Is Israel Losing Sight of Its Long Game?

Like many wars, Israel’s four-month-old operation in Gaza is playing out on split screens. In most major international media outlets, it is portrayed as a campaign of wanton destruction and mass misery that has killed 28,000 or more Gazans and destroyed more than 70 percent of the territory’s homes, without coming close to achieving its stated objective of “eradicating” Hamas and returning all the hostages. As a result, Western analysts have placed Israeli strategy on a spectrum ranging from “muddled,” as one Foreign Affairs article has put it, to a “strategically and morally unrecoverable” failure, as Ryan Evans, the founder of War on the Rocks, has described it.

By contrast, most Israeli media often seem to be depicting an entirely different war. On any given day, many Israeli newspapers and news broadcasts are filled with images of tunnels destroyed and weaponry captured, as well as the names of high-profile Hamas commanders killed. One recent headline in The Jerusalem Post trumpeted, “Israel Defeats Hamas in Khan Yunis, over 10,000 Gazan Terrorists Killed.” Another in The Times of Israel proclaimed, “Hamas in Route to Defeat.” This is not to say that the Israeli accounting suggests unalloyed success. After more than four months, many of the hostages remain in Hamas hands, and Israeli military casualties are mounting. Nonetheless, despite the unpopularity of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and growing pressure on the government to bring the hostages home, Israelis, on the whole, largely support the war effort, and a sizable portion of Jewish Israelis remain committed to toppling Hamas.

As is often the case when two narratives diverge sharply, reality lies somewhere in between. Israel is making more tangible progress toward some of its war aims than outside observers may realize, but it is also falling short of or losing on others to an extent that has been overlooked by many in the country itself. As important, both narratives may be overlooking a more grounded understanding of the unfolding campaign in relation to the several, quite distinct challenges Israel is trying to address. For the war is about more than simply defeating Hamas, and it is crucial to understand the different ways that Israel’s progress against the group can be assessed. But Israel’s success must also be measured in relation to the war for Palestinian opinion and the long-term consequences that Israeli actions may have. If Israel hopes to win in Gaza, it will need to recognize that these various objectives are fundamentally interconnected and that winning in one area does not necessarily result in winning in another. Its strategy in Gaza, therefore, needs to work on multiple levels at the same time.

A THREE-DIMENSIONAL WAR

Israel faces three overlapping but distinct challenges in Gaza. First, it has what could be called the 3,000 problem: dealing with the direct perpetrators of October 7. According to Israeli officials, about 3,000 militants, mostly from Hamas’s military wing but also members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other militant groups, crossed into Israel that day and murdered, raped, and tortured Israeli soldiers and civilians—men, women, and children—and took 253 hostages, including at least 130 who remain captive in Gaza, several dozen of whom are believed dead. An estimated 1,000 militants were killed on October 7, but a larger number escaped back to Gaza. To effectively solve the 3,000 problem, Israel needs, at minimum, to kill or capture those who ordered or took part in the attack and to secure the release of the hostages, either by force or through negotiation.

Israel also has a 30,000 problem. Before the war, Israeli intelligence estimated that Hamas’s military capabilities included a fighting force of roughly 30,000 militants. These fighters enjoyed a vast subterranean network of tunnels and facilities in Gaza spanning more than 350 miles and an expanding and ever more sophisticated array of offensive capabilities—including thousands of rockets, as well as tens of thousands of rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, mines, and other weapons poised to strike Israel from land, sea, and air. For Israeli strategists, the October 7 attack showed that Israel can no longer rely on its earlier deterrence and containment strategy toward Hamas—enforcing a series of border restrictions on the group while keeping it in check by conducting periodic, limited strikes in Gaza. Israeli officials have concluded that they must destroy and dismantle Hamas’s organization and infrastructure to ensure Israel’s safety.

