'Wasted generation of carnage': War on Gaza echoes futility in Lebanon
Channel 12 drew parallels between Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon back in 1982, describing both as futile wars where troops perished for no gain, calling the 1982–2000 period "a wasted generation of carnage."
Barak Sari, a strategic advisor for the channel, stated, "Back then, soldiers kept dying only for us to eventually withdraw completely from Lebanon, and what's happening in Gaza looks disturbingly similar. It's achieving nothing, it's pointless, and frankly demoralizing because we're seeing zero results and no hostages returned." He acknowledged that military pressure has failed to secure the captives' release, even though "Israel" claims to control 80% of the Gaza Strip.
Sari criticized the objectives and outcomes of "Israel's" ongoing war on Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, saying, "No one even understands where this war is leading us."
Adding to the criticism, ex-Knesset member Ofer Shelah conceded that the war on Gaza has long since passed the point of achieving anything worthwhile, having shown no tangible results for more than a year npw
Shelah described the war on Gaza in an interview for "Israel's" Kan public broadcaster as "a cycle of soldiers dying and military exhaustion with no end in sight."
Addressing Israeli plans to displace Palestinians from Gaza, Shelah firmly stated that despite what some Israeli figures hope, Gaza's population "isn't going anywhere."
Shelah called for an end to the war, criticizing "Israel's" approach to negotiations, noting that "Israel refuses to meet even Hamas' bare-minimum demands, the same terms they've offered since October 8, 2023."
He explained that the common ground between "Israel's" maximum and Hamas' minimum demands is ending the current war and securing a deal to return all captives, while stressing that "as long as this option isn't on the table and as long as Israel's government keeps searching for alternatives to actually ending the war there will be no deal to bring all the hostages home."
In a related context, discontent is growing within the Israeli military over mounting losses, with the crisis over exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from conscription deepening tensions, according to a Saturday report by the Israeli newspaper Maariv.
Israeli occupation army soldiers expressed frustration to Maariv over the Netanyahu government's conscription policies, accusing it of sending them to fight in Gaza while exempting tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) from military service.
The soldiers accused the government of being "weak and powerless against pressure from Haredi rabbis and politicians," arguing that this unfair system "places a growing burden on troops in the field."
Maariv also reported the soldiers' fears that continuing to fight under these conditions, with no real solutions or meaningful support, would "gradually grind us down to the point of collapse," calling for a complete overhaul of current policies.
Earlier reports in Israeli media highlighted a critical shortage of troops, forcing the military to redeploy soldiers diagnosed with PTSD into active combat zones.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted a military commander as saying, "With our soldiers unwilling to commit to combat, we're forced to recruit individuals who aren't psychologically fit for service," adding, "We fight with whatever manpower we have available, even when we know their mental condition is unstable."
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