As the Gaza war rages without an end in sight, are we still united?

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 Hamas invasion, a divided Israel united behind a common goal, with US President Joe Biden giving unstinting support, and much of the international community trumpeting Israel’s right to self-defense.

Most people realized, however, that none of that would last, and that it was the immediate response to unfathomable carnage.

Most realized, even in those early days, that once Israel would take the battle to Gaza and the war would drag on, internal divisions would reemerge, Biden’s support would wane, and the international community would say that Israel’s right to defend itself extends only so far.

Now that the war is at its half-year mark – Sunday, April 7, will mark six months since the October 7 massacre – much that was expected if the war would drag on is predictably unfolding. At this juncture, therefore, it’s instructive to take stock of how Israel is faring militarily, politically, and diplomatically.

Militarily

Israel, on October 7, was blindsided and unprepared. It’s not as if Israel did not have any intelligence signs that Hamas was planning something earth-shattering, it was just that the country did not correctly read those signs.

Israel’s vaunted intelligence failed miserably, its army along the Gaza border was badly out-manned, and its air force was slow to respond. As a result, Hamas was able to easily breach the border fence, overrun kibbutzim, moshavim, and army bases, and leave a trail of death, destruction, and mayhem of pogrom proportions.

But then the military – thanks largely to reservists who within hours answered the call – recovered, regrouped, cleared the South of the invading terrorists, and took the battle into Gaza, first by air and then, as of October 27, via a punishing ground incursion.

Assessing how Israel is doing militarily can only be done by seeing where the country is relative to the goals it set for itself.

“We have set two goals for this war,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 25: “To eliminate Hamas by destroying its military and governing abilities, and to do everything possible to bring our captives home.”

On December 1, after fighting inside Gaza was resumed following a ceasefire that allowed for the release of 105 of the 253 abducted hostages (seven others were either rescued or let go by Hamas), Netanyahu added a third goal: “to ensure that Gaza will never pose a threat to the residents of Israel.”

So how is Israel doing relative to those goals?

Regarding destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, Israel – six months in – is well on its way, at least in terms of Hamas’s fighting capabilities. The first place to look for proof of that is at the significantly decreased number of rockets Hamas fires into Israel – not because it doesn’t want to fire more, but because it can’t.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, in a podcast late last month, said that Hamas fired some 13,000 rockets at Israel since October 7, but that this number has decreased dramatically because “they have very few left.” Not only did Hamas fire off a huge part of its arsenal, Israel has destroyed “a lot,” including its rocket-manufacturing capabilities, he said.

Regarding Hamas’s fighting force, Dermer said the goal was not to kill every last Hamas terrorist – something unrealistic – but “destroying and dismantling the army of terror.”

Many in the West, Dermer said, do not realize that Hamas is not a “ragtag terrorist organization,” but, rather, a “light infantry army” with a troop strength at the beginning of the war estimated at around 30,000, augmented by another 10,000 Islamic Jihad terrorists, divided into 24 battalions.Of the 24 battalions, Israel has dismantled 19, leaving five, four of them in Rafah, which is why the government views going into Rafah as so essential to defeating Hamas.

Of the estimated 40,000 fighters, Dermer said, Israel believes the IDF killed 11,000 inside Gaza, and an additional 1,300 terrorists inside Israel who crossed the border on October 7. In addition, 2,000 Hamas terrorists have been captured.

Conservative estimates are that for every Hamas terrorist killed inside Gaza, another was wounded, meaning that out of a force of about 40,000 on October 7, some 25,000 have been killed, captured or wounded, leaving another 15,000 still standing. Half of those are believed to be in Rafah still fighting in an organized structure, with the other half scattered elsewhere not fighting in an organized fashion.

Then there are the tunnels, which extend for some 500 km. inside the Gaza Strip. Estimates vary as to how much of this infrastructure the IDF has destroyed, with Dermer saying about 35%.

If, regarding the hostages, Israel is only about halfway toward its goal of releasing all of them, in terms of dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities, Dermer said, “we’re much more advanced.”

The same, however, cannot be said about ending Hamas’s political rule. Even in northern Gaza, where the IDF dismantled Hamas battalions, Hamas is still the governing force. Dermer said that this is because it still has 15,000 terrorists, and no one is going to emerge to take their place “unless they know that Hamas is finished.”

While much of the last six months was focused on Gaza, the northern border is on the verge of boiling over. There, unlike in Gaza, the IDF’s successes are more difficult to quantify, though the IDF has pounded Hezbollah positions along the border and elsewhere and has moved them beyond the border fence.

But if Hamas’s military capabilities have been significantly downgraded, this is not the situation in the north. Proof of this is that six months after Hezbollah joined the war by rocketing Israeli communities, tens of thousands of Israelis remain evacuated from their homes near the border, with no expectation – especially in light of heightened tension with Iran – of being able to return to their communities anytime soon.

Politically

The self-destructive divisions that characterized Israel before October 7 and pitted tribe against tribe for months over the judicial overhaul debate melted away after the Hamas attack.

In the first couple of months after October 7, as nearly 300,000 reservists mobilized, a sense of unity, common purpose, and solidarity swept through the land. Reservists giving media interviews and bereaved relatives delivering eulogies at funerals repeated a common theme: In the tanks and army tents, there is no Right or Left, no religious or secular, no pro-Netanyahu or anti-Netanyahu camps, no Kaplan Street protesters or settlers, only Israelis united in determination to defend the state and defeat Hamas.

