A dike has been blown up in Israel, washed away by the slow reduction in troops stationed in Gaza. Unable to decide on its future mission in the enclave, the war cabinet leading the operation is now publicly expressing its differences. In his first interview on Israeli television on Thursday, January 18, one of the members of this special council, former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, called for parliamentary elections to be held in the coming months “to renew the public's trust, because right now “There is.” is not trust.”
In doing so, the general shows his inability to jointly define the goals of the war in the short term. Representing the centrist opposition, he refuses to say whether he has confidence in Benjamin Netanyahu and “hopes” that the prime minister does not try to prolong the conflict indefinitely to ensure his political survival.
Since taking office on October 11, Mr. Eisenkot has already made it clear to those around him that he considers the prime minister to be a threat to national security and that he himself wants to act as a safeguard. He clarified on Thursday that he had already done so in October, helping to prevent the opening of a front in Lebanon that would have given Hamas the regional war it may have wanted to ignite.
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At the heart of their deep disagreements today is the future of the approximately one hundred and thirty hostages who were captured by the Islamist movement on October 7 and are still held captive. The Israeli government has claimed since the end of October that their liberation would only be possible by exerting enormous military pressure on the enemy. While the operations in the Gaza metropolis have been reduced, destroyed, partially depopulated and cut off from the world, they continue intensively in the southern periphery of the enclave, in Khan Younes, without the release of hostages or the capture or murder of the hostages possible by Hamas' highest officials.
“We did not overthrow Hamas”
The general staff, such as Mr. Eisenkot and his cabinet ally, General Benny Gantz, fear that the operation will stall due to a lack of clear objectives and produce no further results. “We have not overthrown Hamas,” Mr. Eisenkot told Channel 12 on Thursday. “The situation in Gaza is such that the war objectives have not yet been achieved.” » It would take many more months to defeat Hamas militarily, and The hostages don't have that time, estimates this general, who lost a son, a soldier deployed in the Gaza Strip, in December. Israel reports the deaths of ill-treated prisoners every week. “We should boldly say that without an agreement it is impossible to bring the hostages back alive in the near future [avec le mouvement islamiste] », concludes Mr. Eisenkot.
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