Although 110 days have passed since the war in Gaza between Israel and the Hamas movement, which is classified as a terrorist organization in the United States and other countries, there is no end to the war in sight, as both sides still see the other as an “existential threat,” and there is no clear path to any kind of “permanent peace” between them. This prompted specialists who spoke to Al-Hurra website to expect that the war would turn into a “long conflict” between the two sides.
Israel ‘will not stop’
Israeli political analyst, Eli Nissan, confirms that the Israeli army will not stop the war in Gaza or withdraw from the Strip until “the military force of Hamas is eliminated.”
After what Hamas did in the October 7 attack, Israel will not allow the movement to be “sovereign” in the Gaza Strip, according to an April interview with the Al-Hurra website.
He points out that the war in Gaza will continue to get worse, “more or less severe,” until Israel achieves all its goals of liberating all the kidnapped people and eliminating Hamas politically and militarily.
He says: “The Israeli forces are stationed in Khan Yunis and then they will move to Rafah to search for the kidnapped people and find Al-Sinwar, whether dead or alive.”
The Israeli army confirms that it is “besieging” Khan Yunis, the birthplace of Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar, who Israel considers the architect of the movement’s October 7 attack inside Israeli territory.
On Friday, the Israeli army said that it was still fighting “intensive battles in the heart of Khan Yunis,” and that the forces were bombing dozens of Hamas fighters and the movement’s infrastructure from the air and ground.
Nissan confirms that Israel is aware of Sinwar’s use of the kidnapped people as “human shields,” and therefore it is moving “militarily cautiously,” but the war will continue “regardless of international pressure and the decisions of the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”
The Israeli political analyst stresses that “Israel is not committing genocide, but it is annihilating the Hamas movement.”
On Friday, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.”
While reading the ruling, the court said that Israel must ensure that its forces do not commit genocide and take measures to improve the humanitarian situation.
A large majority of the 17-judge ICJ panel voted in favor of urgent measures covering most of what South Africa had requested except “directing the cessation of Israeli military action in Gaza.”
The court ordered Israel to refrain from any actions that might fall within the Genocide Convention, as well as to ensure that its forces do not commit any acts of genocide in Gaza.
It also said that Israel must submit a report to the court within one month on what it is doing to implement the order.
For his part, Palestinian political analyst, Ayman Al-Raqab, points out that “the International Court of Justice’s decision is disturbing to Israel, even though it is not binding.”
Speaking to Al-Hurra website, he confirms that Israel has not yet achieved “any victory in Gaza,” as it has not been able to reach the kidnappers or eliminate Hamas leaders.
After 110 days have passed, “there are still days of war to come, but it will certainly have an end, and it will not expand into a regional conflict and will not spread to other countries,” according to Al-Raqab’s statement,
Will the shooting stop?
International pressure is mounting for a “long-term ceasefire” that would allow for the release of more than 100 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, as well as increased delivery of humanitarian aid to the civilian population in the Strip.
The newspaper reported,Washington Post“and location”AxiosAl-Ekhbari reported that the Director of the CIA, William Burns, will travel to Europe in the coming days to meet his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and the Qatari Prime Minister in the hope of negotiating a truce.
On Thursday, two sources told Reuters that the director of the CIA and his Israeli counterpart, David Barnea, will meet with Qatari officials in the coming days to hold talks on a possible new agreement to release the kidnapped people in Gaza.
An official told Reuters that Burns and Barnea will meet with the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, in Europe at the beginning of the week.
The second source said that the head of Egyptian intelligence, Abbas Kamel, will participate in the talks.
The US and Israeli intelligence directors met with Qatari and Egyptian officials earlier as part of mediation efforts that resulted in a “short truce” in November and the release of more than 100 hostages.
But the terms of the ceasefire demanded by Israel and Hamas are still far apart, and reaching an agreement is uncertain, according to a report by the newspaper “Wall Street Journal“.
The same applies to whether “a prolonged ceasefire would constitute an end to the current war or merely a temporary pause.”
Nissan stresses that “Israel may accept the release of security prisoners in exchange for the exchange of kidnapped persons with the movement,” and the implementation of temporary truces not exceeding two or three weeks.
For his part, Al-Raqab believes that the war in Gaza is moving towards “establishing gradual truces that will later reach a permanent ceasefire.”
“Prolonged” conflict?
