The announcement of a temporary ceasefire, alongside the prisoners-captives exchange, while it comes as a relief for all sides after 50 days of the vicious Israeli aggression, the Israeli handling of the captives situation indicates that the entity is at risk of losing the war, a report published by The Sunday Times on Sunday said.
Shortly after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, “Israel” activated Article 40 of its Basic Law, officially entering a state of war with and facilitating the mobilization of its reserve forces. “Israel’s” armed strength, boasting a force of 550,000, as per the released data, starkly overshadows al-Qassam’s estimated 25,000.
However, despite the indisputable military superiority, “Israel” has lost control of events, the report said, adding that the captives held by the Resistance gave Hamas the upper hand, which, as per the newspaper, the group is skilled at using.
With growing pressure, both from the entity’s internal front and foreign powers, on top of which is the US, the Resistance in Gaza knew that the Israeli war cabinet would be forced into this truce and exchange deal and, thus, made its best efforts to enhance its negotiating position for maximum political gain.
The skepticism of the United States toward “Israel’s” aggressive war as a strategy to bring back the captives was apparent during the October 18 meeting between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The subsequent release of two Americans held by al-Qassam led to US support for Qatar’s proposal of a ceasefire and negotiations, signaling a departure from solely military solutions suggested by “Tel Aviv”.
According to the report, Brett McGurk, the US envoy for West Asia (Middle East), established a dedicated team in Washington that closely coordinated with the office of the Qatari Prime Minister to formulate and actively promote the intricate package deal that commenced on Friday morning. However, the Israeli government was not the key player behind reaching this agreement.
Facing domestic pressure over the captives situation, Netanyahu sought to regain some control by proposing an extension of the ceasefire with the conditional release of 50 more captives.
Should a nine-day ceasefire result in the release of around 100 out of the approximately 230 captives held by the Resistance, it could serve as a partial alleviation of the anger that many Israelis seem to harbor towards Netanyahu, whose security policy from the past 14 years now appears to be in shambles, the report said.
However, the extension of the ceasefire brings additional pressure on the Israeli war cabinet to maintain the momentum of captive negotiations, and the presence of (20) more American citizens held by the Resistance in Gaza further complicates the situation, potentially influencing Washingotn’s further involvement and impacting the Israeli occupation army’s strategic planning.
“It may, in fact, be very difficult for Israel to move on to the next phase of its military operation,” the report said.
During the war, the northern Gaza Strip has been almost bombed by Israelis inch-by-inch, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcefully displaced, tens of thousands of homes destroyed, entire towns and residential areas rendered uninhabitable, and all basic facilities, such as medical centers, hospitals, bakeries… etc. put out of service due to either direct targeting or the blockade.
The nearly 7-week aggression on Gaza, which saw Israelis committing over 1,300 massacres, has resulted in over 14,800 martyrs, over 65% of which are children and women, in addition to thousands missing and presumed killed and over 20,000 wounded with various degrees of injuries.
The Israeli war atrocities in the Strip have led to public outrage among the world’s most influential powers, including the United States, the UK, Germany, France, and Italy, who witnessed millions of protesters taking to the streets in support of Gaza, calling for a complete ceasefire, the end of the Israeli crimes, and taking those responsible to court.
These factors, which the entity has never witnessed to this extent before, especially in that scale with regard to its public image whereby it always plays the “victim’s” role, will force themselves as constraints on any military attack the entity is planning to resume.
Any renewed aggression by “Israel” is likely to expand and amplify international condemnation and pressure, especially in the wake of the temporary ceasefire and “Israel’s” statements that its next war phase includes ground operations in the densely-populated south Gaza. Thus, reaching the objectives in Gaza remains very farfetched, especially when it comes to “eliminating Hamas”.
As per the report, the Israeli entity is facing a sobering reality as its war is going wrong in many ways, which the war cabinet might have forecasted at the beginning had it taken more time before making such a decision.
Moreover, while the Israeli military claims it has damaged the capabilities of al-Qassam Brigades, it remains far from destroying it.
The Israeli army has always considered the possibility of prolonged military confrontations, but the war cabinet also understood that global opinion would increasingly turn against “Israel” as civilian suffering grew and the outcome of the operation on October 7 became more distant in time. Now, external factors have reshaped Netanyahu’s operational priorities, the report said.
Instead of pursuing the aggression with haste, arguing that a show of military prowess would increase the chances of rescuing more captives by cornering the Resistance, the war has stalled, because the world believes in a release-through-negotiations approach and an opportunity for humanitarian aid to reach severely affected civilians in the devastated Strip.
Furthermore, the decision to forcefully displace the Palestinian population into southern Gaza while destroying the north may have been a strategic mistake on the Israeli part, said the report, concluding that the war cabinet seems to be approaching a dead-end where even the simplest military objectives may become unattainable.
The newspaper piece argued that the military situation might have been more favorable for “Tel Aviv” at this point.
However, all of these potential improvements would have hinged on Netanyahu and his war cabinet devising a credible political plan for the post-war phase; a task they have thus far been unable to accomplish in the seven weeks since the commencement of the war.
