Has Israel lost the war? Gaza and the illusion of victory

(JNS) It’s easy to forget that the vaunted Israel Defense Forces—the same IDF that stunned the world in 1967—has not won a decisive war since then. Israel is not alone in this: America’s far larger military failed to achieve lasting victory in Vietnam and Afghanistan. The final chapter of this conflict will not be written for years. Yet, based on the facts today, one conclusion is hard to escape: Despite tactical successes on five fronts—Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Yemen and Iran—Israel has lost the war.

This series will explain why, starting with Gaza—the war’s bloodiest theater.

The massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, was not just a tragedy; it was a strategic calamity. The IDF, the region’s most sophisticated military, did not even comprehend the scale of the assault until midday—and it took more than two days to reassert control inside its borders.

Like Pearl Harbor, Oct. 7 was a surprise, though not unforeseeable. Warnings were ignored. And as with Pearl Harbor, the attack changed history: Without it, Israel would likely have continued its old strategy of “mowing the lawn”—periodic airstrikes to limit rocket fire—rather than launching a costly ground campaign.

At the start, Israel bet on siege warfare: Choke off Hamas, starve it of supplies, force its capitulation. It never had a chance. Not because Hamas lacks fanaticism—they would have chosen martyrdom over surrender—but because Israel’s closest ally, the United States, flinched. Former President Joe Biden’s White House could not stomach televised images of Gazans suffering. It pressured Israel to end the siege before it began. Even US President Donald Trump, hardly sentimental toward the Palestinians, ultimately joined the international chorus calling for more aid, throwing the terrorists a lifeline. Israel complains that Hamas steals aid but has failed to prevent it.

Every day, the IDF reports killing terrorists, many of whom are senior officials. In places where the IDF has withdrawn, Hamas has reconstituted its fighting forces. It’s played whack-a-mole. At the outset, Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad were thought to have around 40,000 fighters. Israel has not disclosed figures on the number it has killed, but reports have suggested the number exceeds 20,000. Before leaving office, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost.”

Israel has had another eight months to kill more terrorists, but still, Hamas retains undiscovered tunnels and thousands of fighters. Furthermore, one of the consequences of the siege is that Gazans desperately need money to feed their families. Who can pay them? Hamas can; it uses proceeds from selling the humanitarian-aid packages it steals or other profits it has made from food distribution. Raw recruits are not the same caliber of terrorist as those killed, but they are threats who must be neutralized.

Feeding Hamas has allowed it to prolong the war. So have the constraints Biden placed on Israel’s military campaign earlier in the fighting. The pressure put on Israel to make concessions and rewards, such as the recognition of a Palestinian state, has made Hamas adopt tougher stances in hostage negotiations.

When the United States entered World War II, it did not pause for humanitarian optics. It firebombed cities. It dropped nuclear weapons. It demanded unconditional surrender—and got it. Israel cannot wage such a campaign. It is not a superpower. It is not Russia. And though critics pretend otherwise, Jerusalem has exercised restraint that no other military would. It has bent over backward to protect civilians—at enormous strategic and political cost.

Still, Israel has achieved impressive gains: Rocket fire has been reduced to practically zero; Hamas’s leaders and senior commanders were eliminated; its governing authority was removed; its military capabilities have been reduced by 80% and its supply lines for weaponry have dried up; thousands of Gazans will leave if given the opportunity; and the IDF controls roughly three-quarters of the Strip with plans to take the rest.

Restraint does not win wars. And nearly two years in, Israel faces a brutal reality: Hamas will not surrender. Its leaders may die like Hitler in a bunker, but they will kill every hostage first. That alone would make this war a crushing defeat because rescuing hostages was one of Israel’s two principal war aims.

Hamas believes that it wins if it survives or if Israel fails to achieve its objectives. It can already count as a victory Israel’s international isolation and the damage to its reputation, the harm done to the economy, the divisions it has sewn in Israeli society, the sabotaging of normalization with Saudi Arabia, the growth in its popularity in the West Bank, and the release of prisoners from Israeli jails. Not all, if any, of these are reversible. A hostage deal may yet prevent the IDF from finishing the job, in which case the war could end with Hamas bloodied but still undefeated.

Israel is at an inflection point. Is it worth more soldiers’ lives to kill every fighter? Is that even possible? And when billions flow into Gaza after the war—money Israel cannot control—how much will rebuild homes, and how much will rebuild Hamas?

Israel plans to occupy Gaza. Does anyone really think that it will become another Switzerland? Dead terrorists and civilians leave behind children and siblings bent on revenge. And among the thousands of prisoners Israel has freed, will another Yahya Sinwar emerge to plot the next massacre?

Israel will adapt. It will harden defenses, learn from mistakes and vow: never again. Yet its citizens still won’t sleep easily. Hamas may be bloodied, but the dream of exterminating Israel survives—in tunnels, in the West Bank and in the hearts of those who may call themselves the “Sons of Hamas.”

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