Finally, Israel has a 3.5 million problem. According to an opinion survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in November, during the weeklong cease-fire, some 57 percent of Gazan respondents and 82 percent of West Bank Palestinian respondents said they supported Hamas’s October 7 attack. All told, this is proportionally equivalent to about 3.5 million people, based on prewar population numbers for both territories. In other words, even if Israel solves its 3,000 and 30,000 problems, rescuing hostages and effectively destroying Hamas as a military entity, it will still face a large population that supports armed resistance and that will provide fertile ground for any future militant group that rises in Hamas’s place.

Israeli and Western narratives of the war diverge sharply.

Framed this way, the results so far of Operation Swords of Iron, as Israel calls its campaign in Gaza, look different from the picture that has emerged in either the Western or Israeli accounts of the war. After four months of war, Israel has in fact made strong progress on its 3,000 and 30,000 problems. Israeli forces have successfully killed or captured scores of Hamas leaders, including the ones directly responsible for the massacres at Beeri and Nir Oz, the hardest-hit kibbutzim on October 7, in which over 140 Israelis were killed. Israel also secured the release, mostly through negotiation, of 112 Israeli hostages. On the other side of the ledger, many perpetrators of the October 7 massacre, including many of Hamas’s top leaders, remain at large. Moreover, the majority of Israeli hostages are still in the custody of Hamas and other, smaller groups. Israeli attempts to free the hostages by military force have produced mixed results, with some succeeding in rescuing ones and twos, while others have ended in disaster. As of this writing, despite weeks of indirect negotiations, Israel has not achieved a deal to release many or all the remaining hostages.

Israel has made somewhat more progress on its 30,000 objective of destroying Hamas’s forces and infrastructure: the Israeli military claims to have killed at least 10,000 militants, wounded another 10,000, and defeated at least 18 of 24 battalions. According to Israel, 2 of 5 brigade commanders, 19 of 24 battalion commanders, and more than 50 platoon commanders have been eliminated. Dozens of miles of Hamas tunnels have been identified and destroyed. Israel also claims to have destroyed 700 rocket launchers, and as a consequence, rocket attacks on Israel have dramatically decreased, although Hamas continues to be able to launch rockets. Meanwhile, Israeli officials say that they have mostly established control over the northern half of the Gaza Strip and that Israeli forces are making slow but steady progress against key Hamas strongholds in the south. Even by Israeli estimates, finishing the job may require a year or more of fighting. But by these measures, Israel has inflicted far more damage to Hamas’ military capabilities than in any previous Israel-Hamas war.

Yet Israel is utterly failing at its 3.5 million problem. Indeed, as the war continues, Palestinian support for armed resistance is, if anything, growing. Hamas is more popular now than it was before October 7. The group’s approval rating among Palestinians in the West Bank soared from 12 percent in September to 44 percent in December. Support for Hamas has also grown across the Arab world and even globally, including in the United States, particularly among younger Americans and other key voting demographics. For all of Israel’s military progress on the war’s other fronts, it is clearly losing the public relations war, not only with the Palestinian population but internationally as well.

Put more directly, Israel faces a dilemma. Right now, its progress on its 3,000 and 30,000 problems is coming at the direct cost of making its 3.5 million problem worse. Israel’s successful hostage rescue in mid-February captures this dynamic in a nutshell: while it safely brought two hostages home, it came at a cost of dozens of Palestinian lives that overshadowed this otherwise good news story in the international press. Destroying Hamas requires lots of military force and even more destruction, but that destruction comes at the cost of radicalizing many more Palestinians. Even more critically, as the 3.5 million problem becomes more acute, international opposition to the war will continue to build. From the perspective of Israel, the concern must be that this international pressure will eventually force it to cut short its operations before it can claim victory. In other words, the 3.5 million problem, if not addressed, will eventually undercut Israel’s chances of solving its 3,000 and 30,000 problems.

GOLDILOCKS IN GAZA

In the first week of January, Israeli leaders signaled a shift in war strategy: Israel would have fewer troops in Gaza and conduct fewer airstrikes and would instead pursue more targeted operations. The change came after months of U.S. pressure on Israel to reduce civilian casualties, and over the past month, the shift has slowly taken shape on the ground. In January, Israel withdrew five brigades and scaled back its use of airpower. For Gaza’s battered civilian population, this scaling back will likely be welcome, but it will not solve Israel’s strategic dilemma.

