Israeli defense officials and former senior intelligence officers have said they expect fighting in Gaza to continue for at least a year, raising the prospect of thousands more civilian casualties, a worsening humanitarian crisis and a continued serious threat to regional stability.
In a briefing, R Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said the center and south of Gaza, where military efforts are now focused, were “dense and full of terrorists” and “an underground city with ramifications.” are tunnels”.
Three months would be needed to clear the area and fighting would “continue in 2024,” Hagari said.
He said isolated fighting was expected in northern Gaza and that rockets were being fired sporadically at Israel from there, but that Hamas fighters were “without a frame and without a commander.”
Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief who is close to senior officers, compared the campaign to a multinational coalition's campaign against the Islamic State in 2017, which lasted nine months. But in Gaza the situation is much more difficult, he said
“It will take a year to dismantle Hamas,” he said. “It’s not the Six Day War [of 1967]. The timeline is long… [IS strongholds] Mosul and Raqqa had no underground fortifications… and the coalition consisted of 85 countries.”
Yadlin also compared the current Israeli offensive to the IDF's offensive in the West Bank in 2002 following a wave of suicide attacks by Palestinian militant groups.
“In 2002, it took two months to enter Palestinian cities and two years for the terror to stop. So Israel is expecting nine months to a year [in Gaza]. It depends on how long Hamas will hold out [on],” he said.
The new schedule will worry international observers concerned about regional instability and aid groups that have described a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
A displaced Palestinian child plays in Rafah, near the border with Egypt. Photo: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/PortalThere are widespread fears that clashes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah along Israel's northern border could escalate into open war, potentially plunging the region into a wider conflict.
Benjamin Netanyahu said the war will not end until the goals of “dismantling” Hamas, freeing Israeli hostages and ensuring Gaza does not pose another security threat to Israel are achieved.
“I say this to both our enemies and our friends. This is our responsibility and this is our obligation,” the Israeli prime minister told his cabinet on Sunday.
Netanyahu faces a difficult meeting this week with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on a week-long trip to the Middle East. Washington's top diplomat is expected to demand that Israel do more to protect civilians in Gaza, for more aid to reach the area and to offer more detailed proposals for how the territory should be managed when Israel's military offensive ends.
Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested last week that unspecified Palestinian entities – apparently local officials or community leaders – would take over administration of the territory.
Gallant also pointed to a more precise approach to targeting Hamas militants and their leaders to reduce civilian casualties.
However, Yadlin said the IDF's Southern Command, which is responsible for Gaza, had begun planning buffer zones within the area that would be heavily mined to prevent a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack. Such a move would be controversial.
Israel's campaign in Gaza has killed more than 22,400 people, more than two-thirds of them women and children, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry. Thousands more are believed to be buried under rubble and tens of thousands injured.
The offensive was launched after Hamas sent thousands of militants into southern Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 240 others.
Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties in Gaza, accusing the group of using residents as a “human shield” and saying it has killed 8,000 “terrorists.”
An air strike near the southern city of Rafah on Sunday killed two journalists, including Hamza Dahdouh, the eldest son of Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera's well-known chief correspondent in Gaza, the Arabic broadcaster and local medical officials said. Al Jazeera broadcast footage of Dahdouh crying and holding his son's hand before walking away in a daze.
Two journalists killed in Israeli airstrike in southern Gaza Strip – video reportDahdouh previously lost his wife, two children and a grandchild in an airstrike on October 26 and was himself injured last month in an Israeli strike that killed a colleague.
Hagari said Saturday that the IDF's campaign in central and southern Gaza would use “a different method.”
“We are applying the lessons we have learned and continuing to develop more creative and sophisticated methods of fighting in space – to kill terrorists, destroy terrorist infrastructure and means of warfare above and below ground,” he told reporters.
The war in Gaza has also led to a rise in violence in the occupied West Bank, where nine people, including seven Palestinians, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the northern city of Jenin on Sunday, according to Palestinian authorities.
Map showing locations of Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
The IDF said that during an operation in the Jenin refugee camp, “six terrorists were killed when a plane hit a terrorist who was hurling explosive devices at troops.”
According to police, an Israeli officer was also killed when a vehicle hit a homemade bomb during an operation in the refugee camp. An Israeli civilian was shot dead in another incident elsewhere, the army said.
There are 139 hostages still being held in Gaza, including civilians and military personnel, although some are believed to have been killed during the fighting. Thousands of people protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday, calling on the Israeli government to prioritize their release.