One year after the start of the War in Gaza, Israel has not achieved the objectives it set. Gaza is a humanitarian disaster, Hamas has not been defeated, the war has spread to Lebanon and the probability of having a large-scale war in the Middle East is high.
Following the Hamas attacks on October 7, Netanyahu outlined 3 unrealistic strategic objectives for the War in Gaza: demilitarize Hamas and Islamic Jihad, rescue the hostages and prevent the territory from becoming a threat to Israel’s security again. Didn’t achieve any.
Faced with clear numerical and technological-military superiority, why has Israel not yet achieved its objectives?
Without a doubt, the Israeli army weakened Hamas’ military capacity, but it failed to eradicate it as it had promised. Benjamin Netanyahu’s conventional war has failed. It was due, in part, to a brutal miscalculation regarding Hamas’s determination and survival. Israel is losing, because it established political objectives using military force, in an extremely populated territory where its presence is not welcome.
Hamas will not defeat Israel because it is militarily superior, but rather because the non-return of the hostages makes it difficult for Tel Aviv to claim that the operation in Gaza was a success. Netanyahu made a colossal mistake when he said this, even though his political survival depends on it.
Israel made the same mistake in 2006, when Hezbollah attacked a patrol of Israeli soldiers on the border with Lebanon and captured two soldiers. Days later, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, announced a quick war against the terrorist group and promised to rescue the soldiers. It was enough for Hezbollah to hide the prisoners, so that Israel could never claim a victory, even though it had leveled southern Lebanon.
Backed by Iran, Hezbollah emerged during the chaos of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) to resist the invasion of Israeli troops in southern Lebanon in 1978 and 1982. Since the October 7 attack, Hezbollah has launched a war low-intensity unprovoked attack against Israel, forcing 60,000 Israeli civilians to be displaced south. Both Hezbollah and Iran believed that Tel Aviv would hesitate to enter into direct conflict with the group again.
What changed in the Israeli strategic calculation?
For Israel, Hezbollah has always represented a real threat. Currently, the group has the capacity to reach the main cities, Israeli civil and military infrastructures. Aware of this, Tel Aviv chose to retaliate in a phased manner.
They began by neutralizing Hezbollah’s communications through attacks on pager and walkie-talkie systems, followed by the destruction of weapons depots. On September 27, Israel struck the compound where leader Hassan Nasrallah and most of his secondary commanders were located, temporarily dismantling the leadership of the Shiite group. This offensive allowed Israeli troops to gain an initial tactical advantage, paving the way for the limited land incursion currently underway.
The spread of the war to Lebanon and the growing escalation between Iran and Israel, resulting from the Iranian attack on October 1, in retaliation for the deaths of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political leader murdered in Tehran, and Hassan Nasrallah, could throw both countries into disarray. towards a direct conflict and dragging the Middle East into an even more dramatic situation. It remains to be seen the extent of Israel’s response to Iran.
