Sunday marks six months since the devastating Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023, and there is a growing feeling among Israelis that their country is stuck.
The national unity and sense of purpose under adversity that dominated the early months of the war has largely disappeared, replaced by uncertainty and, particularly by the relatives of the 134 hostages who remain in Hamas captivity, increasing despair.
Israel’s military strategy has always been based on achieving a decisive victory as quickly as possible; the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel defeated the combined armies of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in less than a week, set the standard.
The current war, fought against some 30,000 militants according to Israeli estimates, has failed to produce a victory, despite some tactical successes, and no end is in sight. Israel has not achieved any of its three main war goals: the defeat of Hamas, the return of all the hostages and ensuring Hamas cannot re-establish military or political control over the coastal enclave once the fighting is over.
Israel has become bogged down in the Gaza quagmire. Some 600 soldiers have been killed and Israelis dread hearing news bulletins open with the words “it’s been permitted for publication ...” which precede the name of another soldier lost.
Hamas has lost 18 of its 24 combat battalions but its resolve hasn’t weakened and its rejection of the latest truce and hostage-release deal presented by international mediators indicates it doesn’t feel particular pressure to end the fighting.
A Hamas presence and militant activity continues in the northern Gaza Strip, which Israel declared months ago had been conquered and cleared. The Israeli military is again fighting in the same places it did before. The incursion into the southern city of Rafah is not happening and the diplomatic pressure on Israel is increasing as relations with the US go from bad to worse. Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the two senior Hamas leaders in Gaza, are still alive, probably in tunnels under Rafah. Six months into the war, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) still has no realistic plan on how to finish it.
Senior US intelligence officials say the IDF has succeeded in killing only one-third of Hamas’s fighters and destroying one-third of its vast tunnel network. The military hasn’t advanced on the ground in Gaza since January, with the exception of some pinpoint operations, and a hostage-release deal remains elusive.
The situation on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon is no better.
More than 60,000 residents have been evacuated and feel abandoned as Hizbullah, the Lebanon-based, Iran-backed militant group, has succeeded in creating an effective security zone five kilometres deep along the border, where hardly any civilians remain.
Whereas more than half the evacuees from Gaza periphery communities have now returned to their homes, those in the north are afraid to return, facing daily Hizbullah rocket barrages and the threat of an all-out war, a danger that increased in the wake of this week’s attack, attributed to Israel, on the Iranian consulate building in Damascus.
There is a growing belief that prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s desire to hold on to his seat is clouding his vision. Almost all the senior military and intelligence officials, along with defence minister Yoav Gallant, have accepted responsibility for the colossal failures of October 7th, and are likely to step down once the fighting is over.
Netanyahu, however, has failed to accept responsibility, pinning the blame on the military and creating a crisis of confidence with the IDF and within the war cabinet and the wider security cabinet.
Instead of an effective, task-oriented leadership focused on turning tactical successes into a strategic victory, Israel has a dysfunctional leader who stubbornly resists presenting a feasible plan for a postwar Gaza.
Such a plan would necessarily include an explicit Israeli commitment to ultimately engage in a peace process with a single Palestinian entity, or a reformed Palestinian Authority, to use American parlance. Such a plan would likely prompt the two far-right parties in Netanyahu’s coalition to quit, forcing new elections. Significant concessions to achieve the release of the hostages, such as releasing senior militants from Israeli prisons or allowing a mass return of displaced residents to the northern Gaza Strip, could also lead to the collapse of his right-wing coalition.
Polls consistently show he would face a crushing defeat in an election. His opponents suspect that continuing the war in Gaza is now Netanyahu’s real aim, in order to remain as prime minister.
On Wednesday, war cabinet member Benny Gantz, who joined the emergency coalition at the outbreak of the conflict, threw down the gauntlet, publicly calling for new elections in September. Netanyahu, predictably, rejected the call, saying elections would be a prize for Hamas, but pressure will mount for early elections in the coming months.
The stability of his coalition is also threatened by the ultra-Orthodox parties, who are angry over a recent court decision ending the decades-long exemption from military service enjoyed by yeshiva religious seminary students.
With the outbreak of the war, anti-government protesters suspended weekly demonstrations, the biggest in Israel’s history, against attempts to curb the power of the judiciary – a plan that has now been effectively buried. Many received call-up orders and threats to refuse the draft were shelved as reservists rallied around the flag.
Over the last few weeks the protests have resumed, focused on the call for new elections. Many relatives of the hostages have joined the demonstrations, convinced that as long as Netanyahu is in power the hostages will remain in Hamas captivity.
A country that has known precious few moments of tranquillity is now struggling to cope with one of its most traumatic periods ever.
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