Shortening the Gaza War: Will Israel Consider It?

Netanyahu and his defense minister hint at a possible "third option."

Having lassoed Gaza City in less than seven days, breached the “central military quarter” controlled by Hamas, and buttoned up escape routes by throwing up an armored cordon across the midsection of Gaza itself, the IDF and its special ops units are now engaged the dirtiest of the final dirty work.

They have begun battling their way into the 300-mile Hamas tunnel network, which radiates out from Gaza City and its environs and extends all the way to the coast and beyond, sometimes emptying via airlocks into the sea. And methodically, with deadly precision, they are proceeding to take out the enemy’s already decimated leadership and (hopefully) to liberate surviving hostages.

If the past is prologue, every step forward will be prefaced by obliterating but surgically refined airstrikes and artillery fire to remove any likely hiding places or exfiltration points for Hamas tunnel rats, with IDF units, in contrast to the enemy, often going to extreme lengths, even putting themselves at added risk, to protect exposed civilians or to move them out of harm’s way.

As a measure of the likely coming devastation, Israeli air, artillery and operational assets have damaged or destroyed nearly eighteen percent of all buildings in Gaza over the past month, according to satellite-based assessments.

Estimated civilian casualties, while always subject to partisan manipulation, are doubtless reflected in the extent of the observable rubble, though too often blame is assigned reflexively by armchair scorekeepers cocooned in their own biases to Israeli troops rather than to the ultimate cause, Hamas itself.   

“Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many have suffered these past weeks,” U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken declared last Friday in case anyone doubts how the Biden administration views the escalating civilian death toll, whoever is responsible. “We want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.”

But let’s not kid ourselves that moral issues cut easily one way or another in this conflict.

In addressing the issue of collateral damage – past civilian casualties and those likely to come -- the IDF has embraced an operational theory long recognized in warfare, which allows for elevated casualty rates among noncombatants as long as they are “proportionate” to the presumed value of the ultimate military target.

“Proportionality in the laws of war doesn’t mean counting casualties on one side and then asking if that’s too many compared to the casualties on the other side,” IDF legal adviser, Captain Tomer Herzig, explained in a recent press release.

“Proportionality demands we ask whether the expected incidental (meaning unintended and of course undesired) harm to civilians from an attack is excessive in relation to the military advantage anticipated from the attack,” he argued. “Israel is not required to wait for a certain amount of Israeli civilians to be killed in order to hit a military target.”

Since almost every Israeli rightly sees Hamas as an existential threat, such transactional reasoning leaves the IDF lots of ghastly latitude.

IDF briefers have repeatedly tried to shift blame for innocents killed by Israeli fire by arguing -- rightly -- that Hamas uses civilians as human shields and entrenches its fighters and arms stashes in hospitals, school yards and refugee camps, the implication being that proportionality justifies civilian blood spilt in such places as the IDF goes about the righteous work of obliterating the existential threat.  

But proportionality, even in its most righteous iterations, is an imperfect, improvisational concept that often bends to political or military expediency. And though it has governed IDF policy ever since October 7 (and likely forever), the initial forbearance it received from Israel’s staunchest supporters is shrinking towards the vanishing point.

Intense on-going fighting near northern Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, has brought the controversy over proportionality, IDF-style, to a high boil. Israeli forces are pounding the area with airstrikes and artillery based on the presumption that Hamas has set up command posts inside and under the hospital compound. As of this writing special ops units have entered a section of the hospital in search of Hamas hidey holes supposedly pinpointed by intelligence sources. “In the MRI room, we found AK-47s and other weapons,” an IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler has just told NBC News.

The three thousand patients and medical staff at Al-Shifa, and the thousands of refugees sheltering nearby, are trapped in the kill zone, with diminishing food and medical supplies and not enough fuel to keep generators and vital medical equipment even barely operational.

Netanyahu has summoned all noncombatants to flee to safer locations during tactical military pauses, but most patients are too injured to be moved, and many residents too fearful of Hamas reprisals or errant cross-fire to attempt an escape.

