If one were charitable, one might think that all the noise – the loud noise, the deafening noise – about whether to occupy all of Gaza is just one big smoke screen, a giant ruse to confuse and confound the enemy.
Otherwise, what the country witnessed this past week just doesn’t make any sense.
What did it witness? The very public dispute between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir over whether or not to occupy all of Gaza. Netanyahu is reportedly in favor; Zamir is reportedly opposed; and the issue was scheduled to be discussed at a high-stakes security cabinet meeting Thursday night.
But the political fracas didn’t stop at the top. Netanyahu’s son Yair – posting on social media, apparently from the comfort of Miami – launched an attack on Zamir, blaming Defense Minister Israel Katz for appointing him. Katz shot back, publicly defending Zamir in a move that widened the fissure between the defense establishment and the political leadership.
That whole exchange – the top-level dispute and its ripple effects – was just the first movement in a weeklong cacophonous political symphony.
Then came the war planning – or, more precisely, the public discussion of the war planning.
The IDF might reoccupy all of Gaza, meaning a full push into Gaza City and the central refugee camps of Deir el-Balah and Nuseirat. Or it might surround those areas and rely on overwhelming firepower and commando raids to try to bring Hamas to its knees. It wasn’t clear which.
But what was clear is that the entire world, including Hamas, now knows what options are on the table.
Add to this a shouting match inside the IDF General Staff Headquarters – between the head of the air force and the head of the Southern Command – plus a steady stream of media reports about how exhausted and burned out the troops are and how badly they need a break.
All of that – the yelling, the leaking, the hand-wringing – must be part of some grand deception plan. Because if it wasn’t, then why would Israel be broadcasting so many of its military cards in plain view of an enemy that is watching very, very carefully?
A Channel 12 report on Wednesday said that it was Hamas leaders in Turkey who instructed the terrorist organization to harden its negotiating position on the hostages.
Of course they did. They see the confusion. They see the internal divisions. They see the international pressure that has intensified as a result of Hamas’s well-coordinated “Israel is starving us to death” campaign – a campaign that has succeeded in shaping international headlines and agendas.
They also hear the anguished cries of the hostage families – raw, emotional, and utterly human – pleading for a deal to end the war, even if it means leaving Hamas as it is now. Those voices are powerful and impossible to ignore. But emotional urgency, however justified, doesn’t always align with what is best for long-term national security.
Ruti Strum – the mother of one released hostage and of another hostage, Eitan Horn, still being held – pleaded with the security cabinet ministers to “think with your hearts, and not only your heads.” Her sentiment is deeply moving and profoundly human. But when it comes to shaping national policy, the burden falls on leaders to weigh not only the heartbreak of the present but also the consequences for the future.
Considering all this, is it any surprise that the Hamas leadership, holed up in bunkers or sitting comfortably in Istanbul or Doha, believes it can wait Israel out?
Now flip the lens. What do we know about the mood in Gaza? Any sense of what Hamas leaders are thinking? Any idea even of who those leaders are? What internal arguments are they having? Whether they’re confident or panicking? Whether the population supports them or is ready to revolt? No. Very little.
Hamas knows so much about us and our internal deliberations, yet we know virtually nothing about theirs. That gives them a distinct advantage. And every time we shout across podiums or leak to the press or argue on social media, that advantage only grows.
It’s all reminiscent of the lead-up to the IDF’s move into Rafah in May 2024. For weeks beforehand, the country – government, media, anonymous political and military leaders – couldn’t stop talking about it. Debating it, leaking details, speculating, infighting.
The result? The world grew anxious. The Americans applied pressure. Expectations ballooned. And when the operation finally came, it was far less painful – militarily and politically – than the months of buildup had suggested.
Disagreements over what Israel should do in Gaza next are inevitable and even healthy. It is appropriate, even vital, for the political echelon to challenge the military leadership on strategy and goals. And it is equally important for the generals to challenge the politicians in return: What exactly do you want to achieve? What comes next? What are the costs of what they are proposing in terms of casualties, both military and civilian?
But those critical conversations don’t need to happen under a spotlight, with the country’s adversaries taking notes. Some things, especially in wartime, are better done in private.
