Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”
Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”
Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.
Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.
At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:
According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.
Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”
Read more at Ynet
More about: Gaza War 2023, IDF
During its recent campaign against Iran, Israel systematically eliminated leading scientists involved in the Iranian nuclear program. The Institute for Science and International Security examines the biographies of these scientists, and the efficacy of this tactic:
This is not the first time Israel has targeted scientists associated with Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. . . . However, this time the Israeli effort is different and recovering may be far more difficult and take far longer. Not only were killings in the twelve-day war on a much larger scale, they were also part of a broader Israeli program. In an apparent effort to pre-empt recovery and recruitments, Israel threatened a far larger group of scientists during the war via social media, an effort that may continue, warning them explicitly that death awaits them if they work on nuclear weapons.
In addition, Israel also targeted the detailed nuclear-weapons information, designs, and data needed to develop and build nuclear weapons.
When discussing the attack of the Iranian nuclear program, many [employ] the phrase “knowledge cannot be destroyed.” But it is well known through history that it can be forgotten, lost, or suppressed. In a highly secretive program such as Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, highly cognizant of the risk of leaks, it is likely that full knowledge of the most sensitive, most current developments of the program and how individual parts were intended to work together existed only in the heads of a few.
Read more at Institute for Science and International Security
More about: Iran nuclear program, Twelve-Day War
As the IDF Grinds Closer to Victory in Gaza, the Politicians Will Soon Have to Step In – Mosaic Magazine