The IDF claims to have left 300 liters of fuel on the hospital’s doorstep to jumpstart its generators. But this not nearly enough to survive inveterate Hamas pilfering, and Netanyahu remains adamant against restoring fuel deliveries to Gaza for fear they will be used to keep oxygen flowing into Hamas’ multi-chambered catacombs.

Meanwhile, as anyone can determine from reading the international press, intractable anti-Israel sentiment in the Arab world and ugly incipient antisemitism in supposedly ecumenical corners of the European and American psyche are arcing off the charts. It seems to matter little to self-appointed moralists in the Mideast and on many American college campuses who delight in accusing Israel of targeting civilians that Hamas has made such targeting a stated objective. Operational notebooks carried by the cross-border raiders on October 7 called for the murder, torture and seizure of any and all Israeli civilians who might come within reach.

To limit civilian deaths -- and negative media -- to every extent possible within the scope of IDF objectives, Netanyahu is promising more selective targeting in the coming days. He has also just agreed to “pause” military operations in sectors of northern Gaza for four-hour intervals each day to allow refugees to head south to supposedly “less-fire” zones there.

In the past forty-eight hours 40,000 displaced civilians and possibly many more have escaped from Gaza City through a corridor briefly opened by the IDF, and according to The Guardian, unnamed diplomats are working feverishly to negotiate a larger three-day “pause” that would permit the accelerated relocation of imperiled civilians and a handoff of hostages.

But Netanyahu’s war cabinet continues to resist a more definitive “ceasefire” for the understandable reason that such interludes would only benefit Hamas by giving its fighters breathing space in which to burrow more deeply into or under populated areas.

Thus, if there is to be any curb on the “collateral damage” inflicted by Israelis or anybody else, President Biden and other cooler heads will have to stiff-arm Netanyahu and his hardline supporters into adopting what some are calling a “third option,” a long-game approach to containing the Hamas threat.

According to The Guardian, Biden has already leveraged Netanyahu into calling off preemptive strikes against Hezbollah lest they widen the war into Lebanon. The New York Times reports that some 500 staffers and political appointees spread across official Washington have circulated a letter in which they urge Biden, in effect, to box Israel into an irresistible ceasefire by negotiating a hostage release predicated on one.

In Netanyahu’s eyes the best version of any immediate “less-fire” scenario would involve a military occupation lasting long enough for the IDF to identify and eliminate any lingering odor of Hamas extremism. Then – question mark, though Netanyahu clearly objects to any Gaza-related postwar role for the Palestinian Authority (PA), ruler of the west bank, or anyone else whose involvement might hasten creation of an independent Palestinian state.   

From the American standpoint, to judge from recent comments by Biden and his Secretary of State, the best attainable denouement would yield a formal ceasefire, and combine humanitarian rescue work with diplomatic fence building aimed at liberating hostages and rallying Arab neighbors behind an international trusteeship for Gaza -- or a two-state solution that would extend the PA’s dominion over the West Bank to include the Gaza strip.  

In either case, whatever the shape of the peace package, interim or semi-permanent, it would likely have to contain a consolation prize for Israelis still hell bent (justifiably) on avenging October 7 – and that’s just about every Jew in Israel.

If you’re looking for a workable concept, think: “Wrath of God,” Part II, a variation on the so-named kill plot that Golda Meir mounted against the Black September terrorists, who slaughtered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Games.

The availability of a similarly constituted squad of assassins to contain the Hamas threat in the absence of a total wipeout might eventually make a negotiated settlement at least conceivable to angst-ridden Israelis.   

As it happens, the Mossad and Shin Bet have just created the perfect instrument, a jointly run hit team codenamed “Nili” that will hunt down and execute Hamas leaders wherever they are, in Gaza or abroad, now and forever.

“Nili” – a Hebrew acronym for the Biblical term, "The Eternal One of Israel will not lie” – served as the calling card for a fabled Jewish spy ring that deftly undermined Ottoman rule in Palestine during World War I.

The current group’s fingerprints are visible on several of the recent hits on Hamas leaders, and if and when the current fighting subsides, the Nili could become Israel’s deadline-free sub rosa, far less politically fraught substitute for it.

Assassinations ascendant

Five days after the October 7 attacks, Netanyahu declared boldly that “every Hamas terrorist is a dead man.” His defense minister Yoav Gallant vowed “to wipe them off the face of the earth.”

