The head of the Israeli occupation’s National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, said Wednesday that “Israel” did not achieve any of the goals of its war on Gaza.
“We did not achieve any of the strategic goals of the war, no conditions for a prisoner deal, we did not topple Hamas and we did not enable the residents of the [Gaza] envelope to return to their homes safely,” Hanegbi said during a briefing to the Israeli Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.
“They say in the [Israeli forces] that this will take a lot of time, not one year, but years,” Hanegbi added.
“The Cabinet did not set any clear goal for the north, no dates, no targets, no strategic goals,” he added.
Top officials in the Biden administration are calling out “Israel’s” tactics in Gaza “self-defeating” – a type of criticism that “Israel” has not seen since October 7, according to Politico.
The officials said that “Israel” has turned the world against it with its continuous bombing and blocking of humanitarian aid, which they claim has enabled the Palestinian Resistance to recruit more fighters.
An anonymous senior administration official told Politico, “We want to encourage a deeper focus on the connection between the ongoing military operations and, ultimately, the strategic endgame,” adding, “We’re going to keep pressing on that point.”
The official noted that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week to plan an “achievable and durable” success against Hamas.
Meanwhile, in a Tuesday interview for CNN, Netanyahu said, “We have to get rid of Hamas. Otherwise, there’s no future for Gaza.”
A person familiar with US intelligence revealed that Biden officials are becoming increasingly concerned that Hamas has been able to recruit during wartime which has allowed them to withstand the (seven) 7 months of conflict.
The idea of “total victory” is also increasingly becoming unlikely, as asserted last week by Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, and then on Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. C.Q. Brown called out “Israel” for failing to protect civilians in Gaza and prevent Hamas from coming back.
Brown told reporters, “Not only do you have to actually go in and clear out whatever adversary you are up against, you have to go in, hold the territory, and then you’ve got to stabilize it,” and if that doesn’t happen, it “allows your adversary then to re-populate in areas if you’re not there, and so that does make it more challenging for them as far as being able to meet their objective of being able to militarily destroy and defeat Hamas.”
