NYT: Israel has achieved all it can militarily against Hamas in Gaza

Israel has accomplished all that it can militarily in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, and the terror group is unable to plan or carry out a massacre on the scale of October 7, US officials tell The New York Times.

But the officials say they will never be able to completely eliminate the terror group, and that an agreement is needed to secure the release of the living and dead 115 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

“Israel has been able to disrupt Hamas, kill a number of their leaders and largely reduce the threat to Israel that existed before October 7,” Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the former head of US CENTCOM, tells The Times, adding that Hamas has been “diminished.”

“Hamas is largely depleted but not wiped out, and the Israelis may never achieve the total annihilation of Hamas,” Ralph Goff, a former senior CIA official who served in the Middle East tells The Times.

Yaakov Amidror, a retired IDF major general, disagrees and tells the newspaper that Israel still has gains to be made on the ground in Gaza.

“If Israel evacuates its forces now, within a year, Hamas will be strong again,” he claims, adding that the military needs another two or three months in central and southern Gaza, before shifting to “intelligence-based raids and strikes” for a year to eliminate the rest of the terror group.