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TEL AVIV – As the Israeli army begins a gradual withdrawal from Gaza, its successes against Hamas are significant but incomplete, Israeli military and security officials say, and are threatened by the lack of a post-war strategy.
Although heavy ground fighting continues in Khan Younis and other parts of the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli military says it is moving away from large-scale bombings and moving toward a more targeted campaign of targeted raids and assassinations aimed at wiping out Hamas' military leadership.
According to Gaza's Health Ministry, the war has leveled much of the northern part of the Strip and killed more than 25,000 people. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says 70 percent of the dead are women and children.
The Washington Post spoke to seven current and former Israeli officials and reservists about the course of the war in Gaza and its ultimate goals. Most spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military strategies.
“The war has damaged Hamas as a terrorist entity, but this is not a three-month mission,” a military official said.
Israeli forces say at least 9,000 militants have been killed so far, less than a third of the 30,000 fighters Hamas estimates it commands. Hamas leader Yehiya Sinwar and his top brass remain at large. The militant group does not release figures on its war deaths, but a Hamas official dismissed the Israeli figures. “I think the Israelis are trying to embellish their achievements,” he told The Post, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with rules set by the group.
Hamas's firing of relatively long-range rockets from Gaza, which numbered in the thousands at the start of the war, has all but stopped. Israel says it has destroyed thousands of weapons stockpiles, missile production sites and tunnel shafts in three months of door-to-door fighting. But without a “day after” strategy, officials say, those gains could be short-lived.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to insist that the complete destruction of Hamas remains the goal of the war. “This is not just about beating Hamas, it's not another round with Hamas – this is a complete victory,” he said on Thursday. Since the start of the conflict, military leaders have taken a more pragmatic view, believing that the group can be weakened but not destroyed under current conditions. As Israel begins to restrict its operations in Gaza, this unspoken tension is spreading into the public sphere.
Gadi Eisenkot, a former senior army leader whose son was killed in Gaza last month, accused Netanyahu in a recent interview of telling “lark stories” about the war.
“A strategic achievement was not achieved,” said Eisenkot. “We did not destroy Hamas.”
21 Israeli soldiers were killed on Monday when Hamas militants fired a projectile at their tank as they prepared a building for demolition, the IDF said, the deadliest single incident for its forces in the Gaza Strip. Since the start of the war, 217 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters on Tuesday that troop levels and the intensity of fighting in Gaza continued to fluctuate.
“More reservists are needed in all combat arenas, and that is why the IDF is focusing on both the relief of forces and the concentration of our activities,” he said.
Israeli officials would not disclose how many troops remain in the Gaza Strip and how many have already left. At least three combat brigades remain on the ground, according to an IDF statement released earlier this month. The Golani Brigade, an elite infantry unit, withdrew from Shejaiya in Gaza City last month.
Some soldiers have been deployed along the northern border with Lebanon, where the threat of a major war looms; Thousands more have returned home to find work and families. The government hopes this will help revive Israel's war-torn economy.
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The military official said the ground and air operation in Gaza had effectively dismantled the majority of Hamas' five brigades – made up of 24 battalions with up to 1,400 fighters each. More than 100 commanders were killed, the official said.
Seventeen of 24 Hamas battalions have been knocked out of action, Israeli officials said, mostly in the central and northern parts of the enclave, to the point where they resemble small guerrilla groups rather than true military units. However, officials admit there are still thousands of militants.
“It's turning from a structure into a cluster, but a cluster can still defend itself,” said Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion, a reserve officer who was on active duty after the Hamas attacks. “That doesn’t mean Hamas is dead, but they certainly can’t do what they did on October 7.”
According to the military official, Hamas' tunnel network is far more extensive than previous IDF estimates, stretching over 300 miles in the south alone. According to a former security official briefed on the intelligence, more than 5,600 tunnel shafts were discovered by the IDF and many were destroyed. However, due to the extent of the underground network, which has been built in secret over many years, it is unlikely to be completely dismantled.
Most Israeli attacks in Gaza have targeted low- to mid-level members – part of a strategy to deprive the group of a “critical mass” of fighters, the former security official said.
Israel's military has “become static,” he said, tasked with maintaining control of pacified areas rather than trying to gain more ground.
In northern and central Gaza, the pace of war has slowed to the point where some Palestinians are retreating to their devastated neighborhoods, although reconstruction remains a distant hope. In the south, more than a million displaced people are clustered near the Egyptian border. Diseases are spreading, aid organizations warn, and more than 90 percent of Gazans don't have enough to eat.
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Still, small cells of Hamas fighters hiding in tunnels and the ruins of destroyed buildings remain a deadly threat. After a barrage of rockets was fired from the enclave at the southern town of Netivot last week, Israeli troops were able to quickly surround the launch site in the center of the Gaza Strip and kill scores of militants, according to a military official familiar with the operation – a harbinger of this type of targeted raid and attack , which will likely mark the next phase of the war.
But how Israel can stop a weakened Hamas from rebuilding remains an open and vexing question for military leaders. The entity that ultimately governs Gaza – be it the Palestinian Authority, as the United States advocates, or an international force, an idea some Israeli officials have floated – will determine whether IDF troops are allowed to move from permanent positions within the Can operate from an enclave or only react from bases across the border.
Remaining in the country would be tantamount to reoccupying the Gaza Strip, a goal supported by far-right politicians but fiercely opposed by Washington and most Israelis, polls show. A long-term security presence that would make Israel responsible for Palestinian civilians and expose troops to constant threats has been dismissed as a “nightmare scenario” by most security forces, according to the military source.
“We would sit on the spot,” he said.
An operation from outside the Strip would be possible in practice but would require a security partnership with the ruling authorities, similar to Israel's agreement with the Palestinian Authority in parts of the occupied West Bank.
“Mowing the grass” — the term for Israel’s previous strategy of creating temporary deterrence by reducing, but not eliminating, the capabilities of Palestinian militant groups — tends to become more dangerous over time, Orion said. He pointed to IDF raids in the West Bank that have become increasingly deadly for both sides over the past year as weapons have flowed into Palestinian refugee camps and armed resistance has increased.
“You see, cutting the grass in the West Bank has become more demanding and dynamic,” he said. “Gaza is a much bigger challenge.”
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Without a concerted international effort to limit Hamas's power in post-war Gaza, the threat of its fighters regrouping will remain ever-present, the former Israeli security official said.
“So far, effective action has been taken against Hamas' military, not its political elements. “But what will happen now in Gaza and how Hamas will respond politically and militarily – how Hamas will revive its forces remains to be seen,” he said.
Other critical security issues are emerging: Israeli military officials say securing the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border will be necessary to prevent Hamas from arming itself with external weapons. Egyptian officials are already opposing an Israeli plan to maintain control of a buffer zone along the border where smuggling tunnels have occurred in the past.
There is also the pressing problem of the more than 100 hostages who continue to be held captive in Gaza. Relatives of the hostages set up camp outside Netanyahu's private home over the weekend and called on the government to do whatever is necessary to secure their release. Last month, the IDF accidentally killed three Israelis who escaped their captors.
“If the State of Israel abandons its hostages,” then the 1,200 soldiers and citizens murdered on October 7th “died in vain,” Hen Avigdori posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday. His wife and 12-year-old daughter were held in Gaza for nearly two months before being released during a short-lived humanitarian pause in late November.
“There is no victory without the return of the hostages,” he wrote.
Hendrix reported from Jerusalem.