Under pressure from its allies to ease Gaza’s humanitarian crisis as the country welcomes Israeli hostages home under a fragile ceasefire, Israel is facing increasingly difficult decisions about the future of its war against Hamas.
Israeli leaders have vowed to eliminate Hamas, the group that has controlled Gaza since 2007 and led devastating attacks on Israel on October 7. They have also promised to bring back all of the approximately 240 people kidnapped by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups that day.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cited the recovery of hostages as justification for his support for the pause in Israel’s ground invasion – and also said the Israeli military is ready to resume fighting as soon as the ceasefire agreement ends.
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But the deal also gives Hamas time to regroup and retreat, making Israel’s goal of eradicating it more difficult. And Israel’s release of Palestinians from detention or detention under the agreement has coincided with growing support for Hamas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The extended ceasefire also allowed aid to reach more of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents, most of whom have been displaced by the fighting and are suffering severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Where is the ceasefire agreement?
Israel and Hamas have extended their brief ceasefire from four to six days, according to Qatar, which acted as a mediator in the talks. The agreement has held up so far, despite allegations from both sides that the other side had violated it.
Since Friday, Hamas has released at least 60 Israeli hostages and Israel has released 180 imprisoned Palestinians. Nineteen more hostages in Gaza – 17 Thais, a Filipino and a Russian-Israeli dual citizen – have been released through separate negotiations since Friday.
Where is Israel’s military campaign?
Before the ceasefire agreement took effect on Friday, the Israeli military bombed Gaza for weeks and said it hit over 15,000 targets. The bombing involved the use of very large weapons in densely populated urban areas, and the Hamas government’s Palestinian health authorities said more than 13,000 people were killed, including thousands of children. The bombing, the large number of deaths and the displacement of the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people have fueled international outrage over the scale of Israel’s campaign.
Israel has said it is targeting Hamas across the Gaza Strip, including in places where its members are housed among civilians, such as hospitals and shelters, as well as in an extensive underground tunnel network.
At the start of the war, the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of the northern Gaza Strip before launching a ground invasion. More than a million people fled south and the invasion began in late October.
Israeli troops have captured a strip of northern Gaza roughly shaped like a C: the northern edge of the strip, a strip along the Mediterranean coast and the central strip below Gaza City. The forces largely surrounded Gaza City and split the strip in half to break Hamas’ hold on the enclave and drive it from its largest city. But there appear to be parts of northern Gaza that the Israeli military does not control.
Israeli forces have also approached hospitals in the Gaza Strip and seized Shifa, the largest and most modern hospital in the Gaza Strip. Israel said Hamas used tunnels under the hospital as a command center, allegations the group and hospital staff denied.
Since then, the Israeli military has attempted to provide evidence for its claims by releasing videos showing parts of a tunnel shaft on the Shifa complex site and rooms inside the tunnel. But Israeli troops moved slowly and were wary of explosives and traps.
The military said it had destroyed some Hamas tunnels but did not say its troops had fought in them.
Israel War Cabinet member Ron Dermer told Sky News on November 7 that the Israeli military had killed “several thousand” Hamas fighters since the war began. He said the total at that point was more than 3,000 and “probably close to 4,000.” Israeli officials estimate that Hamas had about 25,000 members before the war began.
According to the Israeli military, more than 70 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground offensive began.
What about the leadership of Hamas?
Hamas has acknowledged the deaths of several commanders in the war, including at least one senior official. A number of other Hamas officials and commanders are believed to have been killed. Yahya Sinwar, the hardline leader of Hamas in Gaza, remains a prime target for Israeli forces.
Israeli leaders have said they do not want to reoccupy Gaza after the war, and it remains unclear how or if they will be able to completely expel Hamas from Gaza. And in the West Bank, which is occupied by the Israeli military, support for Hamas has grown amid recent releases of Palestinians and increasing frustration with the Palestinian Authority, which oversees the West Bank.
Hamas’s political leadership is beyond Israel’s reach. Qatar is hosting Hamas political leaders in its capital, Doha, where Qatari officials joined Egypt and the United States in brokering talks between Israel and Hamas.
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