Nearly a thousand soldiers have lost their lives since Israel launched its invasion of Gaza in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas. Additionally, 16,000 soldiers have been wounded in fighting.
Those numbers are worth remembering as the IDF expands its invasion of Gaza following the collapse of negotiations to secure the release of the remaining 59 hostages in Hamas captivity, 24 of them presumed to be alive.
Since the beginning of the renewed fighting, many top Hamas officials have been killed, along with hundreds of civilians. On Monday, in an indication of a widening of the invasion, IDF forces encircled Tel Sultan in Rafah and maneuvered into eastern portions of Khan Yunis. The IDF also destroyed over 100 Hamas pickup trucks in Gaza, which it said were a major aspect of Hamas’s invasion on October 7.
These moves are explained by the government and army as efforts to exert pressure on Hamas to return to the negotiating table, but, with so much of Gaza destroyed in the 18-month war, it’s unclear how destroying trucks will help in achieving those goals.
On Monday, Hamas published another propaganda video, this time of hostages Elkana Bohbot and Yosef-Haim Ohana. Bohbot, 35, and Ohana, 24, were both kidnapped from the Nova music festival on October 7.
The video shows Bohbot and Ohana sitting on the floor, looking pale. Ohana explained that the conditions that they had endured before the ceasefire started were difficult.
“There was almost no food,” he said. “There was no safe place.”Testimony like that does what it’s intended – to melt the resolve of a country exhausted from war and at odds over how to get the hostages home.
Protests against the government
It was a unified nation that went to war against Hamas after October 7. It’s a different country now, marked by fiery protests against the government over what the demonstrators see as a policy to place the elimination of Hamas over the release of the hostages.
Of course, the protests are also against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to oust both Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ronen Bar and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, the renewed judicial reform legislation, and just Netanyahu, in general.
One thing is certain, though – they are not against Hamas, the core reason why the hostages are still in Gaza. Since there’s no possibility for the Israeli in the street to exert pressure on Hamas to “bring them home,” the protesters are focusing their well-deserved wrath solely on the Netanyahu government for its alleged intransigence or unwillingness to go the extra mile.
But what does “bring them home now” really mean? In the weeks between the last hostage release and the return to fighting, there appeared to be no movement toward any more agreement between Israel and Hamas on continuing the lopsided hostage for Palestinian terrorist/prisoner formula.
Is it the protesters’ hope and demands that Israel agree to a full withdrawal from Gaza and leave Hamas in control of the enclave, even though there’s no guarantee that Hamas will free all of the hostages?
There’s no way to ascertain if the return to warfare, which has been endorsed outside of the government by the likes of former defense minister Yoav Gallant, will hasten the softening of Hamas’s resolve or if it simply places the hostages in greater peril.
But we do know that it will be harder on everyone this time around. The nation spent most of 2024 with its heart in its hands every morning, when the previous day’s casualties were announced. Day after day, the names and images of young, fresh-faced Israelis who lost their lives defending their country – still having so much to live – blared out of the headlines, followed by the wrenching funerals and the radio and TV interviews with the fallen’s loved ones.
Are we ready to return to those days, but this time more disjointed and internally torn over the strategy and goals of another prolonged conflict?
Going back to battle against Hamas may be the only option that’s left, but before the invasion becomes full-fledged and sees an Israeli presence throughout Gaza, as Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned, it’s imperative for Netanyahu and Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir to explain clearly to the nation why this is necessary and to shore up domestic legitimacy for a campaign that – yet again – will necessitate tremendous sacrifice.
We owe to those who are going to have to fight and those who have been captive for more than 500 days, with their time rapidly running out.
