A few days ago, Israel’s incoming chief of staff, General Eyal Zamir, predicted that 2025 would be “a year of war.”
His prediction has proven to be correct.
On March 18, Israel’s tenuous two-month ceasefire with Hamas broke down as Israel ferociously resumed the war in the Gaza Strip.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel cited Hamas’ “repeated refusal” to release more hostages and its rejection of a U.S. proposal to extend the first phase of the truce as the reasons for reigniting the 17-old-month war.
The United States, Israel’s chief ally, came out in support of its military campaign.
Dorothy Shea, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, told the Security Council that Hamas is solely to blame for the slide back into war. She said that Hamas has “steadfastly refused every proposal and deadline they’ve been presented over the past few weeks, including a bridge proposal to extend the ceasefire beyond the holidays of Ramadan and Passover to allow time to negotiate a framework for a permanent ceasefire.”
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that Hamas could have “released hostages to extend the ceasefire, but instead chose refusal and war.”
The resumption of the war came as no surprise.
Israel, having issued warnings that the ceasefire was crumbling and in jeopardy of collapsing altogether, began striking Hamas weeks ago. Hamas claims that more than 150 Palestinians were killed since the truce went into effect on January 19 and before the latest hostilities.
Israel’s air strikes on March 18 claimed the lives of more than 400 Palestinians, including scores of civilians and several key Hamas figures: Issam Da’alis, the prime minister; Ahmad al-Khatta, the director-general of the justice ministry; Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the interior minister, and Bahjat Abu Sultan, the director of security forces.
As a result of these fatalities, the total Palestinian death toll is approaching 50,000. Among the casualties have been some 20,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad foot soldiers and commanders.
And much of Gaza has been reduced to a sea of rubble, which could take years to remove.
Hamas did not expect such a devastating Israeli response to its invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, but its leadership regarded that attack as the first step in an elaborate plan to destroy the Jewish state. According to classified documents published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center recently, Hamas, in coordination with Hezbollah and Iran, had every intention of wiping Israel off the map.
Iran, Israel’s deadliest foe, was a key player in funding Hamas’ plot. Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed last year, believed that a coordinated attack from multiple fronts would achieve the desired outcome.
He miscalculated.
Although Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen joined the war in tangible gestures of solidarity with Hamas, Israel prevailed. Nonetheless, Israel has yet to achieve two of its major aims, the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities.
Israel has managed to greatly degrade Hamas as a military and political force, but Hamas and its sister organization, Islamic Jihad, have apparently regrouped and recruited new fighters. Judging by one estimate, they have some 25,000 and 5,000 soldiers, respectively, at their disposal.
In launching Israel’s fresh offensive in Gaza, Netanyahu disclosed that his government has adopted a new tactic. “From now on, Israel will act against Hamas with increasing intensity. Negotiations will take place only under fire. This is just the beginning.”
On March 19, in keeping with his threat, Israeli ground troops launched what appears to be a limited incursion into Gaza. Its objective is the creation of a partial buffer between northern and southern Gaza. In pursuit of this aim, Israel has captured about half of the Netzarim Corridor so far. At the same time, Israel has deployed troops to southern Gaza in anticipation of further battles.
Echoing Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has let it be known that the “rules of the game have changed.” If Hamas does not “immediately release all the hostages, the gates of hell will open, and it will find itself facing the full intensity” of the Israeli armed forces in the air, sea, and land “until its complete elimination.”
“We will not stop fighting until all the hostages are returned home and all threats to the southern residents are removed,” he added. “Israel will operate with strength you have not yet seen.”
Hamas, in the first two days of Israel’s attacks, refrained from retaliating, but today it launched three rockets toward the Tel Aviv area. One rocket was shot down and two landed harmlessly in fields.
Hezbollah, which was badly battered by Israel in the recent war in Lebanon, has remained conspicuously silent.
However, the Houthis, an Iranian proxy, have fired two ballistic missile at Israel since March 18, marking its first attacks against the Jewish state since the start of the ceasefire. The projectiles were downed by Israel’s Arrow defence system before they reached Israeli airspace. But as sirens blared in towns across southern and central Israel, thousands of Israelis ran for cover into bomb shelters. About a dozen people were injured in the scramble for safety.
On March 19, U.S. President Donald Trump warned the Houthis that they would be “completely annihilated” by ongoing American air strikes. He also issued a warning to Iran to “immediately” stop sending weapons to the Houthis.
Netanyahu’s decision to strike Gaza has created divisions in Israel. Israelis whose first priority is the safe return of all the hostages have staged nation-wide protests over Israel’s military moves in Gaza. The families of the hostages have bitterly accused the Israeli government of effectively abandoning them.
Netanyahu has denied that the renewed strikes are politically motivated and endanger the hostages. “Military pressure is a necessary condition for the release of additional hostages,” he said. “Hurting Hamas militarily and releasing our hostages are not contradictory objectives, they are intertwined.”
Critics reject Netanyahu’s rationale. They believe that his ulterior motive for restarting the war was to shore up his coalition to ensure that it can pass a new national budget in the Knesset at the end of March. Absent a budget, a new election will have to be called.
To no one’s surprise, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the far-right Jewish Power Party, has since returned to the cabinet as national security minister. He resigned in January in protest over the six-week ceasefire deal. On the eve of resuming his old job, he described Israel’s air strikes as “right, moral, ethical and justified.”
Netanyahu’s critics contend that Israel’s fresh offensive is also an attempt to divert attention away from his announced intention to sack Ronen Bar, the director of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet. Bar infuriated Netanyahu when the Shin Bet, in a recent report on Hamas’ 2023 invasion, partially blamed the prime minister for Israel’s deficiencies on that dark day. The attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, has warned Netanyahu that he cannot fire Bar before her office reviews the case.
These accusations concerning Netanyahu’s motives carry weight, but one cannot dismiss Netanyahu’s determination to destroy Hamas, or, at the very least, to pressure it to accept an extension of the first phase of the ceasefire.
Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, devised this formula and Israel keenly embraced it. Under his proposal, half of the 25 living hostages would be released at the beginning of the extended first phase. The remainder would be freed if an agreement was reached to end the war.
Although he agreed to phase two, Netanyahu does not want to deal with its strategic ramifications. It requires Israel to withdraw from Gaza and finish the war. Hamas insists that phase two is a necessary component of the ceasefire and will not budge on this crucial issue.
The problem, of course, is that Israel has no intention of fully withdrawing from Gaza or ending the war unless Hamas is completely defeated and can no longer rule Gaza. The Israeli government, too, wants to demilitarize Gaza so that it cannot be used as a future launch pad from which to attack Israel and abduct its citizens.
Of the 251 people seized by Hamas on October 7, more than 130 have been released, including 101 during the first ceasefire in November 2023. Since January 19, 30 more hostages have been exchanged for hundreds of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.