Israel’s dilemma: how hostage talks could bog down military plans
Benjamin Netanyahu faces many crosscutting decisions as he weighs when to move from the aerial bombardment of Gaza to the far more challenging ground-combat stage.
Israel faces a dilemma as it weighs the next phase of its war in Gaza: If it lets talks on the fate of at least 200 hostages held by Hamas play out, it risks getting bogged down in indirect negotiations with a group it has vowed to crush.
If it goes ahead with a looming ground operation before more hostages are released, it risks even higher casualties and international pressure to limit its operation as it battles the Palestinian fighters in the densely populated enclave.
It is one of many crosscutting decisions confronting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and Israeli commanders as they weigh when to move from the aerial bombardment of Gaza to the far more challenging ground-combat stage.
Along with the risk of civilian casualties, a large-scale invasion of Gaza could spark a second front if Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group in Lebanon, seizes the opportunity while Israel is engaged against Hamas and unleashes the thousands of rockets and armed drones in its arsenal. Much of Israel’s security establishment sees Hezbollah as its most dire threat.
If Israel opts for a more limited operation in Gaza to prevent the conflict from spreading and to protect civilians, it could become ensnared in a grinding counterinsurgency conflict that will leave Hamas damaged but still a threat after its Oct. 7 assault on Israel killed 1,400 people.
“There’s a continuing debate in the cabinet about just how far to go,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel and senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. “Israel has to show that there are no circumstances in which you can get away with conquering Israeli territory, even if briefly, and slaughtering Israel’s population.”
The risk to Israel from Hezbollah is so great that some former Israeli officials argue that Netanyahu’s government should rethink plans for a Gaza ground war and launch a pre-emptive strike across its northern border, disregarding pressure from the U.S. to avoid widening the war.
“We have nothing strategically to gain from a long-term war that could last a year in Gaza,” said Shimrit Meir, a foreign-policy official in the previous Israeli government. “We have a strategic gain that we can achieve in an operation in the north, which is dismantling some of Hezbollah’s missile capabilities that threaten us directly.”
Israel has called up roughly 360,000 military reservists, one of the largest mobilisation in its history, in preparation for the war’s next phase in Gaza. Israeli officials say the ground offensive will target Hamas fighters and leadership who use an extensive network of tunnels and fortified bunkers to elude Israeli drones and warplanes.
“We will operate at a time, place and manner that we choose, and it will be based on our operational interests,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the Israeli military, referring to the planned Gaza ground operation.
When Israel last sent troops into the streets of Gaza City in 2014, militants bombarded them with automatic gunfire, antitank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades, killing 13 Israeli soldiers in a two-day battle. This time will be different, Israeli commanders say, because its air attacks are destroying Hamas’s defences before troops, tanks and armoured vehicles go in, and because Israeli leaders are prepared to accept more casualties to destroy Hamas.
“Most of their capability on the northern side [of Gaza] has been hit, and they’re trying to reuse some of it and we’re hitting them again,” said a senior Israeli officer Saturday. Once the ground attack begins, he added, “You will see more of a supporting role” by the Israeli air force as it provides cover to infantry and armour units moving into Gaza.
Netanyahu is facing behind-the scenes pressure from the U.S. and others to plan the start of an invasion in a way that gives Qatar and other intermediaries time to continue negotiations to free at least some of the hostages held by Hamas, as well as for more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza for civilians, analysts said.
Hamas’s leaders see the hostages as their best leverage for at least delaying an Israeli invasion, giving it more time to prepare its defences or in the best scenario from their perspective reaching a deal with Netanyahu’s government that will include a pause in the bombing and release of thousands of Palestinians, they added.
Hamas released two U.S. citizens on Saturday, the first of the captives it took in the Oct. 7 attacks on towns, military bases in southern Israel and an outdoor concert near the Gaza border that had attracted 3,000 people of many nationalities. Along with Israelis, citizens of more than 40 countries were killed or went missing during the attack, according to Israel’s foreign ministry.
Among the hundreds being held in Gaza are dozens of Israeli soldiers, including several women, whom Hamas has made clear it has no intention of releasing without concessions from Israel. Even so, Israeli officials have shown no interest in being drawn into prisoner-exchange talks with Hamas that would curtail, even temporarily, its military operation.
Unlike in the past, where Israel went to great lengths to bring home prisoners held by Palestinian militants, the shock of the Oct. 7 attacks has left Israelis supportive of a military blow that would crush Hamas, even at the risk that some of the Israeli hostages would be executed or used as human shields by militants, said Zohar Palti, the former head of the Political-Military Bureau at Israel’s Ministry of Defense.
“I don’t think this is something that should affect us, mainly because otherwise we will be paralysed,” said Palti, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank, referring to Hamas’s use of hostages to pressure Israel to limit its military response.
Israeli officials, however, must weigh the views of the Biden administration. The White House has voiced support for Israel’s military response and moved equipment and U.S. forces to the region while pressing for steps to secure the release of hostages and to protect civilians in Gaza.
U.S. officials are especially concerned that Israel’s military, while formidable, could face difficulties handling an invasion of Gaza and a large-scale rocket and drone attack against its territory if Hezbollah enters the fray, according to U.S. analysts and former military officers.
Israel can likely withstand a major Hezbollah attack at the same time it is conducting a ground operation in Gaza, but it might have to counter Hezbollah with a limited response, rather than undertaking two simultaneous offensive operations, analysts said.
Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah is only likely to risk a war if he sees a strategic opportunity to inflict damage on Israel, not to rescue Hamas from looming defeat, said retired U.S. Marine Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the former top U.S. commander in the Middle East.
“If the IDF gets bogged down and there are a lot of Gaza casualties, then I think what you’re going to see is Nasrallah will make a calculation about, ‘Is this an opportunity?’” said McKenzie.
Hoping to deter larger-scale Hezbollah attacks or even intervention by Iran, the Pentagon has sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to the eastern Mediterranean. On Saturday it announced that it was sending air and missile defence batteries to the region, a further signal that the U.S. could intervene if needed to augment Israel’s defences for shooting down rockets and drones fired from southern Lebanon, analysts said.
The U.S. has demonstrated that it will take military steps to defend Israel from other militant groups. On Oct. 19 a U.S. Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea shot down four cruise missiles and 15 drones headed toward Israel that were launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and headed toward Israel.
Some Israeli analysts argue that launching a lengthy war in Gaza and hoping that Hezbollah and even Iran don’t attack is too big a risk for a country already reeling from the shock of one surprise attack.
“The deal [from the U.S.] is do not be the first to attack, and we will support you, if Hezbollah hits first,” said Meir, the former Israeli foreign policy official. “But it will be a mistake to allow Hezbollah to strike first the way Hamas did.”
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