Over the next three weeks, Israeli airstrikes reached an intensity not seen since the U.S. aerial campaign against the Taliban in 2017. But there was also an extraordinary precision to them due to the use of highly sophisticated mobile sensors and special operatives on the ground including the so-called “Ghosts,” who are exquisitely trained and equipped to fix targets, then instantly call in “kill shots” by air or ground assets.

With the launch of direct IDF incursions into Gaza, airstrikes have become more variable, but their continued pinpoint lethality has made them, in the words of Australian intelligence expert, Ross Babbage, “a fairly successful, essentially assassination set of operations.”

“Fairly effective” is an understatement and that is why Israel may be closer than we think to a strategy adjustment and adoption of a long game that would rely on “quieter” killings to deal with the Hamas threat. As a possible token of coming trends – and as if to demonstrate the viability of such a “half-a-loaf” -- IDF briefers have begun to document in very precise terms the decimation of Hamas leadership cadre and to intimate that something less than total annihilation might satisfy Israel's objectives.

On November 1, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht announced the recent death-by-airstrike of “dozens of Hamas terrorists hiding inside the Jabaliya refugee camp. Among them: Ibrahim Bihari, commander of the Central Jabaliya Battalion, who, according to Hecht, had “overseen Hamas’ battle efforts in northern Gaza” and was instrumental in deploying “Nukbha” terrorists into Israeli communities on October 7.  

Three days later Defense Minister Gallant told reporters that twelve Hamas battalion commanders have been killed since the start of Operation Iron Swords. Among more recent high-value hits, he identified the apparent victim of a Nili-orchestrated airstrike -- Mustafa Dalul, “commander of the Sabra Tel al-Hawa Battalion, who played a large role in Hamas's fight against IDF troops in the Gaza Strip.” The clue to Nili’s involvement was IDF acknowledgement that Shin Bet had claimed shared credit for the kill.

On November 10, Colonel Hecht updated the press on the IDF push into the nerve center of Hamas operations in Gaza city, the area of Al-Shifa hospital, where tunnel shafts feed into the “metro,” military slang for the enemy’s labyrinthine underground Alamo. By Hecht’s account, special ops and intelligence assets have recently uncovered Hamas’ main intelligence headquarters, the largest urban warfare training facility in Gaza, anti-aircraft rocket launch posts, and “factories for the production of anti-tank missiles.”

He also reported “the elimination of crucial Hamas figures, including Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib,” whom he described as head of the infamous “Anti-Tank Missile Unit, and key Nukhba force members involved in the October 7th attack.”

In a previous Substack posting, I listed – by name and rank -- all Hamas topsiders officially confirmed as “KIAs” in the past month. (The roster is continually updated there.) As I observed in that earlier piece, it is difficult to see how the terrorist group, faced with such ever-increasing top-tier losses, can continue to function as a coherent fighting force.

Softening the Saber Rattling

Publicly, Israeli officials remain bullish about annihilating the enemy. Despite greenlighting brief localized humanitarian pauses, Netanyahu has emphatically reaffirmed his opposition to any genuine ceasefire minus a hostage release. And in what appears to be a rebuff of U.S. proposals for independent rule in postwar Gaza, he has insisted that, whatever the eventual peace deal, the IDF must retain security control over the territory for a while and be entitled to re-enter it in force to hunt down militants when necessary. An unsourced report quoted by The Times of Israel recycles insider speculation that the IDF will be fighting in Gaza for at least year -- “in different areas” and using “different methods.”

For all the breast-thumping rhetoric, however, there are tremors in the rhythms that would seem to signal something more nuanced than a fight-to-the-death against every last Hamas terrorist, which isn’t a realistic objective anyway.

“Different areas” and “different methods” don’t sound like notes from IDF’s existing playbook. The emergence of Nili may reflect and encourage alternative thinking. And when speaking to the press on November 4 Defense Minister Gallant offered remarks that seemed to offer a new more flexible standard for “Mission Accomplished” than has been advertised so far.

While hitting all the usual themes and pledging to nail every Hamas topsider responsible for October 7, Gallant attached new singular importance to the elimination a specific man, Yahya Sinwar, chief of Hamas in Gaza.

