The much-anticipated invasion of Gaza City by the IDF is underway in full force. As of Tuesday, approximately 350,000 residents had already left Gaza City, according to the army, out of an estimated one million people who reside there.
In addition to the large number of mandatory service soldiers involved, around 130,000 reservists have been called up, with an approximately 80% response rate. The soldiers have been called up for service duty on dates ranging from November of this year to early 2026.
According to the Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bob, IDF spokesperson Effie Defrin said that it might take many months to carry out the initial takeover of Gaza City, plus numerous months more to meticulously eliminate Hamas elements and booby traps there, once the area has been generally secured.
Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, who in cabinet discussions leading up to the invasion had pushed for a partial hostage deal in place of the invasion and for a slow takeover, spoke to the nation on Tuesday night and emphasized that the goal of the campaign was to free the remaining hostages still being held captive by Hamas in Gaza and to defeat the terror organization.
“We are acting to defeat a terrorist organization that proclaims from every platform that its objective is to eliminate the very existence of the State of Israel.”
The goal is noble, but at what cost? Between accusations of genocide and war crimes, the rising tide of countries voting for a Palestinian state at the UN, boycotts across a range of sectors and fields, Israel is skirting ever so close to becoming a pariah state.
"Israel is entering diplomatic isolation. We will have to deal with a closed economy," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a finance ministry conference Monday, giving a rare admission of the war's effect on Israel's international standing.
"We will have to be Athens and super-Sparta," adapting to an "autarkic," or self-sustaining, economy, he added. "We have no choice," Netanyahu concluded.
Even Israel’s closest ally, the United States, and its president, Donald Trump, who has basically let the Netanyahu administration have its way in Gaza, has become fed up.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump yelled to advisers, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that ‘he’s f****ing me” following the attack on Doha. Publicly, he’s also expressed dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s strategies and decisions in Gaza.
Israel is fighting a just war, but one that has run its course
We don’t know what the answer is for the predicament Israel finds itself in. It’s fighting a just war, but one that seems to have run its course. We can intensify the targeting of Hamas through the Gaza City invasion, but most assessments concur that Israel will never totally defeat Hamas.
As the invasion continues, the inevitable casualty count on both sides – Israeli and Palestinian - will mount, and the Israeli public, shellshocked and traumatized after two years of loss and misery, will suffer even more.
And, the hostages – ultimately the reason we’re doing all of this in the first place – are being placed in even greater peril than they have been. Hamas has threatened to use them as human shields, and nobody – either from the government or the military – has provided a reasonable explanation about how the IDF can kill Hamas fighters and rescue the hostages. The two aims seem diametrically opposed.
As we enter the High Holiday period and creep up on the two-year mark since that awful October 7 that changed Israel forever, we urge the government to use the leverage that’s being created by the invasion of Gaza City to explore every opportunity to return to the negotiating table.
It’s clear that the release of the hostages will not be achieved militarily, but through an agreement. It’s also clear that an ‘absolute victory’ that Netanyahu has touted for two years is not forthcoming, no matter how long Israel remains in Gaza.
Israel’s standing in the world is secondary in the reasons why we need a deal. What the war is doing to the country and its citizens is the primary consideration, along with the need to get the hostages home today, not tomorrow, and not next year.