Israel’s Progess in Gaza

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The war is far from over, but Hamas’s southern stronghold of Khan Younis is falling. Civilians have streamed out and Hamas’s remaining forces in the city’s west are encircled. They face an Israeli advance on all sides, and Israel is now fighting above and below ground in force.

Consider that the 2016-17 battle of Mosul against ISIS took nine months. “Mosul,” writes John Spencer, chief of urban warfare studies at West Point’s Modern War Institute, “was one battle, in one city against 3 to 5k militants with limited defenses. Israel is fighting multiple battles in 7 cities against 30k militants with military grade underground cities built under civilian areas.”

Israel needs time to achieve victory, and Hamas is counting on Western powers to deny it that time. The “CNN strategy” of using human shields to gain media sympathy has worked every time so far for Hamas.

Israel believes it has killed, incapacitated or arrested some 20,000 of Hamas’s 30,000 men and dismantled 18 of Hamas’s 24 Gaza combat battalions. The losses have prevented Hamas from mounting military maneuvers and quieted its rocket fire, down more than 95% from the war’s early days.

The Biden Administration is using that domestic pressure as diplomatic leverage to promote a hostage deal and long pause in the war that it hopes will become a cease-fire. Never mind that leaving Hamas in control of territory is the definition of Israeli defeat. No matter the length of the pause, Israel would likely have to resume fighting afterward.

That may be why Hamas has resisted the U.S. pause and hostage-deal proposal and instead demands a cease-fire guarantee that Israel can’t give. Recall that Hamas consented to the first hostage deal after Israel took Gaza City faster than anticipated. An Israeli advance now could push the terrorists to Rafah, Hamas’s last major refuge, at the edge of Gaza.

Once Hamas’s last brigades are defeated, it will take time to sweep Gaza for terrorist cells and infrastructure. Israel is clearing urban terrain and tunnels at a “historic pace,” Mr. Spencer writes, but the tunnels are vast and soldiers are finding munitions in home after home.

Israel’s task for 2024 is to finish the job, but will U.S. political support hold? The Biden Administration, despite its second-guessing, continues to provide munitions and diplomatic cover that it would have a hard time withdrawing. The latest Harvard CAPS-Harris poll finds that large majorities of Americans support Israel and its war aims.

Europe’s elected leaders are also holding the line, and no Arab state has quit the Abraham Accords. Only Iran, which has escalated its regional war against the U.S., applies pressure. Even the United Nations International Court of Justice balked at ordering a cease-fire.

Winning the war doesn’t guarantee winning the peace afterward, but it is essential for a secure Israel and a chance for Palestinians to have a normal life in Gaza.