Israel-Hamas war: IDF says it needs months, U.S. signals no more than weeks

After 2006, and the multiple rounds that took place afterward in the Gaza Strip, defense ministers and IDF chiefs of staff tended to talk about the obligation to subdue the enemy quickly. The IDF understood that the weak point resides in the Israeli home front, which would endure massive missile and rocket attacks, and that the most effective way to tip the scales entails battering the enemy fiercely within a short time. That discussion was always accompanied by a dispute over the need and the possibility to move the fighting to the enemy’s territory, relying on the ability of the ground forces, whose units hadn’t been tested in massive combat in an urban environment since the Lebanon War of 1982. The army’s commanders swore that a ground maneuver was a vital necessity to achieve victory, and that only its implementation would demonstrate that the combat level of the ground troops was higher than what people thought. Both the air force and the political decision-makers were skeptical.

In practice, Israel waited almost three weeks before sending the ground forces into the Gaza Strip, due to various constraints. The evening of November 10 will mark two weeks since the start of the ground offensive. The IDF sent three divisional forces into the northern Gaza Strip and demanded that the Palestinian civilians there leave their homes and make their way to the south of Gaza. The massive aerial attacks of the first weeks became even fiercer from the moment the air force was called upon to provide close support for the ground forces. The progress since then has been slow and devastating, using the “shredder” method. The armored and infantry forces unleash extremely heavy fire in the face of every manifestation of resistance. That is apparently the main reason for Hamas’ decision, in many cases, to remain in the tunnels and avoid a direct military clash.

The IDF is sustaining losses when Hamas snipes at forces who enter a static mode, or when it attacks facilities that are more critical for Hamas, around which a more intensive defensive effort takes place. Senior figures in the military General Staff have told Haaretz that the area where the IDF is now operating is the densest in which such a move has ever been undertaken. The difficulty – compared to the American-Iraqi offensive against ISIS in Mosul around five years ago – is compounded by two elements: an extraordinarily ramified network of tunnels below ground, and many tall buildings above ground, though a considerable portion of them were destroyed in Israeli attacks.

The United Nations estimates that nearly half the buildings in the northern Gaza Strip were hit or leveled in the attacks. Foreign analysts, relying on satellite images, reported on Thursday that in the seafront sector in western Gaza City, a small opening remained in the Israeli encirclement, about four kilometers wide, but it too leads only to the sea, which is controlled by Israeli vessels.

There are several quite positive signs resulting from the Israeli troops’ progress. It’s evident that the IDF has recovered from the initial shock and is now operating better in the Gaza Strip. The rocket fire into the south of Israel, and more so into the center, was very much reduced this week, possibly reflecting difficulties in Hamas’ command structure. Some 15 battalion- or equivalent-level commanders in the organization have been killed in the IDF’s actions, and in some cases their deputies were also killed.

Hamas is disseminating fake news about the killing of senior IDF officers and massive destruction of armored vehicles, apparently attesting to difficulties in displaying genuine achievements to date. The flow of refugees fleeing from the north to the south in the Gaza Strip is growing apace, despite interference by Hamas. That too is a sign of distress in its ranks. The IDF is showing signs of inflicting more systematic damage on the tunnels (though a move is still needed that will help transform them from an asset into a burden for Hamas). Ranking figures in Hamas, such as Saleh Aruri, are complaining to Hezbollah for its refusal to mobilize fully in the battle for the benefit of the Palestinians.

But it’s also worth remembering that victory in war is achieved when one side ceases to function, whether in the form of an outright surrender or because of the collapse of its systems. Hamas looks far from that at the moment. Its functioning in the northern Gaza Strip has been badly hurt, but surrender is not in sight. In the meantime, the talks about a deal to free captives have resumed. Egyptian and Qatari sources are talking about a small-scale deal in which Hamas will release some 15 hostages in return for a relatively short truce. Israel would naturally like to see a larger number of captives set free. According to the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, which is close to Hezbollah, Hamas is demanding a four-day cease-fire and the release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel in exchange for the captives. The United States wants two days, Israel is willing to accept a one-day truce. This episode, too, which is at the heart of the war, is far from ending.

