Israel Believes Pounding Gaza Again Will Finish Hamas. Some Are Not So Sure.

New York Times

05-05-2025

As Israel gears up to add tens of thousands of reserve soldiers to the battlefield in Gaza, the logic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be this: Victory against Hamas will come from an even bigger barrage of military might in the weeks ahead.
'We have not finished the war,' Mr. Netanyahu declared on Sunday as his security cabinet signed off on expanding the fighting. 'We will perform this operation with a unified military, with a powerful army and deeply resolved soldiers.'
But it is not clear how those additional fighters will fundamentally alter a dynamic seen over 18 months of war in which hundreds of thousands of soldiers have pummeled Hamas fighters, with residents in Gaza caught in the middle, but have failed to achieve Israel's goals of destroying the militant group or releasing all hostages.
And it remains uncertain whether the Israeli military will surge back into Gaza before President Trump arrives in the Middle East next week for meetings in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Two reservists who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make comments to the news media said that they had received call-up orders beginning in June.
Since the collapse of a two-month cease-fire in March, Israel has blocked food, medicine and other humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza. And the Israeli air force has already renewed its heavy bombardment of the enclave.
Now, the government is poised to expand its ground offensive as well, with the goal of re-entering cities in Gaza and forcing Hamas to submit to Israel's demand to permanently lay down their weapons.
The question is whether a return to that kind of fighting is a road map to the end of hostilities or merely an intensification of a deadly conflict with worsening consequences for Palestinians and the Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas.
Tamir Hayman, who served as the Israeli military's intelligence chief for four years, said the attempts to pressure Hamas with overwhelming force had been 'exhausted' after more than a year and a half of war.
'Eliminating Hamas as a terror organization by military force only is very difficult,' said Mr. Hayman, who is now executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank in Tel Aviv. He said Israel would be better off ending the war with Hamas, which has been weakened significantly and can be kept in check after the fighting ends.
The Israeli military has not provided details about how the reservists will be deployed. But two Israeli officials, who requested anonymity to comment on military plans, say it will involve several brigades seeking so-called operational superiority in several parts of Gaza.
The Trump administration has sought a new cease-fire, but Hamas has demanded an end to the war and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, while Israel has insisted that Hamas disarm, which the group has refused to do.
The Israel call-up of soldiers is also a message to Mr. Netanyahu's hard-line supporters, some of whom were dismayed that the military had not completed the task of eradicating Hamas. Promising a more intense phase of the war could be good domestic politics for him.
Israeli officials have said they believe it was the power and intensity of their military campaign in Gaza last year that pressured Hamas to release some of the hostages and to accept a cease-fire in January.
Hours after the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people in Israel, with 251 others taken hostage, Mr. Netanyahu ordered the mobilization of 360,000 reservists, adding to the country's standing military of about 170,000 soldiers.
In the fighting since, more than 50,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Gaza health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and military deaths. About 130 hostages have been released and the Israeli military has retrieved the bodies of at least 40 others. Around 24 hostages are thought to be still alive, according to the Israeli government.
When Israel and Hamas agreed to the January cease-fire deal, Mr. Netanyahu said credit should go to the 'painful blows that our heroic fighters have landed on Hamas.'
'This is exactly how the conditions were created for the turning point in its position and for the release of our hostages,' he said during a national address.
But other voices, like Yair Lapid, Israel's opposition leader, have expressed grave doubts about the strategy. 'I fear that the intensity of the fighting will dictate the fate of the hostages,' Mr. Lapid said on Israeli Army Radio. 'What is the goal? Why are they calling up reservists? Extending regular service and all without defining a goal — that's not how you win a war.'
In a statement Monday, the organization representing the families of hostages urged the government not to widen the war.
'The expansion of military operations puts every hostage at grave risk,' the families said. 'We implore our decision makers: Prioritize the hostages. Secure a deal. Bring them home — before it's too late.'