One of the reasons so many people are so confused about whether the war of 2023-2025 is over – it overwhelmingly seems that it is – is the confusion between peacetime and wartime paradigms.
Until the October 7 massacre in 2023, there were large intermittent conflicts between Israel and Gaza every two to seven years, with medium conflicts in between. But the vast majority of the time was peacetime, when there was relative quiet, certainly for central Israel.
When observers see Hamas ambush Israeli soldiers, killing two of them, and then see the IAF bombing dozens of targets throughout Gaza, they say: This must still be wartime.
Although that conclusion is not unreasonable, it completely misunderstands the radically shifted “conceptcia” (dominant security conceptual framework) of the Israeli defense establishment’s approach to peacetime.
It also misunderstands how completely Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is aligning his major foreign-policy decision with directives from US President Donald Trump.
Several years ago, then-US Cyber Command commander Gen. Paul Nakasone announced that cyberwarfare no longer recognized a totally clear line between wartime and peacetime.
There would be escalated cyberattacks between adversaries during wartime, he said, adding that they would continue at virtually all times, even during peacetime.
This is similar to Israel’s new approach to a forward-leaning defensive strategy versus its adversaries.
Since the November 2024 ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel has regularly struck a few Hezbollah operatives every week.
The Hezbollah operatives were sometimes struck for trying to penetrate into southern Lebanon or for trying to find better hiding places for rockets in minor but blatant violations of the ceasefire.
Other times, Israel decided to strike senior Hezbollah operatives who are critical to the Lebanese terrorist group’s ongoing efforts to rebuild its arsenal of rockets and ballistic missiles to be able to seriously threaten Israel again as it did prewar.
Israel has carried out a similar forward-leaning policy of striking any Syrians who come too close to the Israeli buffer zone and who might otherwise become larger threats.
Incidentally, this has been the IDF’s policy in the West Bank for years, where most terrorist attacks are intercepted long before they can transpire.
The Palestinian areas of the West Bank are covered with human and technological surveillance, and IDF forces carry out low-grade raids in different areas on a regular basis to prevent terrorist threats from growing beyond a certain point.
What happened in Gaza in recent days is basically Israel trying to draw that same line of forward-leaning defense.
Hamas did violate the ceasefire in the literal sense, when its forces fired on Israeli soldiers.
On the other hand, the soldiers were actively entering and cleaning out new tunnels.
If Israel were observing the ceasefire by merely holding the line and not pursuing exploring and destroying new tunnels, the incident probably would not have happened.
Nevertheless, this does not absolve Hamas.
It indicates that Israel is not afraid to shake the boat by going into risky new tunnels, even if it increases the chances of accidental confrontations with Hamas, which could then lead to larger Israeli reactions.
IN FACT, the government is probably even somewhat pleased that it got the opportunity to show Hamas that the terrorist group still needs the current ceasefire more than Israel does.
The IDF wants to be able to hold Hamas down and occasionally target it or raid it when necessary, without triggering a full return to war.
This allows the IDF to continue to pursue Hamas in lower-grade ways even during “peacetime” and to keep it not merely “deterred” but on the run.
Trump's loud red stop sign
At the same time, even if the government wanted to return to war, there is a bright-red stop sign from Trump preventing that.
As quickly as Israel bombed Hamas in Gaza in dozens of places all in one day, the IDF immediately stopped and issued a statement that it was returning to mere enforcement of the ceasefire lines.
This incident mirrored Trump’s ending of Israel’s war with Iran in June.
In that case, Iran lightly violated the ceasefire, firing a few ballistic missiles after the ceasefire deadline passed, with all of the missiles shot down and no harm to the Jewish state.
Netanyahu went ballistic and ordered a massive series of airstrikes against Tehran.
Iran had violated the ceasefire, but in context, Israel had increased its pace of attacks right up to the moment the ceasefire kicked in, including killing some senior Iranian officials. So, from Tehran’s perspective, it had merely shown minor displeasure to Israel by attacking back.
For this reason, Trump put up the stop sign and ordered the IAF back only two minutes before its pilots were about to let loose against Tehran.
Instead, Netanyahu had the IAF strike only one minor radar installation, while almost all of the aircraft did not even fire.
Trump “allowed” Israel a larger response this week, as opposed to with Iran, because two Israeli soldiers were actually killed, a much more severe outcome than had occurred with Tehran.
Nevertheless, he still made it clear that after one day of clear military messaging to Hamas about the consequences of killing two Israeli soldiers, the IDF needed to rewind to holding its fire.
Trump even forgave Hamas in a way, calling the fighters who attacked the two Israeli soldiers “rogue elements.”
This was a page out of the pre-October 7 era, when the IDF often forgave Hamas for a few rockets fired by “rogue elements” so that it could avoid having to risk a larger conflict with a harsh response.
This does not mean Israel and Hamas may not engage in further low-grade conflicts, and it does not mean that incidents will not play out that lead to occasional deaths.
In fact, such small incidents from time to time are even likely until the sides reach more of an understanding of their new ways of operating in parallel to each other.
But no one should confuse these low-grade incidents with being anything like a war involving 100,000 or more IDF soldiers invading new areas, accompanied by hellfire from drones, tanks, and artillery.
And no one should doubt Trump’s determination to hold both Israel and Hamas in line, regardless of whether the parties like it.