{"id":97502,"date":"2026-05-04T17:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/97502\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:09:12","slug":"is-israel-still-stuck-in-the-strategies-that-failed-on-oct-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/97502\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Israel still stuck in the strategies that failed on Oct. 7?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel, Hamas, and the US are all giving out vibes that talks are stalled over disarmament<\/a>, withdrawals, and fulfilling the later stages of the October 2025 ceasefire in a way that could bring the October 7 war to a more final close.<\/p>\n

If the talks really do get completely stuck, it is possible that Israel could reinvade Gaza<\/a> at some point. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a majority of top IDF officials say they want to do this if the negotiations do not reach a satisfactory conclusion in the near medium term.<\/p>\n

But other forces within the defense establishment are getting louder in opposing such a rushed move and in some ways for the first time since October 7<\/a>, are questioning the basic foundations of current Israeli strategy versus Hamas.<\/p>\n

Two sides to the failure of Israel’s strategic framework<\/p>\n

According to these sources, there were two sides to the failed “conceptzia<\/a>,” Israel’s strategic framework on October 7.<\/p>\n

The first piece of the failed strategic framework is well-known: the false claim that Hamas as it was constituted at the time could be deterred and prevented from any major military achievement based on the very limited forces the IDF had deployed on the border at the time.<\/p>\n

\"AA HAMAS terrorist stands on a street during Eid al-Fitr in Gaza City. (credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas\/Reuters)<\/p>\n

But there was also a second false claim which defense sources say much of the government and country have still not fully come to terms with: the false claim that Israel can “‘manage” the conflict or simply “defeat” Hamas without paying a diplomatic price.<\/p>\n

These sources say that after around two years of war in Gaza, in which around 90% of its structures were destroyed and 25,000 or more Hamas terrorists were killed, and after the seven month standoff since the October 2025 ceasefire, Hamas still rules Gaza.<\/p>\n

Hamas is weaker. It governs less territory. But fundamentally significant aspects of the strategic balance between Israel and Hamas have gone unchanged, as Israel has not succeeded in getting all that close to a tipping point where Hamas would be removed from power there.<\/p>\n

Few Israelis are interested at this moment in returning to the mid-1990s vision of a two state solution, but now that all-out war has been tried extensively, some defense sources are calling on investing more in diplomacy and abandoning the idea that only force, with no concessions, will solve the Hamas-Gaza dilemma.<\/p>\n

What price should be paid, how much risk can Israel take on to establish a new security regime versus Hamas are issued they say can be debated, but they view the idea that a fifth, sixth, or seventh invasion of northern Gaza (depending on how one counts) will somehow end the threat of Hamas more than the numerous earlier invasions did.<\/p>\n

They say the problem is not just “hostages”, since some argue that now without hostages around, Israel can really remove the gloves and go all out.<\/p>\n

Given prior the destruction of 90% of Gaza and the tens of thousands of killed civilians (the IDF acknowledges some of those numbers even if it blames Hamas for using human shields), they ask how much worse Israel can really make the situation for Hamas while remaining true to its values of targeting terrorists and not civilians, and where Hamas has shown it will hide among civilians.<\/p>\n

They question how much Israel will be “giving up” by testing the water with a longer diplomatic process.<\/p>\n

Despite repeated promises by Netanyahu to return to war any day, in many ways the war is long over.<\/p>\n

There have been no big invasions by Israel into Gaza and no meaningful attacks by Hamas on Israeli territory, rockets or otherwise, in about seven months.<\/p>\n

Around five weeks ago, the US proposed an eight-month long plan during which Hamas would encounter different stages of disarmament.<\/p>\n

Hamas rejected that offer and made a counter-offer, but what this reveals is that US President Donald Trump is ready to extend the end of the war in Gaza for another eight months as long as Hamas at least starts some kind of process of disarmament.<\/p>\n

Trump is also the authority who imposed the end of the war on Netanyahu and Israel in the first place.<\/p>\n

If he is not going to easily let Israel get back into a large invasion in Gaza anytime soon, then it makes sense for Israel to try to get something out of this peacetime-ceasefire period<\/p>\n

To date, at most Israel has grabbed tiny statistically insignificant pieces of new territory and started to very occasionally kill Hamas officials even when found beyond the yellow line conflict zone which splits Israel-controlled empty Gaza from Hamas controlled populated Gaza.<\/p>\n

Until now the sticking point has been that Hamas will only do partial disarmament and only for at least partial Israeli withdrawals.<\/p>\n

Israel and the IDF would obviously prefer not to withdraw from the 53% Gaza yellow line until Hamas fully disarms.<\/p>\n

But the Trump plan always contemplated stages.<\/p>\n

There was always a point when Israel was due to withdraw back to a 15% of Gaza security strip.<\/p>\n

And the truth is many Israeli defense officials acknowledge that such a strip would be adequate and transformational in providing Israel better security compared to October 7.<\/p>\n

The 53% line is mainly being held as a bargaining chip.<\/p>\n

So what if Hamas gives up its heavy arms \u2013 rockets, drones, anti-tank missiles, and Israel withdraws to somewhere in between the 53% line and the 15% line?<\/p>\n

Wouldn’t Israel have more security at that point if Hamas had given up its heavy arms?<\/p>\n

This might also allow the International Stabilization Force (ISF) led by Indonesia finally to come into Gaza, the Palestinian Authority-linked technocratic committee to start managing aspects of Gaza’s affairs, and possibly even to start moving toward PA-affiliated police to start taking some enforcement powers away from Hamas.<\/p>\n

Critics will correctly note that this might play into a trap in which Hamas becomes like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the puppeteer, or the power behind the throne.<\/p>\n

But defense sources would shoot back this ignores the basic fact that right now Hamas is not just a puppeteer controlling somethings, it is openly controlling everything.<\/p>\n

Every day that goes by without advancing an alternative to Hamas in Gaza allows the terror group to deepen its control and long-term survivability as the Strip’s ruler.<\/p>\n

And every week that goes by brings the US CMCC close to closing shop, with no ISF to replace it, and members of the technocratic committee have started to resign, leaving Israel more, not less stuck, in managing Palestinians’ lives.<\/p>\n

None of this even gets into the merits of what might be if Israel committed to some kind of distant highly adjusted two-state vision (Trump’s plan in 2020 cut a future Palestinian state’s territory from around 95% of the West bank to around 70%), something which could lead to normalization with the Saudis and much of the rest of the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The critical defense sources say that even after October 7, Israelis must realize they cannot just “be rid” of the Palestinian issue.<\/p>\n

Can Israel indefinitely hold onto a 15% security zone in Gaza? Can it use diplomacy to make some initial progress toward partial disarmament of Hamas and partially weakening Hamas politically after having already heavily reduced the terror group’s threat potential by blunt force? And could giving positive vibes for regional diplomacy, without even necessarily having to make permanent concessions in the West Bank, lead to radically strengthening Israel’s regional alliance with Sunni countries against Iran, Hamas and the Shi’ite axis?<\/p>\n

These are questions that defense sources hope will be discussed and debated, such that no one will fall back into believing Hamas can simply be deterred and held back with no security zone and light border security, but no one will remain stuck thinking that endless rounds of fighting in Gaza will guarantee Israeli security more than reengaging in a mix of diplomacy along with flexing military muscles when necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel, Hamas, and the US are all giving out vibes that talks are stalled over disarmament, withdrawals, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[496,423,37,5539,443,1157],"class_list":{"0":"post-97502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-gaza","9":"tag-idf","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-israel-hamas-war","12":"tag-security","13":"tag-strategy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116517415426632722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}