Israel has no alternative but to fight on in Gaza

Telegraph

02-04-2025

After almost 18 months of unremitting bloodshed and carnage in Gaza, it is little wonder that the overwhelming body of world opinion favours a lasting ceasefire at the earliest opportunity.
For, despite the terrible losses suffered by both sides in this pitiless conflict, there have been no winners, only traumatised losers.
Israel may have suffered fewer casualties, but the entire nation remains in shock at the sheer barbarity of the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attacks in 2023.
The comprehensive report into those events by the inimitable British historian, Lord Roberts of Belgravia, leaves no doubt about the inhumanity committed against the 1,200 victims, including a baby who was just fourteen hours old.
For their part, Gaza's two million Palestinian residents have seen their once lively and bustling enclave largely reduced to rubble as the Israel Defence Forces have attempted to achieve their stated goal of erasing Hamas from the face of the earth. The total number of Palestinian casualties is hard to assess, not least because the figures are deliberately manipulated as a propaganda tool by Hamas, a fact conveniently overlooked by credulous news organisations like the BBC.
Even so, it is clear that thousands of Palestinians have perished, and a significant proportion of Gaza's pre-war population have been forced to flee their homes as a consequence of Israel's unrelenting military effort.
This week's announcement, therefore, by Israeli defence minister Israel Katz that the Israeli military is expanding its operations in Gaza will be seen by many as a retrograde step.
Katz says the aim of the new offensive is to clear areas of Gaza 'of terrorists and infrastructure, and capture extensive territory that will be added to the State of Israel's security areas.' At the same time he has called on Gazans, who have been increasingly restive under Hamas's authoritarian rule, 'to act now to overthrow Hamas and return all the hostages.'
This is easier said than done, given the violence meted out by the Iranian-backed terrorists against anyone who defies their will. It was revealed earlier this week that Hamas had beaten a protester to death and left his broken body on his family's doorstep pour encourager les autres against any future anti-Hamas activity.
It is behaviour such as this, of course, that utterly refutes Hamas's claim to be the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and has made the task of negotiating a lasting ceasefire in Gaza nigh on impossible.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations, together with key regional allies such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, invested a great deal of political capital in organising a ceasefire for Gaza.
Their efforts did, ultimately, result in a brief cessation of hostilities, and the release of a handful of Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of convicted Palestinian terrorists. But Hamas's malevolent handling of the hostage releases, with many of the Israeli captives subjected to humiliating public rituals, exposed the terror group's fundamental lack of good faith. This has been a key factor in the collapse of the ceasefire.
Hamas's reprehensible conduct, together with its insistence on adding new conditions that US officials said were 'entirely impractical', basically left the Israelis with little choice other than to resume hostilities.
The renewed Israeli offensive has the Trump administration's full backing after the US president warned last month that there would be 'hell to pay' for Hamas if it did not release the remaining Israeli hostages, a warning the terror group has failed to heed.
The timing of Israel's fresh assault against Gaza, moreover, needs to be seen within the context of the Trump administration's deepening stand-off with Iran over the ayatollahs' nuclear ambitions. Having personally written to the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offering to engage in direct talks aimed at dismantling Iran's nuclear programme, US President Donald Trump makes no secret of his anger at Tehran's refusal to play ball. In a television interview last weekend, Trump bluntly warned that ' if they don't make a deal, there will be bombing.'
Khamenei, who has always insisted that Iran's nuclear programme had no military dimension, is now threatening that Tehran will have 'no choice' but to develop nuclear weapons if attacked.
As Iran is also one of the primary backers of Hamas's terrorist network, any attempt by the Trump administration to attack Iran will inevitably result in Iranian-backed terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah targeting the US and its allies, including the UK.
Senior Iranian commanders are already calling for pre-emptive attacks against the US-run Diego Garcia military base which is part – for the moment at least – of the British-controlled Chagos Islands.
Iran and its terrorist proxies make no secret of their contempt for the West and its liberal values, which is why Western leaders should think twice before condemning Israel's latest offensive in Gaza.
Israel's war against Islamist fanatics in Gaza and Iran is very much the West's war too, one that it is in all our interests that Israel wins, and wins decisively.