The war in Gaza may topple Hamas without making Israel safer

“I WISH I could say we have a very detailed plan,” an Israeli army officer admitted to your correspondent in the chaotic days following Hamas’s brutal assault on southern Israel on October 7th. More than 1,100 people had been killed; some 240 had been dragged back to Gaza as hostages. It was clear from the outset of the war in Gaza, now six months old, that Israel’s two main goals—to eliminate Hamas and to free the hostages—were at odds. It was also clear that invading the territory, in which 2.2m people live cheek by jowl and under which Hamas had built a labyrinth of fortified tunnels to help it withstand an attack, was going to be immensely difficult. And there was always the risk that war in Gaza would spiral into a bigger conflict.

It is possible to look at this unpromising starting point and conclude that Israel’s invasion of Gaza has not gone badly—and many Israelis take just that view. After all, Hamas’s fighting capacity has been massively reduced, with little in the way of Israeli casualties. Some of the hostages have been released and negotiations continue in an attempt to free the remainder. And all the while, there has been no regional conflagration, nor even much unrest in the West Bank (the more populous of the two Palestinian territories) or among Israelis of Palestinian origin.