that killing any commander is less important than it seems.
Critically, Hamas launched the 7 October attack in the expectation that there will be a massive and lengthy Israeli ground campaign. From Hamas’ perspective, it had previously failed to inflict enough damage on Israel because Israel refrained from launching a ground campaign. Hamas believes that inflicting enough military, economic and political damage is the only way of breaking the previous pattern, where, between 2006 and 2023, there were Israeli attacks against the group every year, sometimes several times a year.
As of 21 December, Israeli military officials have started to acknowledge in private meetings with cabinet members that destroying Hamas is unattainable. The goalpost is shifting to weakening or dismantling Hamas’ military capabilities.
A parallel process occurred during the July 2006 Lebanon war. That war began with unattainably high Israeli objectives - the destruction of Hezbollah - then moved to more manageable ones - moving Hezbollah from the border - then to simply halting Hezbollah’s rocket fire. The war ended with a ceasefire that did not achieve any of these objectives - Hezbollah remained on the border and fired the biggest salvo of the entire war right before the ceasefire came into effect. Hezbollah now is incomparably more powerful than it was at the start of the 2006 war, and is a regional player.
The Hezbollah experience is a major reason for Israel not to abandon the campaign against Hamas, fearing that a similar dynamic would occur. Yet, two months into the war, the process of managing expectations has begun.
Only escalating Israeli casualties, coupled with continued Hamas strikes against key Israeli cities, can convince the Israeli public - and the government behind it - to abandon the objective of destroying Hamas. For now, the public is turning against PM Netanyahu, not the war.
In addition, Israel has publicly stated that it intends to remain in Gaza for several months after the main operations are over, and possibly indefinitely, in order to continue dismantling Hamas’ infrastructure. This will give Hamas continued opportunities to inflict casualties and wage a media war against Israel, while ensuring continued attacks by the rest of the Resistance Axis.
All these factors indicate that the two sides are ready for a lengthy fight, despite continuing US pressure on Israel to move to operations that inflict less civilian casualties (and draw less media attention and international pressure).
As such, any ceasefire, as discussed above, will only provide a temporary reprieve, allowing the two sides to re-group and prepare for continued fighting.
That, in turn, would mean that fighting along the Lebanese border would resume as soon as any putative ceasefire ends, with deterrence fraying and the risk of escalation rising, as discussed here.
Attacks against Red Sea shipping by the Ansar Allah (Houthi) Movement, and the concomitant risk of regional escalation, would also continue, as discussed here.
For the Resistance Axis, expanding the war to force a lengthy ceasefire may be the only means of preserving Hamas - otherwise, Israel would continue with more limited ground operations for months, methodically destroying tunnel entrances and securing some areas, while continuing to take casualties.
The issue then becomes this: can Israel achieve a ‘good enough’ weakening of Hamas, that falls well short of its declared objective of defeating the group, in a time frame that is short enough to stop the slide into broader regional escalation?
Watch for:
Fragmentation of the Israeli war cabinet. There is already media talk that the Chief of Staff will resign. Talk of other resignations will be important as it would suggest that politicans are beginning to accept their fate, meaning that recognition of the failure of Israel’s objectives - and a subsequent end to the war - is increasingly likely.
The size of protests against Benjamin Netanyahu. These would indicate that cabinet fragmentation is increasingly likely.
A drop in the quality and frequency of Hamas video productions (suggesting that key infrastructure has been captured by Israel). Thus far, we have seen improved quality videos from the Islamic Jihad instead.
Talk of a post-Hamas Gaza dying down in diplomatic circles. Hamas’ military leadership has reportedly refused any such talks.
The US publicly calling for a ceasefire. This would place enormous pressure on Israel to comply, given the volume of US military equipment being transferred to Israel to enable its war effort.