In the face of increasing international pressure to stop the fighting and increase the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been issuing video statements for days confirming his insistence on winning the war.
“Anyone who thinks we will stop is disconnected from reality,” he said this week.
Netanyahu’s popularity
Netanyahu’s popularity was severely damaged by the security failures that allowed thousands of Hamas fighters to flow into southern Israel on October 7, but a large majority of Israelis support the military operation.
“We are not seeing a decline in support,” said Tamar Herman, a senior researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan organization that regularly conducts polls on public attitudes toward the war.
She added, “The vast majority believes that the mission must be accomplished. But what does that mean? No one knows exactly.”
But the scope of the mission began to become clear as confrontations continued between Israeli forces and Hamas militants through a network of tunnels and ambushes in streets filled with rubble, resulting in the killing of at least 140 soldiers so far.
Ben Caspit, a critic of Netanyahu and a columnist for the center-left newspaper Maariv, wrote: “After seventy-five days of disaster, now comes the stage of disillusionment.”
The two masterminds of the October 7 attack, the leaders Yahya Al-Sinwar, head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza, and Muhammad Al-Deif, leader of the movement’s military wing, are still at large. Israeli military personnel say that completing the mission may take months.
Israelis in an opinion poll
A poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute on December 19 showed that 65 percent of Israelis believe that the government will destroy Hamas’ capabilities as promised, but more than a third – 29.4 percent and 5.6 percent – respectively, believe this is unlikely to happen or say they do not know.
A truce reached in late November allowed the return of nearly half of those detained by Hamas during the attack. But efforts by Qatar and Egypt to broker a new agreement have made little progress so far.
Hamas says that the fate of the remaining 129 hostages depends on ending the war first, while Israel only accepts a temporary cessation of the war and more humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.
“Israel will feel bitter, there is no doubt about it at the moment,” said Nahum Barnea, a writer for Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s best-selling daily newspaper.
Stop fighting
The killing of three hostages in northern Gaza, mistakenly shot by Israeli forces while waving a white flag, came as a shock to Israeli public opinion, which staunchly supports the army. The poll showed that most Israelis, 55.1 percent of participants, believe that it is unlikely that all hostages will return home.
Meanwhile, international calls to stop the fighting have increased to the point that the United States, Israel’s strongest ally, is pressing to shift to a more precise and specific phase of operations targeting Hamas leaders.
According to Palestinian health officials, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. United Nations bodies warn that the besieged sector is facing a humanitarian crisis that includes the increasing risk of famine. It is still unclear how long Israel can resist these pressures.
“I really cannot understand why the world is not encouraging us to move forward and accomplish our mission,” a senior Israeli official told reporters this week, dismissing pressure to stop the fighting as “the most hypocritical policy imaginable.”
Previous Gaza wars ended with a truce and Hamas’ declaration of victory. Israeli officials say this must not be repeated, and point to the defeat of ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Axis powers in World War II as precedents.
The pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom said this week that indications that Israel might make concessions to return more hostages to Israel were “very worrying.”
Ariel Kahane wrote in his newspaper column, “Isn’t it time to be firm, break the cycle of bloodshed, and return to the principle that we do not surrender to terrorism, but rather defeat it?”
#Israelis #preparing #long #war
2023-12-22 22:55:24