“We will get to Yahya Sinwar and eliminate him,” he vowed. “If the residents of Gaza get there ahead of us, that will shorten the war.”

This is, to be sure, a thin reed on which to hypothesize a shift in Israeli policy. But Gallant’s reference to a possible brake on military operations keyed to Sinwar’s death may presage the beginning of a reassessment.

It may also signify a dawning awareness that Israel cannot afford much more of the opprobrium that it has endured from the global community because of the ongoing high-intensity offensive.

In recent back-to-back essays, Richard Haass, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations has outlined a “third option” available to Israel, which would split the difference between a continued all-out drive to eradicate Hamas and a problematic two-state solution involving the still corrupt and ineffectual Palestinian Authority.

There is much about Haass’ formula that seems redolent of what is taking place piecemeal based on the evidence cited above – i.e., a slight flexing of Israel’s stated objectives to permit a softening of real policy when the time is right.

The game plan Haass envisions would scale back main force initiatives, prioritize selective hits on Hamas leaders, presumably using Nili and other such keen-edged instruments, and let all the other chips fall where they may.

“Israel’s military effort would be recast as long-term and low intensity rather than short-term and intense,” Haass specifies. The IDF would be entitled to launch military action to “degrade” Hamas whenever intelligence indicates that this could be done “from the air or by Israeli commandos without causing substantial collateral damage.”

There would be no permanent ceasefire, only pauses (one to seven days) to permit humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza and “hostages to be exchanged for either aid or prisoners.”

On the political front, the US, would pressure Israel to limit new settlements in the West Bank, shore up a Palestinian partner there willing to work with it to curb violence and lay the foundation for a Palestinian state, with Gaza to be brought into the process only if and when Hamas were barred from taking part.

This would be the new status quo unless and until “a revamped” Palestinian Authority gained enough popular support in Gaza to take over its government.

Much of this would rankle Netanyahu and his more extremist backers, even though some of it faintly echoes the Prime Minister’s own recent statements. Haass posits Bibi’s departure as the precondition to the developments imagined above.

US support for such a third option presupposes a willingness to let Israel dominate the reshaping of Gaza after the guns fall semi-silent with little apparent involvement by Arab neighbors, like Saudi Arabia, whose support would seem essential to ensuring peace in the region.

Much tinkering with the formula would therefore be needed for a perfect fit.

An Israeli voice defines the sine qua non

A few days ago I tuned into an Ezra Kein interview with noted Israeli scholar, Yossi Klein Halevi, who has a unique understanding of the Palestinians since he served with the IDF garrison in Gaza during the second Intifada. Halevi’s views, though not reprised verbatim in the following remarks, inspired me to come up with these few additional observations about the current crisis.  

Point One: You can't win an asymmetrical war unless you are willing to go all the way, putting your enemy at existential risk.

Point two: October 7 destroyed the aura of invulnerability that has kept Israel's enemies at bay. Whatever it takes to restore Israel’s capacity for deterrence is the sina qua non of the current action.

The extermination of Hamas would accomplish this in the short term but if the hatred this conflict unleashes abroad exceeds the fear and caution it instills in Israel’s enemies, nothing is gained.

So inevitably restoring deterrence will depend on restoring the balance between Israel’s aura of invulnerability and the favor it must have among allies and potential friends.

After the Yom Kippur war Sadat and Menachem Begin made peace. In the current context everything is contingent on what happens in the wider Arab world. Israel must rally moderate Arabs behind the peace process and then bring Palestinians into it.

Halevi, the scholar-soldier and ardent Zionist, has “less than zero faith” in Netanyahu because of his crackdown on Israeli democracy before October 7 and his failure to anticipate the attacks.  

“I think he is an unqualified historic disaster for Israel, and especially over the last year,” says Halevi, “The fact that he’s technically the prime minister at this moment — and I say technically because for a vast number of Israelis, he has no authority anymore. He has no moral legitimacy.”

“What does give me some confidence is that we have Benny Gantz, the head of one of the opposition parties, and a former I.D.F. chief of staff, now sitting in government, together with his party… And in all likelihood, he will be the next prime minister.”