ON THE NIGHT of September 15th the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) launched its long-expected attack on Gaza city. “Israel is at a decisive moment,” said Binyamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, the next morning. Under the cover of air strikes and artillery fire, two divisions moved towards the city’s central neighbourhoods. Two more are being held in reserve. For now, most of the IDF’s troops remain on the city’s outskirts. They have surrounded the city on three sides, leaving open only the western exits, to the Mediterranean coastal road, for civilians fleeing south.
PREMIUM A Palestinian child walks away with a pot of rice obtained from a charity kitchen in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, amid a UN-declared famine after nearly two years of war.(Eyad Baba/AFP)
Most of the city’s residents are not leaving, though, risking yet another brutal chapter in a war that has dragged on for nearly two years. Israel has ordered them to move to “humanitarian zones” further south. Between 200,000 and 350,000 have done so; around 600,000 remain. Most have already seen their homes bombed and been displaced multiple times. Few can afford the cost of hiring a minivan to carry them and their belongings to Deir al-Balah, 15km away and still somewhat safer than Gaza city. Tents worth 150 shekels ($45) are going for 20 times that. “After all that, you don’t know if it will be declared a hostile environment and you’ll have to move again,” says Hisham over the sound of explosions. The former civil servant is staying in Gaza city.
In many ways this looks like a re-run of the first big offensive of the Gaza war. Then, as now, Israeli armoured columns wreaked havoc on Gaza city, while Israel’s leaders promised to wipe out Hamas. Since then at least 64,000 Gazans, most of them civilians, have been killed. So have nearly all of Hamas’s chiefs. Most of Gaza’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed. International aid organisations say people in many parts of the territory are starving.
The mood in Israel has changed, too. When the IDF attacked Gaza city 22 months ago, Israelis were nearly unanimous in their support. Hamas had burst out of Gaza, massacring nearly 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. The public agreed that the group needed to be destroyed.
Now there is far less support. Hamas is already greatly diminished. Recent polls show that over 70% of Israelis favour a ceasefire over continuing the war. The IDF’s bosses share that view. Its chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir, has repeatedly told the cabinet that achieving a decisive blow against Hamas could take years, if it is possible at all. The group, now fighting in guerilla mode, is hiding in hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, only a fraction of which the IDF has destroyed. General Zamir has said that the Gaza city attack will jeopardise the hostages still held by Hamas, around 20 of whom are thought to be alive. He favours a ceasefire which would set the hostages free.
Hamas, which has little regard for the lives of its own people, has been urging Palestinians to stay in Gaza city while its own fighters have made themselves scarce. Israeli intelligence reckons that around 3,000 Hamas men have remained underground in the city to carry out ambushes. The rest, around 20,000, have escaped southwards—undermining the very premise of the Israeli operation.
Israeli intelligence also fears some of the hostages have been moved to central locations in Gaza city, to serve as human shields. As the attack began, relatives of the hostages gathered in protest outside Mr Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem. Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan has been held in Gaza for over 700 days, accused Mr Netanyahu of “deciding to kill our children”.
Disagreements between Israel’s generals and their political masters are common. But in the past it has almost always been the IDF urging action and the cabinet preferring restraint. This war is different. Mr Netanyahu, determined to hold on to a tenuous parliamentary majority, is beholden to his far-right allies who want to permanently occupy and eventually resettle Gaza. He is also anxious to avoid a reckoning over his past disregard of the Hamas threat. His political survival depends on the war continuing.
Israel’s push into Gaza city coincided with the publication of a report by an expert panel commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel has hotly denied the UN’s accusations but is concerned about the possible reactions of its Western allies. France, Britain and others are expected to recognise a Palestinian state in the coming weeks. The leaders of the European Union, Israel’s top trade partner, have warned that they may review the bloc’s trade agreements with Israel if it presses on in Gaza.
For now, at least, the Israelis still seem to have the backing of America. President Donald Trump posted threats to Hamas on social media as the operation began. “ALL ‘BETS’ ARE OFF,” he wrote. “RELEASE ALL HOSTAGES NOW!” Hours earlier his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had left Jerusalem, where he said that a better future for Gaza could not be reached “until Hamas is eliminated”.
But even America’s support may not last. Israeli diplomats believe Mr Trump’s patience is running out. Mr Netanyahu, they say, convinced him that the Gaza city attack would be the final blow to Hamas. If that proves untrue, as it surely will, they expect the president to force Israel to accept a ceasefire. Rather than delivering victory, the attack seems destined only to deepen Gaza’s suffering and leave Israel more isolated.