Brutal message

The first goal of the war, as set forth to the IDF, is the destruction of Hamas’ military capability and governing infrastructure. In the desired concluding state of affairs, it’s stated, “no security threat emanates from the Gaza Strip for an indefinite period.” The army is also being called on to beef up the sense of personal security and national resilience among the country’s citizens, to restore the sense of security to the residents of the Gaza Envelope – the Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip – to establish security buffer zones in the Gaza Strip, to create conditions for the return of the captives, to deter enemies and project strength in all sectors and to prepare for possible escalation in the northern arena.

That is more professional and substantive language than the bellicose public rhetoric being spouted by the political decision-makers. IDF Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi prefers to speak in terms of dismantling Hamas’ capabilities, and is also being careful not to scatter promises about eradicating the seed of Amalek (referring to an enemy of the Israelites mentioned in the Bible). But even the official goals are ambitions, and the ability to achieve them depends on three factors: wielding effective military might, allocating sufficient time, and the ability to operate in the southern Gaza Strip as well, where attacks on Hamas have been relatively few because of the large-scale movement of civilians to that area.

Haaretz chief editor Aluf Benn wrote on Thursday that Israel has already executed another dramatic move, stemming from the sheer fact of evacuating the civilians to the south and the immense destruction that has been wrought in the northern Gaza Strip. These results will preclude a reasonable way of life in the northern area for a lengthy period, the more so as Israel will likely prevent the return of people as long as the confrontation with Hamas continues. That too is part of the brutal message that Israel is sending the region following the blow it sustained, and in an attempt to prevent the fighting from spreading to additional arenas.

Still, the same trap that Israel fell into in the past lurks here as well, in the form of trying to impose Western logic on the analysis of the enemy’s intentions and capabilities. After all, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar went into the campaign knowing full well that Gaza would take a blow powerful enough to stir echoes of the 1948 Nakba. Nevertheless, in deciding to hugely escalate the struggle against Israel despite the tremendous damage that would certainly be caused to the 2 million people under his rule, Sinwar never blinked. It would be a serious mistake to infer from the difficulties he now faces that he will surrender or even be deterred under the pressure he is now under. We’ve already heard enough about a “weakened and deterred Hamas” from the government and from the IDF after the earlier, smaller operations in Gaza. No one will buy those used goods again.

Extensive reports this week in the New York Times and the Guardian detailed Hamas’ secret preparations for the terrorist attack and the underlying strategy. According to the Times, the assault was so murderous that it served one of the central aims of its planners: to decide the dispute within Hamas about the organization’s purpose – as a ruling body in Gaza, or a fighting body. The leaders in the Gaza Strip, Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, won that argument, and Hamas is now trying to impose a permanent state of combat against Israel, in the territories and on the borders, and to drag in the radical Shi’ite axis and Arab states.

From Israel’s standpoint, the time element of the operation is critical. The IDF commanders in the field are talking about a time frame of months to rid the northern Gaza Strip of military capabilities, but Washington is signaling that there won’t be more than a few weeks, even after a limited deal for the release of captives. After that, the U.S. is pressing for the fighting to take place in a different format.

Halevi’s predecessor as chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, has been completely absent from public appearances in the media since the war began. This week he visited Britain as part of Israel's efforts to secure European support for prolonged military action in the Gaza Strip. Participants who took part in a meeting Kochavi held with London's Jewish community told Haaretz they understood from the former army chief that Israel needs several months to complete an effective operation against Hamas. After that, he thought, there will be no choice but to deal with the problem of the Radwan Force, Hezbollah’s commando unit, which is deployed along the Lebanon border and possesses greater military abilities than its Hamas counterpart, the Nukhba Force, which Hamas sent to carry out the massacre on October 7. Like his successors in the IDF, Kochavi also admitted that the army had failed in its mission to protect the country’s citizens. It was, as one participant said, "a sad, sobering and a slightly frightening evening."

