Israeli Forces Back in Old Gaza Battlegrounds as Doubts Over War Aims Grow

Seven months into the war, Israeli troops are back fighting in the north of the Gaza Strip, in areas that were supposed to have been cleared months ago, highlighting growing questions about the government's declared goal of eliminating Hamas.

As tanks have started pushing into the southern city of Rafah, where the military says the last four intact battalions of Hamas are dug in, there has been fierce fighting in the Zeitoun area of Gaza City and around Jabalia, to the north, both of which the army took control of last year before moving on.

The renewed fighting there - amid international pressure for a ceasefire - has underscored concern in Israel that the lack of a clear strategic plan for Gaza will leave Hamas in effective control of the enclave it has ruled since 2007.

A clear end to the war appears as far off as ever.

Hunkered in the extensive tunnel network that runs beneath the ruins of Gaza, Hamas appears to retain broad support among a population scarred by a campaign that has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians and forced most Gazans from their homes.

"If we rely on a strategy of ongoing attrition or surgical operations against Hamas, it won't achieve the goal of governmental or military collapse," said Michael Milshtein, a former military intelligence officer and one of Israel's most prominent experts on the Palestinian movement.

US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell declared on Monday that Washington doubted Israel would achieve "sweeping victory on the battlefield".

HARD-RIGHT ALLIES

For the past few weeks, cabinet officials have urged Netanyahu to formulate a clear "day after" policy for Gaza, according to two security officials.

However, Netanyahu has so far insisted on total victory, responding to pressure from hard-right allies such as Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose support he needs to hold his ruling coalition together.

Despite international calls for a revival of efforts to find a solution to the decades-long conflict, talk of a political settlement has been rejected repeatedly by a government that refuses to contemplate any steps towards an independent Palestinian state.

That has left it forced to seek a purely military solution that has complicated the task of the troops on the ground.

This week, Israel's Channel 13 news reported that army commander Herzi Halevi had told Netanyahu that without a serious drive to build an alternative Palestinian government in Gaza, the military faced a "Sisyphean effort" to defeat Hamas - a reference to the character in Greek mythology condemned to endlessly push a boulder uphill.

Israeli officials have previously talked about drawing on local civil or clan leaders not associated with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, which exercises a limited form of sovereignty in the West Bank, to provide an alternative.

Such efforts had proved fruitless, however, according to Milshtein. "Hamas is still the dominant power in Gaza, including in northern parts of the Strip," he said.

‘WHAT COMES AFTER RAFAH?’

In contrast, the strategic goals of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, appear clear - to survive the war in sufficient strength to rebuild, reflected in his insistence on a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces as a condition for any ceasefire deal.

"They are survival tactics for Hamas and soon Israel will find itself forced to answer the question, 'what comes after Rafah?'" said a Palestinian official not allied to Hamas who is close to stalled talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar.

How many fighters from Hamas and the other armed militant groups in Gaza have been killed remains unclear. Casualty figures published by Gaza's health ministry do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.

Netanyahu himself offered a figure of around 14,000 this week, which would be roughly half the total number of Hamas fighters the Israeli military estimated at the start of the war.

Hamas has said that Israeli estimates exaggerate the numbers of dead and in any case the fighters have adapted their tactics as their organized units have been broken down.

Despite heavy US pressure not to launch an assault on Rafah, its population swollen by hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians, Israeli commanders have begun probing deeper into the city. It remains far from clear what they will face in its narrow streets if they launch a full-scale assault.

"Our fighters choose their battles, they don't allow the occupation to impose the battle time or ground for us because we don't have equal military capabilities," said a fighter from one of the armed factions.

"We don't have to clash face-to-face, but the occupiers and the invaders will lose soldiers and vehicles almost every day, here and there inside Gaza. They will never settle."

How far Israel is ready to go is unclear. Surveys continue to show broad support for the war among a population still traumatized by the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 that killed some 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken into Gaza as hostages.

But weekly protests by the hostages' families over the failure to bring those still in captivity home have shown that such support is matched by anger at a government most Israelis blame for the security failures that preceded the attack.

Heckling of Netanyahu and some of his ministers at Monday's Memorial Day ceremonies for Israel's war dead show how unhappy the general mood in the country appears to be, said Yossi Mekelberg, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House in London.

"You see some representatives of the government coming to the cemeteries, and some of them, quite a few of them, are facing very angry families and others who blame them for what has happened in the last seven months," he said.

Amid the devastation, thousands of residents of Syria’s Al-Qusayr performed Eid Al-Fitr prayers in the northern district square—the site where the city’s first protest against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule erupted in 2011.

For the first time in Al-Qusayr’s history, Eid prayers were held in a public square. It was also the first mass gathering of residents in an open space in 13 years, following a war that destroyed 70% of the city, displaced its people, and led to its capture by Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Syrian regime forces.

Al-Qusayr, a region located near the Lebanese border, was once Hezbollah’s most significant stronghold in Syria. The group withdrew after the fall of the Syrian regime in December, but its loyalists and affiliated locals remained, along with residents of several border villages that have seen sporadic clashes in recent months.

The most intense fighting occurred in February, when Syrian forces launched a military operation that pushed them into Lebanese territory and deployed troops to seal off illegal border crossings.

Tensions flared again two weeks ago after Syrian soldiers were killed in the border region, triggering an exchange of artillery fire between the two sides.

The clashes left casualties on both ends and forced the displacement of border village residents before a ceasefire was reached with the Lebanese army.

The agreement included the closure of four illegal crossings in an effort to curb the smuggling of weapons and drugs, a trade that has flourished over the past decade under the former regime.

As soon as the regime fell, refugees from Al-Qusayr living in Lebanese camps began returning to their hometown. Hundreds arrived to find their homes completely destroyed, forcing them to set up tents beside the ruins while they rebuilt or searched for alternative housing.

The residents of Al-Qusayr resumed their communal Eid traditions after Ramadan. (Sami Volunteer Team)

The large turnout for Eid prayers underscored the scale of the return.

Journalist Ahmed al-Qasir, who recently came back, estimated that about 65% of those displaced have now returned. Before the uprising, Al-Qusayr had a population of around 150,000, he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Shahin, 30, who returned in 2018, described the city as a wasteland at the time, despite some 20,000 people having already come back.

“Hezbollah, regime militias, and smugglers controlled the area. There were no real markets, just small shops. Everything was in ruins—schools, clinics, hospitals,” he said.

Residents had to travel 30 kilometers to Homs for basic necessities, enduring regime checkpoints that extorted money along the way.

With the fall of Assad’s regime and Hezbollah’s withdrawal, life in Al-Qusayr has slowly begun to return to normal. Since the start of Ramadan, markets have reopened despite widespread destruction, poverty, and hardship.

On the eve of Eid, the city’s streets buzzed with late-night shopping, Shahin noted.

“Al-Qusayr is finally regaining its role as the region’s commercial hub,” he said.

According to a survey by the Sami Volunteer Team, more than 30,000 refugees returned to Al-Qusayr and its countryside within the first month of the regime’s collapse.

That number is believed to have doubled over the past four months, and team organizers expect it to rise further once the school year ends.

Zaid Harba, a member of the 40-person volunteer group, said most returnees came from refugee camps in Lebanon, while fewer arrived from displacement camps in northern Syria.

Many families there are waiting for the academic year to conclude before arranging their return.

Israeli Forces Back in Old Gaza Battlegrounds as Doubts Over War Aims Grow