Israel and Hamas were caught in a Catch 142. At 06.00 local time on Friday, it caught up with them.
One hundred and forty-two is the approximate number of hostages thought to remain in Gaza. The number is uncertain due to unverified claims by Hamas that several have been killed during air raids by the IDF. On Friday morning, the contradictions inherent in releasing them collided.
At 06.00, an hour before the official ceasefire was due to end, sirens began sounding in southern Israel warning of incoming rocket fire, and a few minutes later the IDF said it had intercepted rockets fired from Gaza. The Israeli air force then began hitting targets in several locations in Gaza. Within two hours, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said 32 people had been killed.
Each side blamed the other for violating the ceasefire. Hamas said Israel was at fault because it had not allowed fuel to be delivered into the north of Gaza. Israel blamed Hamas for not releasing all women captives as agreed, and for then firing rockets. It also said negotiations to free male hostages had floundered because Hamas would not agree the same terms as for the deal to release women and children.
Israel’s dilemma was that if Hamas succeeded in releasing hostages in dribs and drabs over several more weeks of a “humanitarian pause”, international pressure for a permanent cease-fire would build to the extent that the government would be unable to go back on the military offensive. That would mean it could not make good on its promise, to the still traumatised Israeli people, that it will destroy Hamas. The claims of taking apart its infrastructure, and capturing or killing its leaders, would be seen as empty rhetoric and not just by the Israelis. Everyone in the wider Middle East including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, and every terror group from Algeria to Afghanistan, would be emboldened.
Conversely, if Israel resumed fighting many of the hostages would die, either in the renewed bombing campaign, or murdered by their captors. Last Friday the Israeli cabinet approved a pause, this Friday it had no good choices as to its next move.
The dilemma for Hamas was that it was running out of hostages. It needed to string out the releases for several more weeks – hence the alleged refusal to agree to the same conditions as for freeing women and children, with up to 15 a day going free. It needed to be confident that in the weeks that passed, Israel’s supporters, particularly the US, would persuade it not to go back to war. Release them too soon and Israel’s rage at the barbarity suffered on 7 Oct would once again fall upon them and the people of Gaza.
The Israelis spent the week warning that they were prepared to return to the fight. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying, “We have an agreement, the agreement concerns kids and women”. The Prime Minister said “After this phase of returning our abductees is exhausted, will Israel return to fighting? So my answer is an unequivocal yes,”
Unless somehow urgent and dramatic diplomacy by the outside players can quickly re-impose the ceasefire, the next phase of the war may be even more difficult for the IDF, Hamas, and civilians. Both sides spent the pause readying for renewed combat. Israeli troops will now have to move south to confront the bulk of Hamas fighters who retreated there when the IDF took northern Gaza last month.
On Friday morning, the Israelis were dropping leaflets on Gaza showing a map of Gaza divided into hundreds of zones, which it says will be used to help people escape future fighting. Israel has also told civilians to move to Al-Muwasi, a small strip of land along the southern coast, but the area does not have the shelters, water, or food to sustain the hundreds of thousands of people who would be caught up in the fighting. Many would be among the one million or so people who left northern Gaza in November. We are now in the winter months and, although temperatures rarely drop below 10 degrees Celsius, rainfall is frequent, and conditions will deteriorate for those relying on tents and makeshift shelters.
Hamas is thought to have between 30,000 to 40,000 men under arms. Hundreds have probably been killed, along with many senior commanders, but its organizational ability remains intact. It’s likely brigade commanders will have stockpiled some of its weapons best suited for urban combat including IEDs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Southern Gaza does have open spaces for the IDF to manoeuvre in, but troops will have to go into cities such as Rafah (pop 152,000) and the Hamas stronghold Khan Yunis (pop 600,000). The IDF has lost about 80 soldiers so far and would lose more during street fighting and clearing tunnels in the south.
The priority for Hamas is to survive no matter the cost to Palestinian civilians. It is a radical, revolutionary, and religious organization whose charter says no non-Muslim can govern anywhere in land given to Muslims by Allah. It includes from “the river to the sea” in its definition. Therefore, it cannot surrender, hand over the hostages, and leave Gaza (as the PLO left Beirut in 1982) without being seen to contradict everything it stands for.
If there is eventually to be a negotiated settlement it’s hard to see how Israel agrees to one which leaves Hamas still in control, rearming, and able to deliver on its promise to do 7 October “again and again” as one of its leaders said from the relative safety of Beirut last month. This week, Netanyahu repeated a comment he made on 8 Oct – “From the beginning of the war, I set three goals: the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our abductees, and to ensure that Gaza will never again be a threat to Israel….These three goals remain in place.”
But so do dozens of hostages.
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