Though at press time, most of the nation was focused on individual battles and hostages in the 22 Gaza border communities which the IDF was still retaking, the fateful question is what the security cabinet will decide to do against Hamas.
That cabinet decision could frame Israeli-Palestinian relations and many other issues in the region for years to come.
A wide variety of options have existed since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority, including everything from: 1) a permanent reconquest of Gaza; 2) toppling Hamas completely, but then handing Gaza back to the Palestinian Authority and/or a multinational force. 3) Occupy Gaza for weeks or months with the goal of killing most of the current Hamas leadership and its military commanders, but then allowing it to retake control afterwards in the hope that such a deep wound will restore deterrence; or 4) a more limited ground invasion similar to the 2008/09 or 2014 Gaza wars.
At press time, at least 250 Israelis had been killed and over 1,500 wounded. Hamas had fired more than 2,000 rockets and invaded southern Israel and taken temporary control of around 22 border communities. Given its unprecedented severity, the general assumption is that the security cabinet will need to go further than option four to restore deterrence.
Although in 2014, during a 50-day conflict, the IDF called up 80,000 reservists and killed around 2,000 Palestinians, of whom about 1,000 were terrorists, few realize that only a tiny fraction of those soldiers entered Gaza, and mostly within a couple kilometers of the border.
The casualties represented only a fraction of the forces and weapons at the disposal of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, though most of their attack tunnels were destroyed.
At the time, the IDF and the cabinet refrained from conducting a more comprehensive invasion for fear of losing an estimated 500-1000 soldiers in the effort.
Gaza is heavily booby-trapped and the deeper the IDF ground forces penetrate, the less advantage aerial power provides due to the urban setting and extensive tunnel network (the IDF eliminated significant portions of internal Gaza tunnels in 2014 and 2021, but extensive tunnels remain.)
When Israeli military casualties could be kept low – around 70 were killed, during 2014 – the cabinet viewed a much higher loss to be unjustified.
But, given the much higher number of Israeli civilian casualties today and the apparent lack of IDF deterrence, it is expected that the cabinet will be ready to incur higher IDF losses to restore deterrence or topple Hamas.
Difficult security choices to be made
However, among the three remaining options, the choices are difficult from a security perspective.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had considered wider operations, but has never considered reconquering Gaza, viewing such a move as sinking Israel permanently back into a constant guerrilla war in an unfavorable setting.
Over months or years of a reconquest, Israel could easily lose far more soldiers to maintain constant control in Gaza than it will lose in all the other scenarios.
Also, reconquest could lead to massive diplomatic and public relations problems which could last for years.
The main security benefit of reconquest would be to shift the conflict and deaths from Israeli civilians on the home front to IDF soldiers in Gaza, but it would not be blood-free by any means.
This leaves as the two most likely options, toppling Hamas and replacing it either with the Palestinian Authority or some kind of multinational force.
In theory, this end result would be the best case scenario for Israel.
The problem is it is not at all clear that the PA, which was routed once in Gaza by Hamas, could maintain control, or that a multinational force could maintain control.
Unless the home country has been entirely in favor of peace, every multinational force in the area has at some point been pushed beyond its capabilities or the home countries’ willingness to sacrifice their own blood, whether it be UN forces being pushed out of the Sinai by Egypt in 1967, UNIFIL failing to prevent Hezbollah from building a 150,000 rocket arsenal in Lebanon, or elsewhere.
Another problem with this option, is that Hamas has been thought of as less bad than Islamic Jihad or ISIS, two groups which might take control of Gaza if the IDF weakens Hamas, without eliminating them.
Israel still might prefer this option as it might hold Hamas off longer than merely striking a deep blow, however deep that might be, even if Hamas might later retake control.
Yet another variation could see a mix of PA-Israeli-multinational force control, with some kind of split between security and governance issues.
It is impossible to predict how this would work as it has never been tried, but all of the problems with the other options could come into play here as well.
Striking a deep blow by killing most of Hamas’ leadership and a majority of its fighting force, but leaving it in control afterward, would mean Israel was not expecting to eliminate the group, and would not risk another worse group taking over.
The question is whether Israel could strike deep enough to truly prevent a recurrence of Saturday’s invasion.Until the invasion, all of Israeli intelligence presumed that Hamas would never risk such an aggressive operation – thinking that the worst case scenario might be attacking one or two close villages for a couple of hours.
Even regarding that scenario, Israeli intelligence believed Hamas had no appetite for it because it had stayed out of the last few rounds of fighting between Israel and Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
How could the IDF be sure that a deep blow, but leaving Hamas in charge, would not end up with another round of rockets or another invasion in another year or five years? Also, the 500-1,000 IDF deaths is still a likely byproduct of such an invasion, and it would come without installing a different new ruler, who at least might stabilize things.The bottom line is that the reason the cabinet has not carried out any of these options is that all of them have huge downsides and unpredictable upsides.
But with four divisions of reservists called up, it is likely that the cabinet will finally choose one of them, now that Israel’s back really was pushed against the wall.