Lives are being saved every day as the Israeli military’s conflict with Hamas is prolonged.
At the crack of dawn on Thursday, a second one-day truce extension went into effect. However, the temporary cessation of hostilities has the dual effect of highlighting the moral, political, and military challenges that may arise when the war resumes in full force. These challenges include the seeming emphasis on humanitarian and strategic issues between the Israeli and Biden administrations.
Despite the surprising success of the truce thus far—especially considering that both Israel and Hamas are actively working to eliminate the other—it is clear that a decisive moment is just around the corner when Israel will decide how long it can delay its brutal military offensive.
As a result, the discussion over what should happen in Gaza is becoming more pressing, despite the fact that both Israel and the United States are trying to manage expectations of restraint and the pause in conflict.
Though the release of captives has provided brief respites from the horror, these important concerns are occurring against the background of mounting tragedy in a brutal war. Tragically, on Wednesday, Israel announced that it is investigating a report that 10-month-old Kfir Bibas, together with his mother and brother, is no longer alive. Bibas is the youngest Israeli captive. Meanwhile, Israel believes that there are still hostages in Gaza, the majority of them are men. What will happen to them is unclear. As the humanitarian situation in the territory continues to deteriorate, the World Health Organisation has issued a dire warning: if the already inadequate health service in Gaza is not immediately restored, more Gazans could perish from disease than bombardment. Israeli forces killed two Palestinian children in Jenin as tensions rise in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. This brings the total number of Palestinian casualties killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank since October 7 to over240, according to the ministry.
Is Israel going to take American demands for a more surgical strategy seriously?
Ever before the terror assaults on October 7 by Hamas, which killed 1,200 people, Israel has been very clear about its goal: the permanent destruction of the Islamist organisation that the US has designated as a terrorist group and governs the Gaza Strip. The administration of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees the attacks by Hamas as a grave danger to Israel and the Jewish people, and it asserts that it must destroy Hamas entirely.
On Wednesday, the Israeli leader rejected the notion that a protracted ceasefire would make it ethically and strategically challenging for Israel to resume its dogged assault on Hamas. “For the past few days, people have been asking me if Israel will resume hostage-taking operations once they’ve maximised this phase of the process?” He then gave an unambiguous “yes” as his response.
A large number of innocent civilians were killed in the first phase of the war when Israel attacked the Palestinian enclave of Hamas. This caused tens of thousands of protesters to take to the streets in the US and around the world, and it also put political pressure on President Joe Biden from within his own electoral coalition.
Disagreements between Washington and Netanyahu’s cabinet and military officials are on the rise due to the high probability of an even more brutal second wave of Israeli offensives against Hamas strongholds in southern Gaza. US officials, including Biden, have informed the Israelis they do not want to see another round of air strikes that resulted in huge destruction and horrific sights of human casualties, according to Wednesday’s report by AWN’s MJ Lee, Jennifer Hansler, and Katie Bo Lillis. According to a senior administration official, Israel needs to exercise greater caution, care, deliberateness, and precision in their targeting.
After the horrific events on October 7, Biden visited the Jewish state to grieve with the victims and embraced Netanyahu. Will Prime Minister Netanyahu give Biden’s plea for greater protection of Palestinian civilians any more than the cursory attention it received in the early days of the conflict?
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is now in Israel, and he and other senior Israeli officials are expected to have lengthy meetings about this matter on Thursday.
Israel’s difficult moral and strategic choices
Getting all of the hostages back and continuing the military operation after a halt gave Hamas a chance to regroup and prepare for a new assault are two competing demands on the Israeli government, and they may be incompatible.
Internally, the Israeli prime minister is facing mounting political pressure from both sides of the conflict. On one hand, there is the growing demand for the release of hostages from their families. On the other hand, members of the prime minister’s right-wing coalition are calling for harsh measures because they are frustrated that the ceasefire has given Hamas the opportunity to use hostages as bargaining chips to regain control of the crisis’s pace. In addition, the United States is worried about another wave of massive civilian casualties in Gaza, which is causing Netanyahu to worry that his determination to attack Hamas may clash with this concern. In a second round of conflict, Israel’s assistance from the United States would be even more important, since other countries would undoubtedly criticise the Netanyahu government harshly if it were to re-ignite hostilities.
Worries that further civilian deaths may sow a new generation’s rage against the Jewish state, which could lead to recruitment for extreme groups and terrorism, have also put Israel’s harsh military methods under review.
“What he is doing with the military will not bring that peace,” cautioned retired US Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, who pointed out that the Israeli leader saw the destruction of Hamas as the key to bringing peace to Israel. During an appearance on “State of the Race” with Kasie Hunt of AWN International, he made the statement, “I’ve seen it myself in Afghanistan several times, to where the more Taliban you kill, the more the enemy, the more you make, especially when you’re killing so many people.”
Israeli officials insist they spare civilians whenever possible. Using civilian institutions as cover, such as hospitals and apartment buildings, Hamas has entrenched its fighters within the civilian population. According to senior Israeli authorities, the current situation in Gaza makes forensic targeting of Hamas impractical, even though Washington wants it if the fighting begins.
In an accusation that Hamas is intentionally murdering Palestinian civilians in order to incite worldwide indignation against Israel, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett stated, “We’re not magicians.” “If there was some magical solution where we could tweeze our people out and just hit the rocket launcher that’s shooting rockets at Israelis, we would do it,” Bennett told AWN’s Jake Tapper. “The truth is that there is no magic formula for reducing needless civilian casualties, but we do our best.”
An American official informed AWN that the United States and Israel are discussing a possible solution in which Israel would let the civilians it sent to southern Gaza at the beginning of the war return north. The necessity of establishing safe zones for civilians in the south has been brought up by multiple officials, according to AWN. The problem is that such a scheme has certain real-world implications. New drone footage shows mile upon mile of buildings transformed into ruins, demonstrating that areas of northern Gaza have been decimated by the Israeli offensive. With the border to Egypt sealed and encircled by Israel, millions of people have nowhere to flee.
Family members of hostages still held by Hamas are horrified at the prospect of resuming fighting while a discussion rages over the methods to be utilised in the second phase of the war. The past week’s ceasefire has provided Netanyahu and Biden with a political reprieve on this matter, but that will come to an end the moment gunfire resumes.
Hostage families are increasingly worried, according to Yehuda Beinin, the father of US-Israeli national Liat Beinin, who was released from captivity by Hamas on Wednesday, that the other hostages are not Netanyahu’s government’s top priority. Beinin expressed concern that the hostages could be put at risk once more due to the resumption of Israeli bombardment, since his son-in-law Aviv Atzili is reportedly still among the captives.