High-ranking IDF personnel are drawing encouragement from the strong public spirit, which rests on the perception that this is definitely a just war, in the light of Hamas’ atrocities, and is reflected in exceptional motivation and determination on the part of the regular and reserve forces. The officers cannot talk publicly about the other side of the coin: This extraordinary effort is being overseen by a failed leader who has lost the remnants of his legitimacy due to his performance in the disaster, and in particular his persistent evasion of responsibility.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now waging a rearguard political battle and is not balking at any dirty trick, even at the expense of the security personnel who are subordinate to him. Not only is the government failing in regard to addressing the needs of the citizens, but the strong parties in it (the far right and the Haredim) are continuing to insist on maintaining wasteful, superfluous ministries and on the continued flow of the coalition funds, even though the situation in the country has been totally transformed.

What stands out above all is that Netanyahu is incapable of showing any type of empathy toward his hurting, distraught citizens, and is continuing to bombard them with empty, pointless clichés. U.S. President Joe Biden deserves another medal from the Jewish people, not only for the military aid he sent to Israel immediately after the disaster, but also for the infinite patience he is now displaying toward Netanyahu’s deviousness.

High motivation
Visits to Northern Command and the Air Force in the past week provided some relief from the still harsh situation in the south. In both venues, which were not directly responsible for the October 7 debacle, one sees a faster recovery than was registered in the General Staff, Military Intelligence, Shin Bet and Southern Command, amid the guilt feelings and the shock that the massacre fomented. Even so, the feeling of responsibility for the failure is collective. “I’ve been in uniform more than 35 years,” says a senior officer, “and all my life I was taught that my role is to be a barrier between the citizens and danger. On October 7 we failed. That’s not something you snap back from easily.”

Nevertheless, there’s no escaping the conclusion that the great offensive war machine that was upgraded in recent years in the IDF and in the intelligence community has resumed functioning. Those in Northern Command and in the Galilee Formation (91st Division) are not enthusiastic about the fact that the front against Hezbollah has dropped to second place in importance, given the events in Gaza. Like Kochavi, they too understand that the continuing presence of the Radwan Force along the security fence will not allow the inhabitants of the border communities to return home. The understanding in the north is that Gaza takes precedence at the moment, amid awareness of possible escalation with Hezbollah – and the need to deal with that problem afterward.

The United States is now putting out initial feelers toward working out a diplomatic mechanism which will again keep Hezbollah stationed north of the Litani River. The prospects here are not great, because Iran continues to view Hezbollah – Radwan, and especially the organization’s large arsenal of missiles – as its insurance policy against an Israeli or American attack targeting its nuclear facilities.

In this regard, it’s worth mentioning the uselessness of UNIFIL, the United Nations force in southern Lebanon. At the conclusion of the 2006 war, its status was upgraded and its size increased. In Security Council Resolution 1701 it was also tasked with keeping Hezbollah north of the Litani. Not only didn’t that ever happen, with Hezbollah creating a massive military force in the villages of the south, but staring in May 2022 the organization also started to deploy observation posts along the border itself.

The United Nations did nothing, and Israel didn’t dare attack the posts, just as it refrained (at the IDF’s recommendation) from taking action against Hezbollah’s manufacture of precision-guided missiles in Lebanon. Since Hezbollah started launching attacks along the fence, on October 8, UNIFIL has been thinning out its forces and distancing its personnel from danger. That’s an important lesson, both for the possible future situation in Lebanon and for the hopes of stationing an international force in the Gaza Strip in the future.

In the defenses in the north, the performance of the reserves has been impressive in the management of the sector (subject to Northern Command and the divisional command centers), with the majority of the regular force having been sent south or remaining as a reserve. The systematic blow to antitank and rocket squads of Hezbollah, with the aid of the air force and Military Intelligence, continues. The danger here at the moment is of a mistake being made (an attack on Lebanese civilians) or of an inordinate success. Too many losses for Hezbollah – to date more than 80 Lebanese fighters have been killed, including from Palestinian organizations – is liable to prompt the organization’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, to escalate the fighting, such as by launching rockets at the Haifa region. This week a small volley was fired at the Krayot, Haifa’s suburbs, and intercepted.

