On Sunday, the IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, told a group of relatives of soldiers being held captive by Hamas that “the IDF has achieved 80 percent of its military objectives in Gaza.” What he didn’t say – but could be understood between the lines – was that while the IDF includes rescuing the remaining 125 Israeli hostages as an objective, and has launched a number of operations in recent weeks to retrieve bodies of hostages, from his perspective, securing the release of those remaining is unlikely to happen by military means. He told them that if a hostage agreement is reached which includes a lengthy ceasefire, “the IDF can deal with it”.
Once again, what he wasn’t saying is that the IDF has reached the point where many of its generals believe that there are diminishing returns to prolonging the military campaign. Even while additional brigade combat teams were going into Rafah this week, the main objective was to the east of the city, capturing the Philadelphi Corridor along the Egyptian border and destroying smuggling tunnels there. Gadi Eisenkot, a minister in the war cabinet and former IDF chief of staff, echoed this position in a closed session of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Monday where he said: “Hamas is rebuilding its strength and the fighting in Gaza will continue for years.
It’s wrong to speak in terms of ending the war and releasing the hostages. The right thing to do now in Gaza is to reac.