Even if there is a “temporary or long ceasefire in Gaza,” the end of the war is not in sight. Israel has pledged to “destroy Hamas” as an important military and political force, while in the long term Hamas aims to “obliterate the Israeli state,” according to a report For the Wall Street Journal.
Repeatedly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stressed that his country will continue its current war in Gaza until it achieves the complete destruction of Hamas.
On Thursday, Netanyahu said, “There is no alternative to complete victory over our enemies.”
On the other hand, Hamas’ 1988 founding charter calls for “the destruction of Israel and refuses to recognize it,” and the movement’s leaders have sometimes offered a “long-term truce” in exchange for the establishment of a viable Palestinian state on all the lands Israel occupied in 1967.
Therefore, Fadi Eid, a researcher specializing in Middle East affairs, points out that “there are no signs that the war in Gaza is close to ending,” and he expects that “the war will extend and turn into a long-term conflict.”
Despite all international efforts, the two sides do not want to “end the war,” because they both see the other as “an existential threat that must be eliminated,” but they have not achieved their goals yet, according to what he told the Al-Hurra website.
Eid believes that both Israel and Hamas are unable to achieve their goals in the “short or long” term.
He points out that “the field situation in Gaza is complex,” because Israel is fighting “ghosts moving underground,” while Hamas is fighting against “a large military force that has advanced weapons and is supported by the most powerful country in the world.”
Therefore, the war will turn into a “prolonged conflict and the situation is constantly escalating,” as both sides are unable to “end or destroy the other,” as the researcher specializing in Middle East affairs stresses.
Israeli forces inflicted heavy losses on Hamas, but US intelligence agencies question Israel’s claim that it killed 9,000 militants, and believe that Israel is still far from achieving its goal of crushing Hamas’ military forces, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Despite Israeli tactical victories against Hamas in Gaza City, Khan Yunis and elsewhere, eliminating the movement’s fighters is more difficult than Israel expected.
Small groups of Hamas fighters continue to ambush Israeli forces, using their complex network of tunnels to maneuver and hide, and to the Israelis’ frustration, they also continue to fire rockets into Israel, albeit intermittently.
With Israel withdrawing army brigades from northern Gaza, Hamas began to reappear in the region.
In southern Gaza, the Israeli military mission becomes more difficult because nearly two million displaced civilians are gathering in this part of the Gaza Strip.
What further complicates Israel’s efforts in Gaza is the massive size of Hamas’ tunnel network.
A dilemma facing Israel?
If there is no “ceasefire,” senior Israeli officers say the army is likely to continue fighting Hamas in Gaza for several months, and perhaps for the rest of this year, until Israel takes full control of the Strip, according to the Wall Street Journal.
At this point, “Israel will face a dilemma.” If Israeli forces continue to occupy Gaza for a long period, it may become the target of a “prolonged armed insurgency.”
If Israel withdraws from Gaza quickly, Hamas could renew itself and return as the de facto controlling force in the Strip.
But Nissan stresses that Hamas’s armed struggle “will end sooner or later,” because the movement’s armed military force “will not exist.”
Similar to what the Israeli army does in the West Bank by entering the Jenin and Tulkarm camps, Israeli forces will enter the Gaza Strip from time to time “if necessary, and whenever there are warnings that Hamas is preparing to launch rockets into Israeli territory.”
There is a final Israeli decision that “Hamas will not be sovereign in the Gaza Strip,” according to April.
For his part, Al-Raqab expects that Israeli forces will control some areas in the Gaza Strip and rebuild the “West Bank model.”
The Israeli army may create “several enclaves in the Gaza Strip, in which its forces will be stationed and from which it will launch to carry out specific operations,” and thus “the war will continue with less intensity,” according to Al-Raqab.
If the fighting continues for a long time in Gaza, “this will mean a movement in the West Bank and Jerusalem,” which could threaten “the existence of the State of Israel,” according to the Palestinian political analyst.
The war broke out in the Gaza Strip following the unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, including women and children, according to the Israeli authorities.
In response to the attack, Israel pledged to “eliminate the movement,” and has since carried out a bombing campaign followed by ground operations since October 27, resulting in 26,083 deaths, most of them women and children, and 64,487 people injured, while many are still under the rubble and ambulance teams cannot reach them. Reaching them, according to what the Hamas Ministry of Health announced on Friday.
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2024-01-26 13:14:06