The air force has emphasized that less than half its force is committed to the Gaza Strip, because it’s possible and necessary to preserve capabilities for fighting in the north. The massive supplies organized by the Defense Ministry, along with the accelerated American aid, enable considerable breathing space. What stands out most in visits to the headquarters and the bases is the total commitment to protect the IDF troops doing battle on the ground. Each brigade moves with close air support and is assisted by drones, helicopters and warplanes that operate in close quarters with the forces. In one case a half-ton bomb was dropped on an enemy squad at a distance of only 140 meters away from a ground force, far below the customary safety restrictions.

The aerial photographs received in the command centers show the immense damage wrought by the attacks, with the goal of distancing the danger. Before the war, in conjunction with the judicial coup legislation and the government’s attempts to widen the rifts in the nation, a systematic, toxic campaign was waged against the pilots. At its nadir, a video was posted in which a pilot supposedly refuses to assist a ground force that needs to be extracted, until he finds out where they stand on the coup issue. Nothing could be farther from the reality in Gaza. Every commander I spoke with emphasized that it would be impossible to act successfully without the regular aerial assistance.

Fake items are engendered on the left, too. One of them, particularly vile, which was posted in social media, accuses the commander of the air force, Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, of supposedly having waited for a directive from Netanyahu, and therefore of not coming to the aid of the communities in the south for six hours, until the security cabinet could meet. That, of course, is a total lie. But for the sake of accuracy, here are the facts. Between 7:15 A.M. and 10 A.M., namely from 45 minutes after the start of the Hamas attack, 54 attacks by warplanes took place, 43 missiles were fired by attack helicopters, about 2,500 artillery shells from helicopters and another 50 attacks were carried out by drones.

That wasn’t enough, of course, and if the air force had received a prior alert, it might have been possible to deploy several pairs of Apache helicopters, which would likely have foiled the attack. But the pilots must not be blamed for what is not in their sphere of responsibility. The failure was a general one, of the entire security establishment, and not specifically of the air force.

Bar discovered that the war had started, like all of us (and like Netanyahu), at 6:30 A.M. when alarms interrupted his preparations for his morning run. An hour later, when he arrived at the air force’s command center, the first people he saw were three reserve officers who had taken part in the protest moves against the coup not long before. At 8:17 A.M., one of the leading activists sent the following message in the pilots’ protest group: “In such a broad-scale event, which arrived as a surprise attack from the other side, I face no dilemma – I am going to defend our home.”

All his comrades did the same.

The Tunnels of Gaza

The Gaza Strip has all the harrowing pitfalls soldiers have learned to expect from urban warfare: high-rise ambushes, truncated lines of sight and, everywhere, vulnerable civilians with nowhere to hide.

But as Israeli ground forces inch their way forward in Gaza, the bigger danger may prove to be underfoot.

The Hamas militants who launched a bloody attack on Israel last month have built a maze of hidden tunnels some believe extend across most if not all of Gaza, the territory they control.

And they are not mere tunnels.

Snaking beneath dense residential areas, the passageways allow fighters to move around free from the eye of the enemy. There are also bunkers for stockpiling weapons, food and water, and even command centers and tunnels wide enough for vehicles, researchers believe.

Ordinary-looking doors and hatches serve as disguised access points, letting Hamas fighters dart out on missions and then slip back out of sight.

No outsider has an exact map of the network, and few Israelis have seen it firsthand.

But photos and video and reports from people who have been in the tunnels suggest the basic outlines of the system and how it is used. The source material includes photographs taken inside the passageways by journalists, accounts from researchers who study the tunnels, and details of the network that emerged from Israeli forces when they invaded Gaza in 2014.

Tactical tunnels These concrete-reinforced structures are more than a transit pipeline. They serve as shelters against attacks, planning rooms, ammunition warehouses and spaces for hostages. Reinforced concrete Power lines About 6.5 ft Ammunition Shells Chambers Some rooms serve as command centers. Others are used to store equipment or, in recent weeks, hostages.