To date, Israel has employed enormous firepower during Swords of Iron. Israeli officials point out, likely correctly, that Hamas’s theory of victory—or at least of survival—hinges on Israel being forced to curtail its operation as a result of international pressure, so Hamas has a vested interest in inflating civilian casualties. But even excluding Hamas’s figures, the war’s other statistics speak for themselves: as of mid-December, for example, Israel had conducted some 29,000 airstrikes on various targets in Gaza and estimated that it had killed approximately 7,000 Hamas militants. According to these figures, on average fewer than one in four bombs dropped on Gaza have killed a Hamas militant. Admittedly, the ratio is a rough estimate, but it suggests that Israel can dial back its use of firepower—by more selectively choosing its targets, killing fewer people, and wreaking less devastation—without necessarily compromising the military effectiveness of its operations.

Whatever the next phase of the war looks like, it will make no one happy.

A less violent operation is certainly welcome news for Gazans, but from an Israeli perspective, the question is whether this shift will buy Israeli forces the time they need to finish dismantling Hamas and prevent the group from gaining further Palestinian support. Here, there is much more reason to be skeptical. For starters, even targeted operations can still fuel popular resentment. For example, in January, the precision drone strike that assassinated Hamas’s deputy political leader, Saleh al-Arouri, in a southern suburb of Beirut killed a total of seven people—all either members of Hamas or Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanese terrorist group. Nonetheless, the strike still set off protests across the West Bank and anger across the Arab world. Moreover, given how destructive Israel’s campaign in Gaza has already been, the human conditions inside Gaza will likely continue to deteriorate in the absence of outside aid, even if the Israelis scale back their use of force. As a result, such a move may not buy Israel much immediate goodwill among the Palestinian population or the rest of the world. To many international observers, it will seem too little, too late. Imagery of the conflict will continue to be dominated by a largely civilian population suffering at the hands of the Israeli onslaught.

At the same time, Israel faces real limits on how far it can dial back its military operation, particularly if it remains committed to dismantling Hamas completely. Israel has only partially rooted out Hamas from its strongholds in the southern cities of Khan Younis and the refugee camps near the center of the strip. And it is only starting to fight in Rafah. Even by Israel’s own estimates, a majority of Hamas’s fighters remain at large. Against an adversary of this size, airstrikes and targeted raids may not be enough. (Indeed, the United States tried the latter approach in Afghanistan and failed terribly, as evidenced by the fact that the Taliban are again running Afghanistan today.) A scaled-back strategy would also create domestic political problems. Members of the Israeli cabinet have criticized Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi for pulling back on the use of airpower. This complaint is not driven only by blood lust: Israel has lost more than 230 soldiers in Gaza to date—on a per capita basis, more than the United States lost during the entire Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Israel thus sees airpower as a way to minimize its forces’ casualties on the ground, and so restricting it at the potential cost of more Israeli lives is a tough political sell.

Whatever this next phase of the Gaza war looks like, one thing is clear: it will make no one happy. Simply put, the Israeli military cannot reduce its use of firepower enough to placate its critics abroad, nor can it appease its critics at home who call for a decisive defeat of Hamas while minimizing Israeli military casualties, and still accomplish its strategic objectives in Gaza.

A BETTER WELFARE STRATEGY

If Israel intends to buy itself the time it needs to resolve the 3,000 and 30,000 problems, then it must also begin to address its 3.5 million problem. To do this, Israel will need, first, to embrace the fact that it is responsible for Gaza’s more than two million civilians and ensure their welfare—if not on moral grounds, then on strategic ones. Contrary to some voices on Israel’s hard right, Gaza’s population cannot simply be pushed out. The United States, Europe, Israel’s Arab neighbors, and even some right-wing members of Israel’s governing coalition oppose the idea of transferring Palestinians out of Gaza. More important, the Palestinians do not want to leave. They will remain in Gaza for the foreseeable future. And so, the first step to solving Israel’s 3.5 million problem begins with this population.