On October 6, Israelis were seemingly at each other’s throats. On October 7, those same Israelis who two days earlier were calling each other fascists and traitors were fighting shoulder to shoulder to clear the southern communities of Hamas terrorists.

On October 6, thousands of reservists – including reserve pilots – threatened not to show up for reserve duty. On October 7 they all rushed to join their units, with some turned away because there were not enough guns to distribute.

On October 6 doctors and hi-tech workers were threatening to leave the country and relocate if the judicial reform was not halted. On October 7 Israelis spread around the globe scrambled for flights back to Israel to be a part of the war effort.

Israel united on October 7 in a way unseen in a generation. It was uplifting to behold and be a part of. It was also something that everyone knew would not last forever.

Indeed, it hasn’t. As the war crosses the six-month mark, the divisions are returning – just witness the large, angry protests this week in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Yet there are two things to keep in mind when looking at these protests.

First, considering the circumstances of this war, they were inevitable. October 7 was a disaster of biblical proportions. The nation was seething, first and foremost toward Hamas for the barbaric attack, and then – albeit a different type of anger – toward the government for not preventing it.

The anger and hatred toward Hamas found a channel in the war to destroy the organization, but a cap was placed on the anger toward the government. Everyone knew there would be a time to apportion blame and hold accountable those responsible, but everyone also knew that this day would have to wait. First, Hamas had to be defeated, and then the anger could be directed toward the government.

In the meantime, two things have happened. First, the war has dragged on for six months, and second, its intensity has lessened. There are no longer hundreds of thousands of reservists called up and fighting inside Gaza. They have returned, at least temporarily, to civilian life, and the feeling of an existential crisis has waned. It was only a matter of time, therefore, before that seething anger toward the government would boil over; and it is doing so now.

Many different agendas have latched on to these protests, including the strident Ehud Barak- and Moshe Ya’alon-style anti-Netanyahu agenda that has been part of this country’s landscape now for years. But there is more to it than just the reflexive “anti-Bibi” feeling.

These demonstrations are similar to the ones held in 1974 in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War when furious protesters demanded the resignation of the government for being caught so unprepared and so surprised at the beginning of that war, and for being responsible for such a debacle. Netanyahu seemingly wants to carry on politically as if nothing has changed, and these demonstrators are serving him notice that they won’t let that happen – just as was the case in 1974.

Another point to note, especially as international opposition to the continued waging of the war mounts, is that these are not antiwar demonstrations. This is not the Israeli public, as was the case during the First Lebanon War, saying that the war should stop and the IDF should withdraw.

No, these are anti-government demonstrations motivated by an anger that the government must be held responsible for October 7.

Amid the protests this week, one voice that has been drowned out is that of returning reservists and bereaved parents who said that Israel cannot return to the type of divisive rhetoric that characterized the discourse here before October 7.

Many of the politicians are falling back on old habits, and the voice of reservists saying that a different way is needed – less shrill, more inclusive, more willing to compromise, reflecting the spirit of those who fought inside Gaza together – has not yet penetrated and changed anything. It eventually may, however, as poll after poll shows that is what the public wants to see.

Diplomatically

Just as it was clear that the unity seen at the beginning of the war would not last forever, it was equally clear that the outpouring of support Israel received from the Biden administration and most Western countries at the beginning of the conflict would only last so long.

It was clear from the outset that once the television cameras moved from the death and destruction in the south of Israel to the death and destruction inside Gaza, the narrative would shift, the plotline would get lost, and Israel would be roundly condemned.

And that pretty much sums up the situation at the six-month mark. The Economist’s much discussed “Israel Alone” cover last month was not that far off the mark.

That isolation was evident in December when South Africa dragged Israel before the International Court of Justice on ridiculous charges of committing genocide. It was evident again last month in the applause that accompanied the passage – with US acquiescence – of a UN Security Council resolution that neither condemned Hamas for its brutal attack nor made a ceasefire contingent on Hamas’s release of the hostages.

Despite the US abstaining and not vetoing that resolution, and despite the disagreements between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government over how to best wage this war, Israel can still count on a degree of US diplomatic cover and continues to receive US weapons shipments. Nevertheless, the changing and much more critical tone of the Biden administration is having its impact.

America’s allies around the world often take their cues from Washington on how to relate to Israel. If the US president is offering strong support, then this will impact their policies as well. If, on the other hand, the US is publicly critical of Israel – continuously saying that it is not doing enough to protect civilians – then they will feel free to take that criticism one step further.

One of the questions that will be asked when this war is over is why Israel waited this long to act so decisively against Hamas. Netanyahu saw the terrorist organization fortify Gaza and engage in a massive arms buildup, so why didn’t he act sooner, when the threat was much smaller?

There are two principal reasons: domestic and international legitimacy. Had Israel swept into Gaza five years ago following a terrorist attack on a much smaller scale, it would have had neither. 

Domestic critics would have said that Netanyahu was waging the war for political purposes and they could not support it, and the international community would have damned Israel for a “disproportionate response” from the very beginning.

Hamas’s brutality on October 7 gave Israel the domestic and international legitimacy to act with great force. Six months in, there is still widespread domestic consensus about the need for the IDF action to continue in its current form. International legitimacy, however, is all but running out.