Dismantling the tunnels is a key part of Israel’s goal of wiping out Hamas’ leadership in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack.

Israel has used the existence of the tunnels as justification for bombing civilian areas, including after a large Israeli airstrike hit a densely populated area in the Jabaliya neighborhood. Hamas has denied its tunnels were under some of the specific sites struck by Israel, and it is often impossible to verify Israel’s claims.

To destroy tunnels on the ground, Israeli troops in Gaza will need to find entrances that are often hidden in the basements of civilian buildings, leading into concrete-lined tunnels, imagery suggests. They are typically just six and a half feet tall and three feet wide, experts said, forcing fighters to move through them single file.

One 85-year-old Israeli woman who was held hostage for 17 days in the tunnels after being kidnapped on Oct. 7 described being marched through a “spider web” of wet and humid tunnels. She eventually reached a large hall where two dozen other hostages were being held, she said.

There are still believed to be more than 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, and many are likely in the very tunnels Israel aims to destroy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that bringing them home is one of the two main aims of the invasion, the other being to “destroy Hamas.”

The tunnels used for hiding Hamas equipment and fighters are not the only hidden passageways in Gaza.

After Hamas came to power in 2007, and Israel tightened its blockade of the territory, an extensive network of smuggling tunnels grew under the border between Gaza and Egypt. These tunnels are used to circumvent the blockade and allow the import of a wide variety of goods, from weapons and electronic equipment to construction materials and fuel.

The Egyptian authorities have made extensive efforts to destroy these smuggling routes, including pumping seawater to flood the network and collapse many of the tunnels. But some smuggling tunnels are still believed to be in operation.

Smuggling tunnels These tunnels have been documented in the Rafah area, where they are used to bring all types of goods and products into Gaza from Egypt. Multiple levels In parts of Rafah, according to some workers’ accounts, there are so many tunnels that some crisscross at different depths.

Although the Israeli military far surpasses Hamas’ in both size and equipment, fighting an enemy with its own network of tunnels is a high-risk undertaking.

John W. Spencer, who studies urban warfare at the U.S. Military Academy’s Modern War Institute, describes it as more like “fighting under the sea than it is on the surface or inside of a building.”

“Nothing that you use on the surface works,” he said recently on the Modern Warfare Project podcast. “You have to have specialized equipment to breathe, to see, to navigate, to communicate and to deploy lethal means, especially shooting.”

One of the main dangers of going into the tunnels is that Hamas has booby-trapped the entrances with explosives, experts say.

“The moment they realize the Israelis have entered the tunnels, they will just press the button and the entire thing could collapse on the Israelis,” said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow at King's College London who specializes in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The challenge of disabling tunnels The danger does not end after a tunnel is detected. Hidden entrances Booby traps The entrances are often equipped with remotely triggered bombs or explosives rigged with tripwires. Many entrances are hidden in buildings’ basements, but even the ones outside are very difficult to spot. The only way to find them is to send soldiers to scour areas on foot.
Israeli forces will probably not be able to destroy the entire tunnel network.

“It is just too big, and there's no point in dismantling all of it,” said Dr. Bregman. Instead, they will focus on blocking the entrances to the tunnels, likely by calling in airstrikes, or having engineers destroy them with explosives.

They are also unlikely to take their fight underground — unless they believe they have no other choice.

Entering the tunnels would strip Israeli forces of their advantages, Dr. Bregman said. At the moment, the Israelis are making headway with a mass of troops, tanks and helicopters.

“The moment you get down to the tunnel, it is one against one,” he said.

Sources: The Israel Defense Forces; testimony before the United Nations by Eado Hecht, a military analyst who teaches at the Israeli military’s Command and General Staff College and at Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities; video reports from Deutsche Welle News, VICE News and social media; reference photographs from EPA Images, Getty Images and Agence France-Presse.

Adam Goldman, Helene Cooper and Justin Scheck contributed reporting.