Chaos by design, or dysfunction on full display?
UNLESS, OF COURSE, it is all a ruse.
On June 15, just three days after Israel’s devastating first attack on Iran in Operation Rising Lion, Fox News’s Bret Baier interviewed Netanyahu. “I think we’ve set them back quite a bit,” the prime minister said of Iran’s nuclear program. “I think they were completely surprised. And, you know, surprise is a great element of success.”
What is true of Iran is also – obviously – true of Gaza.
Then how could the prime minister, who by his own words understands the strategic value of surprise, now be telegraphing his moves to the enemy?
It must be deception, say those who cannot believe that the state could possibly be as clumsy in figuring out what to do next in Gaza – and how to apply leverage on Hamas – as it appears now.
In the lead-up to the strike on Iran, the public also saw apparent chaos.
A phone call between Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump was portrayed as tense and adversarial, when the opposite was true. The Prime Minister’s Office announced that Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad head David Barnea were heading to Washington before the next round of US-Iran nuclear talks, though no such trip was planned.
At the time, political attention was fixed on the haredi draft crisis, which conveniently served as cover for military preparations. Even the security cabinet meeting the night before the attack was framed as focusing on a hostage breakthrough, when it was actually to green-light the Iran strike.
The country seemed consumed by dysfunction, but it was all a decoy. Which raises the question: could the current disarray over Gaza be one as well?
Maybe, but then again, maybe not. The 22 months of war in Gaza have been rife with so much indecision, backtracking, conflicts, firings, that what we are seeing now seems sadly par for the course.
Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking to believe we are too smart to show our cards in this matter, and it must be part of a greater strategic plan. Sometimes, as Sigmund Freud was once said to have quipped, a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a mess is just a mess, which might be the situation the country is in now regarding the next steps in Gaza.
Israel's leaders reach critical inflection point
STILL, WHETHER this is chaos by design or simply dysfunction on full display, it has led to a critical inflection point. The security cabinet met Thursday night to weigh two starkly different paths forward: a complete military occupation of the remaining 25% of Gaza, or a containment strategy that avoids a full takeover. Both come with costs. Both come with risks. Neither offers any guarantees.
Supporters of full occupation argue that it is the only way to finish the job: to eliminate what remains of Hamas’s military infrastructure, restore deterrence, and rescue hostages still believed to be held in the dense refugee camps of central Gaza.
They say half measures have not worked: that Hamas has exploited every pause and partial withdrawal to regroup; that the last 22 months of combat have brought the IDF this far – to the edge of Hamas’s last stronghold – and that stopping now would squander the gains.
Some go further and say that only a sustained IDF presence will prevent Hamas from returning, given the absence of a credible “day after” alternative. Others go in a different direction, arguing for the conquest and resettlement of Gaza on ideological grounds.
But critics, including reportedly Zamir and other senior officers, argue the price would be staggering. Not just in terms of IDF casualties, which they say could be dozens or more in booby-trapped urban warfare, but also in terms of hostages killed in the crossfire, global condemnation, and diplomatic isolation.
They point out that Israel has already achieved a strategic dismantling of Hamas as an organized army. What remains is guerrilla warfare. An occupation, they warn, would mire Israel in an open-ended conflict that would drain the country’s coffers, and for which there is no exit strategy, no local partner, and no clear victory conditions.
The alternative to full occupation – laying siege to Hamas strongholds by cutting them off, surrounding them with ground forces, and striking from the air or with artillery – is also no magic recipe for success.
It would keep Hamas under pressure, but might not eliminate its remaining forces. It could help preserve the lives of the hostages, but wouldn’t dismantle Hamas completely. It might preclude the need to take over and fully control Gaza and its two million residents, but without bringing the war any closer to a decisive conclusion.
In other words, it might avoid the messiness of occupation, but without resolving any of the core dilemmas still hanging over the war.
For now, the country waits. And Hamas watches. And everyone reads the leaks, studies the statements, and tries to guess whether what we’re seeing is part of an orderly playbook or just the chaos before the next chapter.
One hopes it is the former. But one has doubts.