Everyone owes some soul-searching for their part before October 7. My own reckoning is a column I wrote in 2018 dismissing the complaints about fields near Gaza being burned by incendiary kites. I mistakenly believed the kites were a pathetic remnant of Hamas’s plans to destroy us all, and not worth getting excited about. I failed to understand that they were a warning sign: that no wall is insurmountable with a bit of creativity—and that where fields are burned, eventually command centers and homes will burn.
Since then, we have all developed an allergy to “containment” and to anything less than total victory.
With those caveats, here is a debate now unfolding at the top of Israel’s security and political establishment regarding Gaza: what is preferable—the current situation in the Strip, or renewing the war until Hamas is destroyed?
The terror organization still controls Gaza’s interior, reorganizes its ranks, and collects money from taxes imposed on “humanitarian aid”—or more simply, goods ranging from iPhone 17s to premium coffee beans. Weapons stockpiled in the first campaign will be used to massacre Israelis long before a third.
So, ostensibly, there is no question.
But in fact there is: as long as Israel refuses to permanently occupy the Strip, a military operation has no way to deprive Hamas of its center of gravity—small arms. Most of the weapons would flee along with the population from combat zones. Dismantling all the tunnels would take years. The IDF has been in Rafah for nearly two years and tunnels are still being discovered.
The army—and several very senior ministers—therefore believe it is preferable for Israel to remain permanently in 58% of the Strip and continue suffocating Hamas, rather than enter a war that would damage legitimacy and still fail to achieve the required result.
As for rearmament, that is the main dispute. Reservists in the field claim it is happening, including rebuilding the tunnel network. The leadership believes the reports are greatly exaggerated. After all, neither cement nor iron—the primary materials for tunnels and rockets—are entering the Strip and will not as long as Hamas remains unreformed.
The primary objective is to increase the pace of strikes to keep Hamas on the defensive, without looking for excuses to eliminate the perpetrators of the massacre.
In short: is most of the Strip without Hamas disarmament preferable, or Hamas disarmament without most of the Strip?
This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Israel Hayom