For Israel, ensuring the welfare of Gaza’s civilians is also the best way to secure international support—particularly from the United States—for its continued mission to dismantle Hamas. In a poll of Americans conducted by Gallup in December, 49 percent of Democratic respondents said that the United States was not doing enough to help the Palestinians. By contrast, only 15 percent of Democratic respondents said that the United States was doing too little to help Israel. Especially now that the presidential campaign is starting in earnest, the Biden administration needs to show its supporters—particularly on the progressive left—that it cares about human welfare in Gaza, if only to secure their votes on election day.

What Israel needs, then, is to take a big, tangible, and public step in its war strategy to show that it indeed cares about Gaza’s civilian population. Establishing safe zones in areas already cleared of Hamas militants in northern Gaza is one place to start. Such a move, of course, is easier to talk about than to execute: it would require removing unexploded ordnance, setting up temporary housing, and providing basic sanitation, all under the continuing threat of attacks by Hamas and other groups. As important, it would need to overcome likely skepticism among war-devastated Gazans, who may conclude that such a move is not a true shift in policy but simply another Israeli military ploy. Nonetheless, these challenges are worth taking on, for in doing so, Israel could send an important, visible signal about its commitment to Gazans’ welfare.

Israel must take a big, tangible step to show that it indeed cares about Gaza’s civilian population.

Similarly, Israel needs to substantially expand humanitarian aid to Gaza. If Hamas is intercepting aid convoys, as Israel claims, then Israel should provide aid directly to the population—by having Israeli army units either protect those aid convoys or deliver the aid directly. Not only is that the morally right thing to do, but it is also the strategically prudent option. From a public relations standpoint, if nothing else, Israel would then be able to use the images of Israeli soldiers providing food to starving children or treating Gaza’s elderly to balance those of Israeli bombs destroying large swaths of Gaza.

Finally, Israel must offer some sort of vision for what will happen to Gaza after the war, and it should offer that vision now rather than delay the discussion until after the war. Such planning is operationally necessary, to avoid the kinds of troubles that befell the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq following the invasion of those countries and the toppling of their regimes. But it is diplomatically necessary, too. Friendly Arab states have predicated reconstruction assistance on such a plan. But beyond these considerations, making public a postwar plan is essential to convincing both the Palestinians and the world at large that Israel does not plan to evict Gazans from the strip when the fighting stops.

Israel will likely never be able to fully win hearts and minds in Gaza. Given all the bloodshed of this war and previous ones, decades of indoctrination in Gaza’s schools, the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the stalled peace process, and the fraught history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the animosity will persist for quite some time. But Israel can limit its ongoing losses and, crucially, in the process, buy itself more time.

3.5 MILLION HEARTS AND MINDS

Historically, Israel’s strategic shortcomings in Gaza have been driven in large measure by the idea that Israel could deal with the military threat of Hamas without simultaneously addressing the deeper causes of Palestinian grievances. Ever since it withdrew from Gaza in 2005, perhaps even earlier, Israel has viewed the economic and political running of the strip—and the welfare of its population—as largely a Palestinian concern. Sure, Israel provided electricity, and it allowed Qatar, the United Nations, and other actors to provide humanitarian assistance. But from Israel’s perspective, the Palestinian Authority—and later Hamas—was ultimately responsible for Gazans. The rest of the world, however, has never seen Gaza that way. As long as there is no Palestinian state, Israel must realize that to outside observers, it owns the ultimate responsibility for governance.

This may in part account for the significant disconnect between the differing Israeli and Western assessments of Israel’s military campaign today. For many Israelis, the campaign in Gaza has had considerable success, given the progress made in dismantling Hamas’s infrastructure. To many Western observers, on the other hand, the war has been mostly a failure because of the extraordinary destruction it has wrought within Gaza. But the two issues—the welfare of Gazans and the destruction of Hamas—are fundamentally intertwined. If Israel wants to maintain what Netanyahu has called “overall security responsibility” of Gaza, it must also assume responsibility for Gazan wellbeing. Ultimately, if Swords of Iron is to be successful, Israel needs to solve not just its 3,000 and 30,000 problems, but its 3.5 million one, too.