The IDF's tactical wins in Gaza could become strategic losses - this is why

• Published date: 20 March 2024
• Author: YONAH JEREMY BOB
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The IDF achieved operational control of northern Gaza by early January and of southern and central Gaza (other than Rafah and a small section in central Gaza) by February; publicly, these were "wins."

But even before that, by mid-November, the IDF had taken over the core parts of Gaza City, including key Hamas command centers at Shifa Hospital and its chief military headquarters.

During one of my visits to Gaza, I saw up close the control the IDF had over Shifa, with barely any resistance.

By mid-December, there had been a steep drop in rocket fire, as the IDF stormed into southern and central Gaza.

Since mid-January, the rocket fire has been a trickle, with long stretches of days of no rockets at all. But the rockets have resumed somewhat in recent days.

Around half of the southern border residents followed the IDF and government encouragement to return to their homes. But to what? Ongoing occasional rocket fire, even after an invasion supposed to grant them some quiet?Do people think that the rest will return to the South when they hear fear and frustrations from their neighbors who preceded them?

The IDF was forced this week to conduct a second operation in Shifa, killing 90 Hamas terrorists and arresting 160 suspects who have been sent for further interrogation.

Although the IDF seems to say that each time Hamas manages to fire rockets, the terrorist cell in question has been eliminated, and each time Hamas reconstitutes itself, like at Shifa, the IDF comes back in to crush it, can we call this strategic progress?

If the latest rocket fire and Shifa are Hamas's true last attempts to regain its standing, and sometime soon its threat will start to collapse, then a true strategic shift is starting.

But if the IDF cannot stop the rocket fire permanently, and if Hamas returns to Shifa a third time, even if it is several months from now, or manages to fire again and rebuild its forces to reach 100 to 200 fighters, then the message will be that "operational control" does not stop rocket fire nor stop Hamas from remaining the dominant power in Gaza.

The IDF would remain more powerful than Hamas in any direct straight fight, but how long will it be before the world, and Israeli society, tire of a new "forever war" with such costly casualties?

If we follow statements by the government and top IDF brass, the "main war" was to end in mid-January, and the low-intensity insurgency was supposed to be done sometime between mid-April and mid-September.

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