By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Forever War in Gaza

Less than two months after he committed to a phased cease-fire with Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resumed his country’s war in the Gaza Strip. On March 18, Israeli air force jets attacked military sites, killing more than 400 Palestinians, including over 300 women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health—a devastating toll even by the war’s earlier standards. The short-lived truce allowed for the release of 30 hostages Hamas took during its shock attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, as well as the repatriation of eight deceased captives. Last week, the Israeli government proposed resuming a cease-fire in exchange for the return of 11 more hostages and 16 more bodies.

However even if Hamas and Israel hammer out a new, short-term agreement to halt hostilities, Gaza is unlikely to see real peace any time soon. Since the horrific October 7 massacre, which claimed the lives of around 1,250 Israelis, Netanyahu has pursued two goals with his military operations in the strip—free all the hostages and destroy Hamas. But these goals cannot be achieved at the same time: Hamas refuses to subscribe to a peace process that involves its own annihilation, and as long as Israel is committed to that outcome, Hamas’s surviving leaders have a powerful incentive to hold on to hostages to deter Israeli attacks that might kill them.

This means that even if a cease-fire resumes, Hamas is likely to delay releasing every last hostage, Israel is likely to find ways to avoid proceeding through phases that allow Hamas to retain power, and any deal may again fall apart at its final stages. Netanyahu increasingly believes that ordering military action pays off. Projecting strength, after all, weakened Iran and hobbled its Lebanese proxy militia, Hezbollah. And whereas former U.S. President Joe Biden’s team tried to contain Israeli escalations, Netanyahu has a more permissive ally in President Donald Trump. In a sign of the two leaders’ intimacy—and the importance, for Netanyahu, of keeping Trump on side—the Israeli prime minister rushed to Washington on Sunday to see Trump for the second time in three months. Feeling emboldened, the Israeli military has also proposed a far-reaching plan to reoccupy Gaza, and Netanyahu’s ultra-right-wing partners are more brazenly advancing a proposal to expel most of Gaza’s inhabitants.

It remains somewhat unclear, however, whether Netanyahu is prepared to implement his political partners’ biggest dreams. He has to consider Trump’s position, changeable as it is, and whether Israel’s military is capable of embarking on a costly, long-term operation in Gaza. For the time being, his best option is probably to pursue a middle path that keeps his options open and maintains his allies’ belief that he is on their side—and that middle path involves continued operations in Gaza.

 

Confidence Game

When Israel went to war in Gaza 18 months ago, there was almost unanimous agreement among Israelis that Hamas must be eliminated. But it soon became clear that Israel’s two military objectives—secure the release of the hostages and destroy Hamas—could not be accomplished in the same time frame. Even assuming that it is possible to eradicate Hamas, a terrorist guerrilla organization that still commands substantial grassroots support in Gaza, doing so would take years. The Israeli hostages, however, do not have that kind of time. According to an analysis by The New York Times, between October 2023 and early March 2025, 41 hostages died in captivity. Some died from starvation, disease, and murder, and others perished accidentally as a result of Israeli military operations. Those hostages who have returned to Israel from Gaza in recent months described being held in extremely harsh conditions: many were kept chained in tunnels with little food and no medical care and some reported experiencing torture.

Because Israel did not clearly prioritize one goal over the other, it has yet to achieve either one. Since the war began, Israel has killed most of Hamas’s top leaders, including the group’s Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar. But the organization still has a governance structure, and to discourage Israeli attempts to assassinate them, its remaining leaders seek to maintain a human shield—a kind of insurance policy—in the form of a small number of hostages, mostly soldiers. Such an arrangement is unacceptable to Netanyahu. For him, only two options are on the table: Hamas’s total surrender and the expulsion of its leadership from Gaza, or the continuation of the war until the Israeli military achieves that same outcome. In the second scenario, he would likely blame Hamas for the deaths of additional hostages.

Any hope that the United States would push Israel to stick to a lasting cease-fire faded with Trump’s inauguration. Although Trump did pressure Netanyahu to agree to the January cease-fire, since then, his administration’s approach has become more muddled. Every few days, the American team presents new proposals, but the discussions remain deadlocked; Trump now toggles between disinterest in the conflict and fantastical ideas, such as his proposition in February that the United States could take ownership of Gaza and turn it into a tourist “Riviera.”

The Trump administration has not really faced or sought to resolve the fundamental contradiction delaying serious peace talks: Netanyahu insists that any cease-fire process must end in the dismantling of Hamas. But this a redline that Hamas is unwilling to cross, although it reportedly may consider abdicating its political power while maintaining its military strength, a kind of compromise being tested in Lebanon with Hezbollah’s consent. Neither the Americans nor the Arab mediators from Egypt and Qatar, however, have so far managed to persuade Hamas’s leaders to sign an agreement that would end their ultimate political mission: to take control of the Palestinian struggle against Israel.

Other developments have made it less urgent for Netanyahu to seek a settlement. By now, Israel’s military has partially recovered from the shock of October 7. Hamas’s abilities to organize another large-scale attack or launch significant rocket barrages into Israeli territory have been degraded. On other fronts, Israel now holds the upper hand. Last November, Hezbollah was forced to agree to a humiliating cease-fire, and although the Israeli air force continues to strike the group’s targets in southern Lebanon (and, last week, in Beirut), the battered organization has yet to respond. Israel’s exchanges of fire with Iran last October were an embarrassment for Tehran. And following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, Israel took control of parts of southern Syria. On the back of these wins, Netanyahu seems emboldened, responding with military force to enemy provocations he would previously have preferred to contain or ignore. In mid-March, for instance, after six rockets landed in its territory, Israel bombed a Hezbollah drone warehouse in southern Beirut, even though it remains unclear who launched the rockets.

