With Gaza already reduced to rubble, its population decimated and displaced, and the IDF largely out of the Strip, why would Hamas accept a ceasefire vs. hostages deal? Why would it give up its only remaining card in return for meaningless “concessions” by Israel?
A permanent ceasefire is conditioned on the suicide-by-Mossad of Sinwar and the self-immolation of Hamas as the only government of what is left of Gaza. Disarmament, exiled leaders, and assassinations await. In return for what? Israel has nothing to offer except shattered and crippled Palestinian detainees and multi-decadal prisoners.
In the meantime, Israel is falling apart in every way, its dilapidated and overstretched army has lost control of Gaza, and Iran, its proxies, and Hezbollah are on the precipice of joining the fighting, however reluctantly. It is a once in a century opportunity to exterminate the “Zionist entity”, they all seem to believe, delusionally.
Hamas has every incentive to decline a ceasefire and drag the other members of the “Axis of Resistance” into the seething cauldron.
In the meantime, in the North of the Rump State of Israel, Hezbollah is conducting a war of attrition against the Jewish interlopers, colonizers, and settlers (as they see them).
Israel has learnt the hard way and multiply that it is no match for Hezbollah and cannot defeat it militarily. The only cogent strategy is to drive a wedge between the militia and the population. Intra-Lebanese alienation and the equivalent of a sectarian civil war constitute the only viable Israeli strategy.
It seems to be working. Hezbollah is constrained not by Israel’s futile pinpricks, nor by Iran, its paymaster. It is avoiding escalation because, increasingly, it is losing the battle for hearts and minds: the support of the vegetative state that they have hijacked, Lebanon.
This will all end the way it had ended in numerous previous rounds: Israel will withdraw from Gaza, Hamas will regroup and rearm, Hezbollah will await another day, Iran will keep pouring resources into its firewall of proxies.
Even the most minimal claims of the Israelis and the Palestinians are perceived by the parties to the conflict as maximal, usurious, and irreconcilable. Increasingly, they are both converging on ethnic cleansing as the solution. It is a zero sum game – and not Israel’s to win.
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