It is hard to believe – Sunday will mark 100 days since October 7.
100 days that the sweet and innocent Kfir Bibas has been in a Hamas dungeon. The heart refuses to believe that soon he will celebrate his first birthday somewhere in a dark Gaza hole. 100 days since Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and massacred over 1,200 men, women, and children. 100 days since this country’s longest war began.
It is hard to comprehend and digest since Israel was supposed to be the most powerful country in the Middle East and Hamas – when looking at the threat matrix Israel faces – was supposed to be the weakest of its enemies. How is it then, that after 100 days, Hamas is still standing, is still able to fire rockets at Tel Aviv, still has its leadership intact and is still holding on to 136 hostages?
Fighting in northern Gaza has begun to de-escalate with most of the Israeli forces moving out. But in Khan Younis the fighting is intense and this is without even talking about the Philadelphi Corridor, the 14-kilometer strip of land between Gaza and Egypt under which Hamas operates a tunnel highway for weapons smuggling and where the IDF has yet to begin operating.
There are answers to all of this and the IDF – as is seen in the countless acts of courage on the battlefield – is doing all that it can. Israel is fighting an enemy in the most complex battlefield any conventional military has ever seen.
There have been urban wars in the past, but never with such extensive use of civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals, mosques, and homes and never with so many human shields. And while militaries have fought enemies in underground fortifications before, no one has ever seen anything like the tunnel network in Gaza which goes on for more than 500 kilometers.
Nevertheless, there are serious questions that need to be asked about the way the government is managing the war, the way the IDF is progressing, and whether the goals are even achievable anymore? After 100 days, is it not time to consider what the options are for going forward?
And this is without even talking about the situation in the North where 100,000 people remain displaced from their homes – many of which have been destroyed by Hezbollah missiles – and exchanges of fire take place daily along the border.
While an all-out war seems unlikely at the moment – mostly because both sides claim to not have an appetite for one right now – there is no plan for how this all will change. Basically, what it seems like, is that Israel’s plan right now is to wait for the spring or the summer and then decide if it should have a war.
REASSURING, NO?
Is there a plan to conclude this war?
A plan would be nice – for the North and the South. War, as military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously said, is a continuation of politics by other means. Throughout history, there have been many countries which thought they won the war on the battlefield but then realized that they had lost politically.
Can this happen to Israel? It might, if the government does not start to focus on what it wants the endgame to be.
This pressure was evident on Wednesday night, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put out a video in English explaining what most Israelis know to be true but the world apparently needed to hear from him: “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law.”
Why would he need to put out a statement like that? For two reasons. The first is because with ministers in his government calling to reoccupy Gaza, people need to hear from the prime minister and he needed to clarify in his own voice that this will not happen. The second reason is because of what is happening at The Hague where Israel is now facing accusations of genocide.
And even when it comes to such a severe charge and such a high-profile forum like the ICJ, politics sadly prevail. While there is no question that Aharon Barak, the former president of the Supreme Court, is probably the most qualified person to represent Israel there, a significant number of Likud ministers and MKs still argued that his appointment was wrong.
Netanyahu, to his credit, put aside past personal differences with Barak for the good of the country, but some of his fellow coalition members could not. Apparently, after being conditioned to attack any member of the Supreme Court for so long, it is hard for these Netanyahu loyalists to one day simply stop.
After 100 days of combat and a growing death toll on both sides, it is time for a frank discussion and an explanation by the country’s leadership on where things are going and what should be expected in the coming months. There is little doubt that the offensive will need to continue and Israelis – as well as the world – will need to get used to ongoing operations in Gaza, similar to the ones that are conducted almost daily in Palestinian cities like Jenin and Tulkarm in the West Bank.
But what about the bigger picture? The civilian management of Gaza? The reconstruction inside Gaza and along the border? How will all this look?
So why is there no articulation of a policy? Because of politics. No one in the government now wants to tie his or her political fate to a policy that could be used against them in the political campaigns that might be right around the corner if an election is held – as many predict – sometime later this year.
Israel might be at war but is bogged down by a story that has long plagued it – politics.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.