Although the Biden administration stood by Israel after October 7 and helped prevent further regional escalation, it also sought to contain Israeli military actions. For instance, after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded the southern Gazan city of Rafah last May—an act Biden’s team had cautioned against—Biden delayed sending heavy precision munitions and bulldozers to Israel. Trump’s accession to the White House has removed this counterbalance. Publicly, at least, Trump supports all of Israel’s actions. And more broadly, the way that he flirts with ideas such as absorbing Canada and annexing Greenland legitimizes the notion that strong countries can simply seize territory from their neighbors. When Netanyahu visited Trump in Washington in February, the U.S. president wondered aloud why Israel did not take advantage of Assad’s ouster to claim even more Syrian land. Netanyahu subsequently discussed such an idea with his cabinet, although it has not gained traction.

 

Hidden Fissures

Israel appears to be in a commanding position. Indeed, in mid-March, the military presented an ambitious plan to the government to redeploy several divisions into Gaza, conduct a new reserve mobilization, evict northern Gazans back to a shelter zone in the south, and complete a military occupation of the entire strip—all in the space of a few months. The IDF’s former chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, had fiercely opposed the creation of any Israeli military government in Gaza. But he resigned in early March. His successor, Eyal Zamir—who enjoys warmer relations with Israel’s political leaders and thus more freedom to pursue his plans—has indicated he is open to governing the strip.

The Trump administration may have ceased talking about a plan to clear Gaza of its inhabitants, but right-wing Israeli politicians have taken up the cause, interpreting Trump’s proposal as a permission slip to more openly discuss encouraging Gazans to emigrate voluntarily. In practice, any such “voluntary emigration” project would involve the use of significant military force to persuade residents to leave. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who is essentially Netanyahu’s puppet, has established a new administrative body in his ministry to promote emigration.

But deeper weaknesses and domestic tensions constrain the Israeli government. Despite the blows it has suffered, Hamas remains far from defeated. Two surviving military commanders, Izz al-Din al-Haddad and Mohammed Sinwar (Yahya Sinwar’s brother), are leading its efforts to recover. The multiweek cease-fire that began in January, which facilitated the delivery of more humanitarian aid into Gaza, also allowed Hamas to replenish funds by seizing some of that aid and selling it to Gazan civilians for profit. Israel has estimated that, in recent months, Hamas has recruited about 20,000 new fighters, and the group’s leaders are moving to suppress protests against its rule in northern Gaza. Hamas is repurposing Israeli bombs that failed to detonate to booby-trap buildings and roads in preparation for another Israeli invasion.

Reoccupying Gaza would result in additional military casualties and, quite possibly, the deaths of more hostages. According to myriad public opinion polls, about 70 percent of Israelis support a deal with Hamas to release all the remaining hostages, even if it comes with very high costs, such as ending Israel’s military operations in Gaza and releasing thousands of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. But it is not certain whether this public sentiment will translate to the kind of protest that could constrain Netanyahu’s options. Many Israelis still find it extremely hard to demonstrate against their government while Israeli soldiers are fighting and dying in Gaza.

But implementing either the military plan to occupy Gaza or the “voluntary emigration” project will carry serious political risk. Tens of thousands of military reservists have already served hundreds of days each during the war, which has taken a heavy toll on their careers and families. Israel has, in fact, never faced so much ambivalence about military service on the part of its reservists—not even during its politically controversial 1982 war in Lebanon or during the second intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2006. Some are threatening to refuse a call-up because they fear that a sweeping new military campaign could result in the deaths of more hostages. According to several IDF commanders I spoke with, many more are considering evading service to remain with their families. Some reservists’ anger relates to the government’s conduct outside Gaza, such as its efforts to preserve the ultra-Orthodox exemption from mandatory military service. But mainly, Israel’s reservists are exhausted and burned out.

So, Netanyahu must keep performing a delicate balancing act. From his perspective, he must delay the implementation of any cease-fire that would end the war and foreclose the fantasy of restoring Israeli settlements in Gaza to satisfy his right-wing allies. But he cannot sound as decisive as these allies do on fully reoccupying Gaza and resettling Israelis there. So far, he has been fairly successful: the Israeli parliament’s passage, in late March, of a budget bill staved off the threat that his coalition could collapse, forcing an early election. But one recent cabinet meeting revealed how challenging it is to maintain this balance. After Netanyahu had commented that the government was considering various ideas for Gaza’s future, including transferring control to a consortium of Arab states, the far-right minister for settlements, Orit Strook, was outraged. “But Gaza is ours, part of the land of Israel,” she exclaimed. “Are you going to give it to the Arabs?” The prime minister evaded the question. “Maybe military governance—there are all kinds of options,” he replied.

The Israeli prime minister must not only maneuver between a public that demands the release of the remaining hostages and his political partners’ visions of grandeur. He must also deal with Trump’s instinct to pursue glory. The U.S. president may still be seeking his own grand plan: a U.S.-Saudi megadeal that includes the normalization of diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia as well as an end to the war in Gaza. Netanyahu is now facing a new scandal after two of his media advisers were arrested and questioned about money they may have illicitly accepted from the Qatari government. The Israeli prime minister, however, is nothing if not resilient. He intends to retain his job by any means necessary. Keeping the Gaza war simmering is the simplest way to do that, no matter the long-term cost to the hostages, the Palestinians, the Middle East, and Israel itself.

 

 

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