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After six months of relentless attacks on Gaza, Israel is no closer to victory at any point since October last year.
It is unknown whether it has any plans for the enclave beyond the fighting, while more than 33,000 people, mostly women and children, lie dead.
More than 75,000 people have been injured and much of the population has been displaced.
About 1.5 million of those displaced are taking refuge in the southern city of Rafah, whose future remains uncertain due to continued Israeli bombardment and threats of ground offensive.
Meanwhile, Israel, which claims it killed about 12,000 fighters among the thousands dead, is using their perceived presence to exert pressure.
What does Israel want?
Beyond this attack, what Israel wants in Gaza is unclear, and there is no Palestinian, international or Israeli consensus on who will administer the territory in the future.
Israeli forces, dramatically reduced in numbers by heavy deployments at the beginning of the war – only one brigade is reported to be present in southern Gaza – have struggled to gain and maintain control of the area surrounded by unknown miles of tunnels that the Palestinians use. Allows combatants mobility and reach.
Areas such as al-Shifa hospital, which was attacked for the second time in mid-March after Israeli claims to have searched and cleared it in November.
Israeli forces have returned to Gaza City's Zitoun neighbourhood, the Shati refugee camp and the city of Beit Hanoun, among other areas it claims to have “liberated from terrorists”.
A Western intelligence official told the BBC in February that Hamas fighters appeared to have been reduced to only about a third by the still-serviceable tunnel network, forcing Israeli forces to launch a deadly pursuit across the area. Had to happen.
Current troop numbers are a sharp contrast to the 360,000 reserve troops mobilized to counter the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,139 people, the majority civilians, and took 250 captive in Gaza.
What can Israel afford?
Returning to Gaza the numbers required to prove effective would be costly. After initial calls for growth in Gaza, the Israeli economy shrank by 7 percent as the war drove workers from their jobs.
In addition, there remains the possibility of a new front opening up on Israel's northern border with the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah, with which it continues to exchange fire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated the goals of the war are to defeat Hamas and free an unknown number of remaining Israeli prisoners.
A wartime opinion poll during the brief December ceasefire suggested increased support for Hamas across Gaza, as well as the West's preferred candidate to administer any post-war settlement in Gaza: the Palestinian Authority. Leader Mahmoud Abbas was clearly rejected.
Regarding the situation at stake, the US said, “Israel will probably face prolonged armed resistance from Hamas in the coming years, and the military will struggle to neutralize Hamas' underground infrastructure, which provides insurgents a means of hiding. , allowing to gain strength and surprise Israeli forces”. assessment in march
Bara Shiban, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said, “I don't know whether it's about support for Hamas as much as whoever is carrying out the retaliatory attack is seeing Hamas as a threat by Palestinians rather than a political one.” Said, referring to responding as a resistance group.” Unit.
Meanwhile, a World Bank report earlier this month said Gaza's homes and life-saving infrastructure are in ruins, 84 percent of Gaza's health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and those that remain cannot be operated. There is shortage of electricity and water.
According to the same report, the cost of damage caused to Gaza was $18.5 billion, which was 97 percent of the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of Gaza and the occupied West Bank in 2022.
“It will cost billions to rebuild,” Boaz Atzili, an associate professor at the American University in Washington, D.C., told Southern Israel.
“I don't really feel any urge for food for it in Israel. It’s doable that some Gulf nations might contribute, however they wish to see some form of everlasting political answer, even whether it is only a technocratic administration at first, in order that they don’t come again right here once more. ,
Why would Israel plan the way forward for Gaza?
There seems to be worldwide consensus that Israel might be concerned in some type in the way forward for Gaza as soon as the assault on the besieged territory ends.
“There isn’t a actual plan for Gaza,” stated Bara Shiban of the Royal United Companies Institute (RUSI). “Israel merely wants to reply forcefully to the October 7 (Hamas-led) assault and keep the narrative, which it has struggled to do.
“Broadly talking, political opinion in Israel falls into three classes. First, there may be Netanyahu's method, which is simply to eliminate Hamas and free the hostages.
“Secondly, there are individuals who need to occupy and administer Gaza.
“Lastly, there’s a group that desires to place a lot stress on the Palestinian inhabitants that it spills over into the Sinai (violating the Egyptian border).”
Many in Netanyahu's authorities have proposed “plans” for Gaza “the day after tomorrow”.
In January, Protection Minister Yoav Galant printed a imprecise proposal for a US-led multinational group to supervise the civilian administration of sure “Palestinian notables” – presumably the heads of highly effective households that had emerged from the chaos of warfare.
Gallant's plan gave rise to rival plans from throughout the cupboard, some proposing settlement of Gaza, additional muddying the waters relating to the way forward for Gaza in addition to Israel's political unity. .
In February, Netanyahu printed a one-and-a-half-page plan of his personal, proposing to utterly shut Gaza's southern border with Egypt, in addition to overhauling Gaza's civilian administration and schooling. .
Netanyahu's plan drew sharp criticism from different states, together with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and america.
Within the face of the genocide in Gaza, the rising humanitarian disaster and impending famine, few plans converse to the truth of the individuals of Gaza: most have misplaced family members and face the prospect of famine along with bodily and psychological devastation . A warfare that appears unlikely to cease.
“Whereas it’s true that Netanyahu wish to flip the battle right into a ceaselessly warfare,” Atzili added, “it’s equally true that (Hamas chief) Yahya Sinwar would do the identical. Nobody has to face the implications of their actions.” Little interest in doing.
No follow-up survey on assist for Hamas has been carried out as Gaza has confronted successive rounds of Israeli assaults, with not less than 62 p.c of houses, equal to 290,820 housing models, destroyed, with Multiple million individuals have change into homeless. world Financial institution.
In the meantime, with no approach to seize the enclave, or with no clear and agreed warfare objective in sight, Israel may have little selection however to proceed its assault on Gaza, at a price to tens of millions of Palestinians.