Analysis: Israel Reveals her Position in the Hamas War as Ceasefire Ends
As ceasefire ends today, Hamas intensifies his strike on Israel. Just this morning, Hamas has sent dozens of missiles in Telaviv to show his preparedness for a continuous war against Israel.
An Israeli official in Washington DC has been briefing journalists - including Sky's US correspondent Mark Stone who has just returned from Israel and Gaza.
The official made comments about the situation in Gaza following the breakdown in the truce.
Mark has been analysing them – and you can see his thoughts after each quote.
"As a result of Hamas's refusal to abide by the terms of the deal and its active violations of it by carrying out the terror attack in Jerusalem on Thursday (11/30) and firing rockets towards Israel on Friday morning (12/1), the IDF has resumed striking Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip."
"The goals of the war remain the destruction of Hamas's military capabilities and all its governing capacity over Gaza, and the release of all hostages."
These goals are beginning to shift. Israel's initial stated goal after the 7 October massacre by Hamas was the complete destruction and removal of Hamas as an entity.
The clear message was that Hamas would be removed as a military force, as a political force and as an ideology.
But the narrative is shifting. Removing an ideology was always unrealistic especially if the driver of that ideology (Israeli occupation) is not addressed.
And so, the war goals have shifted - the destruction of Hamas' military capabilities and governing capacity. It will inevitably remain an ideology and political force but one blocked, somehow, from governing.
"We believe that applying more military pressure on Hamas could lead to further hostage releases in the future, as we saw in the recent pause."
There is merit to this argument. Crude, and painful for the civilians caught in the middle, the military pressure Israel placed on Gaza in the first seven weeks of this conflict played into the hostage release negotiation.
"Israel will continue allowing for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the Palestinian civilian population, including trucks with food, water, medicine, fuel, etc."
The key question here is how much aid. During the seven weeks of violence, aid into Gaza was reduced to about 3% of pre-war levels (and remember: war is the time when the most aid is needed).
During the week-long pause, aid went up to about 40% of pre-war levels. On day one of the resumption of military activities, it went back down to almost nothing.
So - what will Israel allow in now that hostilities have resumed? Aid agencies have accused Israel of "collective punishment" by restricting aid into the enclave.
"Civilians will be able to receive humanitarian and medical treatment in no-strike zones and shelters. In addition to the Jordanian field hospital that is already operating in Gaza, we are facilitating the construction of several more field hospitals."
This is good news as long as it materialises.
"This [hostage release] deal was about women and children - we believe Hamas is lying about the number of women in their possession."
It is impossible to know whether Hamas is lying or not. It's conceivable that Hamas has released all the women and children it holds, but some could be held by other factions like Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
"We are in a high intensity operation in the coming weeks, then probably moving to a low intensity mode."
It's clear from this that Israel intends to continue, largely, with its existing "high-intensity" strategy, one which has levelled large parts of northern Gaza. Only then will a lower intensity (more targeted raids based on intelligence) commence to take out any remaining Hamas military infrastructure. It's clear though from talking to well-placed sources that plans for how and when this shift from high to low intensity comes are still being worked out.
"We used this pause to prepare the inflow of humanitarian assistance for the next phase in the war. We are working very closely with [US] Ambassador Satterfield and his team, as well as the UN. We have a deconfliction mechanism that we established. We learned lessons from our northern Gaza operations and we are implementing them."
This is good news. Aid agencies and the UN have been calling for better (or simply any) coordination for the inflow of aid. Again, we await results but coordination and deconfliction channels are key.
"Regarding a reported "buffer zone": There are discussions in Israel about how we want to see Gaza when the war is over, given the Oct. 7 attack. The defence establishment is talking about some kind of security buffer on the Gaza side of the border so that Hamas cannot gather military capabilities close to the border and surprise Israel again. It is a security measure, not a political one. We do not intend to remain on the Gaza side of the border."
This is interesting. There were suggestions of a buffer zone on the Egyptian side of the border. The Israeli official is now talking about a strip within the strip. A sort of no-man's zone to be set up between the existing border fence and any populated area beyond it. It's not clear how this could be created. What is interesting is the statement that Israel does not intend to remain inside Gaza. There have been conflicting statements about this from different elements of Israel's divided political establishment.
"On the death toll in Gaza: The IDF estimates that, in addition to the 1,100 Hamas terrorists killed in Israel on Oct. 7, the IDF has killed several thousand terrorists in the war in Gaza."
US officials have said that they believe the figures released of at least 15,000 people killed since Israel's military operation are largely accurate. And so this combined with the statement above – "several thousand terrorists killed" - suggest that the vast majority of those killed are civilians.
"Regarding further negotiations to resume the pause: It is a very high priority for us to get as many hostages released as possible and for that, under agreed terms, Israel is willing to give additional pauses. We can negotiate while we still fight. The deal that was implemented up to today was made possible due to the pressure of our military operation on the ground."
The last negotiations took place during the most intense fighting over the past seven weeks. They managed a pause once, so surely they can do it again. The difficulty is that Israel's Arab partners - Qatar, Jordan and others who are key negotiation brokers - are increasingly dismayed by Israel's actions in Gaza. The Jordanian foreign minister has said it is increasingly "resembling genocide" and Qatar has said it is a humanitarian disaster.
In all discussions I have with Israeli and US officials, two things are consistently absent - first, a coherent plan for "the day after" (who rebuilds Gaza, runs it and how) and second, any discussion of the underlying problem - Israel's continued and illegal occupation of Palestinian lands. Until Israel is willing to discuss this core issue, the conflict will not be solved.
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