US said to believe IDF can’t make further gains against ‘diminished’ Hamas in Gaza
Current and former officials say military achievements have exceeded original expectations, but the only way to free the hostages remains an agreement with Hamas
Israel has achieved all it can in its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, several US officials told the New York Times in an article published Thursday, saying that the Israel Defense Forces would never be able to completely eradicate the terror group.
The report, citing current and former US and Israeli officials, said that only a deal, not military pressure, could secure the release of the remaining 115 living and dead captives in Gaza who were abducted on October 7. Still, the report said, Israel’s Gaza offensive has achieved far more against Hamas than US officials had predicted in October.
“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, told the Times, adding that Hamas has been “diminished.”
Responding to the Times, the Israel Defense Force said that “the IDF and its commanders are committed to achieving the goals of the war to dismantle Hamas and bring home our hostages, and will continue to operate with determination to achieve them.”
The report came as CIA director William Burns was set to arrive in Qatar Thursday for renewed hostages-for-ceasefire talks. Amos Hochstein, the White House’s special Middle East adviser, said in Beirut Wednesday that a deal “would prevent an outbreak of a wider war.” Both officials were expected to relay the message that Israel cannot do anything more against Hamas militarily, the Times said.
Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are said to be awaiting the negotiations’ outcome before responding to the assassination of terror chiefs in Beirut and Tehran in late July.
The US assessment appears to echo that of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant who earlier this week reportedly referred to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s talk of a “total victory” against Hamas as “gibberish.”
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who spoke to Gallant Tuesday about the threat from Iran and Hezbollah, shares the defense minister’s assessment that a deal is in Israel’s best interest, the Times said.
The sentiments cited in the Times also correlate with US President Joe Biden’s message when he publicly presented the Israeli offer in a May 31 speech. Biden argued that “at this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7,” and warned against the quagmire posed by “indefinite war in pursuit of an unidentified notion of ‘total victory.'”
‘Whac-a-Mole’
Hamas took a significant blow when Israel invaded the Strip’s southernmost city of Rafah in May, sealing the terror group’s main arms smuggling route, US officials said.
According to the newspaper, Hamas is so hobbled that it would cede civilian control of Gaza after a ceasefire as part of the deal.
How long it is willing to do so depends on how events unfold and what Israel concedes, American officials said. US and other Western officials said what comes after Hamas remains “the biggest unknown for both Israel and the Palestinians.”
Analysts cited by the Times described Israel’s strategy against what is left of Hamas as a game of “Whac-a-Mole.” US officials were skeptical that it would accomplish much, saying the terror group had stuck to a strategy of survival since the war began.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization — for them, just surviving is victory,” said Dana Stroul, a former top Middle East policy official at the Pentagon. “They will continue to reconstitute and pop up after the IDF says they have cleared an area without follow-on plans for security and governance in Gaza.”
This US criticism reflects a long-running disagreement between the US and Israeli militaries on the best way to deal with Hamas.
The IDF believes that it is more efficient to target resurgent groups in precise raids, rather than attempt to hold and occupy large swaths of the Strip.
Hamas has directed its operatives to hide in its vast underground tunnel network, or embed themselves among civilians, to avoid being targeted. The terror group’s ability to regroup has forced the IDF to return to regions it had considered cleared of operatives. On Friday, the IDF launched a new offensive in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, citing the renewed presence of terrorists there a month after the army last withdrew.
“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 told The Times.
Yaakov Amidror, a former national security advisor and IDF major general, disagreed, telling the newspaper that Israel still has gains to make in Gaza.
“If Israel evacuates its forces now, within a year Hamas will be strong again,” he said, adding that the military needs another two or three months in Gaza’s south and center before shifting to yearlong “intelligence-based raids and strikes” to stamp out the terror group’s remains.
The army says it has killed some 15,000 gunmen in Gaza as of May, as well as about 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught. Israel also says it has killed about half the leadership of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, including Muhammad Deif, the Brigades’ shadowy chief.
Deif was considered an architect of the October 7 rampage, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
