(Jerusalem) Announced as imminent, the Israeli ground offensive in the Gaza Strip has still not been launched, a delay that Israeli media and experts attribute to international pressure, to dissensions between politicians and the military, and to the delicate question hostages.
Eighteen days after the worst attack ever launched on Israeli soil by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in Gaza, the Israeli army is relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip. But apart from a few incursions, the announced land offensive was not launched.
“Crisis of confidence between Benyamin Netanyahu and the Tsahal”, the Israeli army, writes Israel’s most famous columnist, Nahum Barnéa, in the daily Yediot Aharonot.
“The government is having trouble making decisions that everyone can agree on on the issues of the day,” he adds. According to government and military sources cited by Mr. Barnéa, “Netanyahu is angry with the generals to whom he attributes responsibility for what happened”, what is called in Israel the “October 7 fiasco” .
On the right and the left, opinions are unanimous: “The disputes surrounding these operations are creating tensions, particularly between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” wrote columnist Amos Harel in the daily Haaretz on Tuesday. (LEFT).
State radio makes the same observation, highlighting “the dissensions between the prime minister and the military hierarchy” against a backdrop of mutual accusations about the flaws that allowed the incursions of Hamas men who came to perpetrate a series of massacres.
According to Israel, more than 1,400 people, mostly Israeli civilians, including women and children, were killed on Israeli soil. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, nearly 5,800 people, mostly civilians, have died in the Gaza Strip since the start of the retaliatory bombing campaign, a prelude to the announced ground invasion.
As several commentators note, the recurrence of official communiqués where there is talk of a convergence of views at the highest level would reveal the artificial nature of this “united front”.
“The Prime Minister, the Minister of Defense and the Chief of Staff are working in close and full cooperation, around the clock, to lead the State of Israel to a decisive victory over Hamas. There is total and mutual trust between them, states a press release from the Government Press Office (GPO) published on Tuesday.
Patrick Bettane, intelligence specialist at the Israeli think tank International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), confirms “these dissensions around a ground offensive”.
” Chain reaction ”
“But the fact that there are hostages being held in the Gaza Strip complicates everything. Israel is waiting to see how this problem will be resolved before acting,” explains Mr. Bettane. More than 200 hostages remain detained, their families demonstrate every evening near the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv.
For Akiva Eldar, a specialist in Israeli politics, “after the emotion aroused by this terrible massacre, Bibi and the generals are starting to think differently.”
The presence in Israel, according to him, of American generals supposed to prevent any slippage, to avoid the death of hostages, particularly American ones, sheds new light on this reflection which contrasts with the official discourse on “the announced end of Hamas at the end of the current war”, as promised by MM. Netanyahu and Gallant.
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi nevertheless reiterated his desire to “completely dismantle Hamas, its leaders, its military branch and its operating mechanisms”.
For Daniel Bensimon, expert on Israeli politics, “dissensions or not, it is a fact that Americans and Europeans are marching in Israel to caress Israel with nice words by handcuffing it to avoid a ground offensive.”
According to him, “the international community fears that a ground offensive could cause a chain reaction and therefore a conflagration of the entire region, or even well beyond.”
Israelis have been touched by the words of compassion and support from several foreign leaders who have succeeded one another in Israel, notably the American Joe Biden on October 18, and up to Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. The French president assured the Israelis that they were not alone in “fighting these terrorist groups”. But in the same breath, he hoped that this would happen “without widening the conflict”.
“Biden and Macron say nice things. But basically, they want to prevent Israel from entering Gaza and Iran from entering the dance” on Israel’s northern border, via its armed wing in Lebanon, the Shiite movement Hezbollah.