As Israeli soldiers die in Gaza again, the IDF faces a sobering reality about Hamas

Israeli forces in Gaza, April 2025

Amos Harel writes in Haaretz on 27 April 2025:

The war in Gaza has returned to the lives of Israelis. It happened in the usual way, with casualties. In practice, fighting in Gaza resumed over a month ago, on March 18, after a two-month-long cease-fire. The air force resumed its massive airstrikes across the entire Gaza Strip, with a subsequent limited ground operation, restricted to entering the outskirts of built-up areas.

In these operations, over 2,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than half of them civilians, but this has not drawn much attention in Israel since there was no real military friction and no Israeli casualties.

In most cases, Hamas chose to refrain from confrontation. In Rafah, where Israeli forces penetrated relatively deeply into Palestinian territory, the terrorist organization actually evacuated most of its fighters and then moved them to designated humanitarian refuges in the al-Mawasi area, to avoid sustaining casualties.

Israeli politicians and generals talked a lot about military pressure that would alter the balance of power and force Hamas to fold, allowing for the release of more hostages. So far, this hasn’t happened.  Gazans are again suffering from the renewal of the war and are worried about the growing scarcity of food on top of anxieties over further casualties. So far, this has not impacted the remnants of Hamas’ leaders, who are exhibiting indifference to the fate of Gaza’s civilians.

Something has changed in recent days, but not for the better. For the first time since battles resumed, since last Saturday, four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed within a week. Over 10 other soldiers were wounded. On Friday, a fierce battle raged in the Shujaiyeh neighborhood in the eastern part of Gaza City. An Armored Corps officer and a Border Policeman were killed and three other soldiers wounded.

Some soldiers were wounded during a complicated effort to extricate a force that was pinned down in an exchange of fire. In response, the air force and artillery forces attacked many targets in the northern Gaza Strip. Residents of border communities in Israel, even a few kilometers from the Gaza Strip, reported that their homes shook from the intensity of the bombardment. In another incident in the Philadelphi corridor in Rafah, four soldiers were wounded.

On Thursday evening, Israel’s Channel 12’s “Uvda” current affairs program reconstructed a battle fought by Golani forces in the same neighborhood in December 2023, in which nine IDF soldiers, including senior officers, were killed. A year and four months have passed since that battle. Shujaiyeh, located less than one mile from the Israeli border, was almost completely destroyed in that battle, and has seen a lot of intense Hamas activity since then.

The dismal unfolding of events did not prevent Defense Minister Israel Katz from issuing some empty clichés on Friday night, when the army already knew about two fatalities and the public was awash in rumors. Soldiers, said Katz, were fighting bravely and the IDF was operating at high intensity. There were many achievements but there were still many risks, he said. Diplomatic and military sources told journalists that the army would soon expand its operations, and was preparing for the seizure of further territory in the enclave.

In practice, however, the IDF is going through a sobering process. This was the reason that cabinet members, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, assailed IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir at a cabinet meeting last Tuesday. Gradually, Zamir is starting to prepare these ministers to face reality. An intense military campaign against Hamas will require numerous forces and a lot of time. There is no guarantee that it will bring a Palestinian surrender or that it will end with the release of all the hostages who are now still alive.

The IDF is facing growing difficulties in calling up reservists, given the hardship of prolonged cumulative service (in the background is anger at ultra-Orthodox draft-dodging, which is backed by this government).

Furthermore, Israel cannot starve Gaza’s population indefinitely. The more the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsens, the more international pressure there will be to resume the convoys carrying humanitarian aid. The IDF is not interested in taking on the distribution of aid rather than leaving it in the hands of international organizations and Hamas, for two reasons. This would require the presence of large forces for an extended period of time, and it could result in more casualties.

All of this is clear to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and possibly to some of his cabinet members. This doesn’t square with the ideological ambitions of the extremist right-wing factions in the coalition, who want to have a lengthy military occupation, as many Gazans as possible deported, and the return of Jewish settlements. For Netanyahu, prolonging the war serves his efforts to survive politically through the creation of a perpetual state of emergency, which makes it difficult for the protest movement and the opposition to lead effective moves against him.In recent days, an alternative has been presented in talks between Hamas and mediators Egypt and Qatar. This would include a long-term cease-fire, with the release of all the hostages and a large number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Such a move would require the government to shelve its long-term ambitions in the hope that Hamas will violate the agreement later on, allowing Israel to resume combat and topple the terror group’s rule over Gaza.

For now, with a choice between saving the hostages and continuing the war, it’s obvious what Netanyahu, Smotrich and their allies prefer to do. As long as it depends on them, combat will continue. If the promised achievements fail to materialize, one can always return to blaming the army.

The only person who could change the situation substantially is U.S. President Donald Trump. In recent weeks, Trump has refrained from saying much about the Gaza Strip. He has other areas of interest, mainly the tariff wars, the war between Ukraine and Russia and the new nuclear accord shaping up between Iran and the U.S.

On Friday, in a relatively rare reference to Gaza, Trump said that he had urged Netanyahu to transfer more food and medicine into the Strip. The president often says things even when there is no obvious reason behind them, but this may have been an attempt to lay down boundaries for Israel.

In any case, the present military effort in Gaza may have a deadline. This is Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Qatar in mid-May. As far as anyone can assess the unpredictable Trump, one may assume that in accordance with appeals by his hosts, the president will ask Netanyahu for clarifications as to what Israel is trying to achieve in Gaza, and by when.

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