THE NEW YORK TIMES, TEL AVIV For 17 days, Israeli ground troops and tanks have been parked in the dusty fields surrounding the area Gaza. Its stated mission is to invade the Palestinian coastal enclave and destroy Palestinian military capabilities. Hamasthe Islamic terrorist group, and their ability to rule the place.
More than two weeks After hundreds of Hamas terrorists crossed the border into Israel, killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and taking more than 220 hostages into Gaza, Israelis are wondering: What is the government waiting for?
Several explanations have been put forward.
Israeli tanks positioned on the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel Photo: Violeta Santos Moura / Portal
You US have urged Israel to wait, allow more time for hostage negotiations and humanitarian aid deliveries, and send more U.S. military resources to the region.
The Israeli media is full of reports of differences within the government and between the political leadership and the military. It is believed that the Prime Minister Biniamyn Netanyahuwhich has long been considered reticent about military adventures, is still deciding when or whether to proceed.
The climate of infighting, paralysis and chaos is so widespread that Netanyahu, his defense minister, Yoav Gallant whom Netanyahu tried to fire in March and the armed forces’ chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, issued an unusual declaration of war on Monday evening, assuring a traumatized public that the three were working “in close and complete cooperation” 24 hours a day Day “to lead the State of Israel to a decisive victory” and to express “total and mutual trust” between them.
They then appeared together at a security meeting and made further statements without giving any indication of the timing of a ground offensive.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and parliamentarian Benny Gantz, who was one of the opposition leaders and joined the war cabinet. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP
The show of unity came a day after Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military’s top spokesman, said in a televised news conference that the army was waiting for a green light from the political level to invade Gaza.
As the initial public urgency for a ground invasion appeared to have subsided, Netanyahu’s supporters launched a campaign to stop the invasion, posting an anonymously produced video on social media calling for the soldiers’ lives to be put first to give the air force more time to destroy Hamas’s treacherous tunnel system before the troops enter Gaza.
Some commentators said this could mean “never” since it would probably be impossible to destroy all the tunnels from the air.
Experts say the Israeli government and military are grappling with competing dilemmas and realworld complexities.
“It is a delicate balance between the advantage of letting the air force do what it does best and the question of how long it is possible to delay the ground offensive,” said Ehud Yaari, an Israeli researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The more tunnels the Luftwaffe destroys, “the easier it will be for the forces on the ground.”
Palestinians with dual nationality wait for the opening of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt Photo: Fatima Shbair / AP
In addition, Yaari said, Israel used the time to expand its target list in Gaza, gather more intelligence and interrogate several Hamas operatives captured on Israeli territory.
However, waiting carries risks. As the days pass, Israel could face a decline in international support for its actions as the number of Palestinian deaths rises and the humanitarian crisis in the beleaguered enclave continues to worsen.
In addition, one must consider the morale of the soldiers and reservists being held in limbo, as well as the impact on the Israeli economy and the statesponsored withdrawal of tens of thousands of Israelis from the border areas around Gaza and the far north. , where skirmishes between Israel and the Hezbollahthe heavily armed Lebanese Shiite militant organization, has increased.
“This can’t go on forever,” Yaari said of the wait and the battles still to come.
The Israeli army, caught off guard by the Oct. 7 attacks, released a statement Monday night saying its recruits and reservists would “conduct various training exercises to improve the armed forces’ readiness and capability for ground operations,” possibly in Gaza in an effort to align the military with the government in public.
Israel has also tried to assess the likelihood of Hezbollah sparking a major conflagration on the northern front with the Israeli military stuck in Gaza, or even a major conflict between Iran and its proxies in the region.
Netanyahu found himself at the lowest point of his career in this crisis, battling corruption charges in court as his farright and religiously ultraconservative government sought to limit the powers of the judiciary, sparking months of mass protests in the deeply divided country.
He has since brought political rivals into his government to boost public confidence and formed a small war cabinet that includes more experienced and professional leaders.
Nevertheless, there is a heated dispute among highranking members of the government. In March, Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Gallant after he openly criticized the government’s judicial reform plan. Weeks later, he reinstated the defense minister under intense public pressure.
Benny Gantz, leader of a centrist party and former military chief who left the opposition to join the War Cabinet, has his own unfortunate history with the current prime minister: In 2020, Netnayahu betrayed a powersharing agreement with Gantz and remained in office when he replaced Gantz should have handed over.
Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White Party, in the Knesset Photo: Kobi Wolf/Bloomberg
“He has always been riskaverse,” Amos Harel, a military analyst at the leftwing Haaretz newspaper, said in an interview about Netanyahu, who has been in power for 16 years. “He is in the worst situation of his political life and the invasion of Gaza is the biggest strategic gamble ever,” he added.
Recent opinion polls have shown that the Israeli public has much more trust in the army than in the government. After the October 7 atrocities, the consensus among Israelis is that they will not feel safe until the threat of Hamas on their doorstep is gone, although the details of how to achieve this remain unclear.
On a recent weekday, Itai Indig, an English teacher, organized a protest outside the Defense Ministry and Army headquarters in Tel Aviv with a homemade poster featuring a cartoon depicting President Biden pressuring Israel’s leaders. The American president, he suggested, had rejected a land invasion.
“Biden is now running our office,” Indig complained. “If we don’t go to Gaza now, next time it will be ten times worse.”
A passerby, Elisheva Picker, stopped to argue with him. “If we step in now, many more people will die,” she said. “What about the hostages?”
This is the divisive climate in Israel. Many Israelis fear a ground invasion but believe it is inevitable.
Amos Harel, an analyst at Haartez, said the October 7 shock had increased public tolerance towards the prospect of Israeli soldiers returning home in coffins.
“People are more willing to risk a largescale military operation, even if it causes an unusually large number of casualties,” he said. “On the other hand,” Harel said, “I’m not sure they could endure another failure.”