After six months of fierce fighting, the IDF advance in Gaza has come to a standstill. However, the Israeli government remains tough, and even as the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Israel, Tel Aviv insisted on the "complete elimination of Hamas". Just when everyone thought that the fighting in Gaza would continue, Israel announced without warning that it would withdraw the vast majority of its troops from Gaza. According to the Global Times, on April 7, local time, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced that only the 993rd "Nahar" Infantry Brigade and some other support units would continue to be stationed in Gaza, and the rest of the troops would all withdraw from Gaza. The main task of the 993rd Infantry Brigade is to control Saladin Avenue in the central part of the Gaza Strip and continue to divide Gaza into two parts, north and south.
The Israeli Defense Ministry did not disclose the specific reasons for such a large-scale withdrawal until a few hours later, when Israeli Defense Minister Gallant said that the Israeli army was withdrawing troops from the rest of Gaza in order to concentrate on attacking the southern Gaza town of Rafah. However, this argument did not win the trust of the majority of people, because Rafah is only a small town covering an area of only 64 square kilometers, and to attack such a small town, would it be necessary to draw several infantry divisions and tens of thousands of troops from other parts of Gaza? Moreover, the Israeli army has already invaded the city of Khan Younis in central Gaza, and if it wants to attack Rafah, the Israeli army can completely set off from Israel itself one way and Khan Younis on the other, forming a sandwich between the two sides. Now that the main forces of the Israeli army have withdrawn from Gaza, the attack on Rafah can only start from the mainland, which is not conducive to the siege of the city. Therefore, the outside world generally believes that the withdrawal of troops mentioned by Gallant is to prepare for the attack on Rafah, which is completely a prevarication to save face for himself, and the real reason for the withdrawal of Israeli troops is not this.
At present, it is generally believed that there are two main reasons for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. On the military front, in order to concentrate its forces on Gaza, the Israeli army previously transferred most of the troops stationed on the northern border to defend against Allah in Lebanon, and the troops stationed in the Golan Heights to defend against Syria, such as the 1st "Gorani" Infantry Brigade, to Gaza, causing a void in the north and east. In the past six months, Allah and pro-Iranian armed groups active in Syria have been firing rockets and anti-tank missiles at Israel almost non-stop, killing and injuring many Israeli military personnel and destroying a large number of Israeli military facilities and equipment. On April 1, the Israeli air force attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria, killing several senior Revolutionary Guard Corps generals, and Iran vowed to retaliate. In order to prevent Iranian-backed militant groups and other non-state actors from directly attacking Israel itself, the Israeli army had to withdraw a large number of troops operating in Gaza to protect the security of the country.
At the same time, the Israeli army has been fighting fiercely in Gaza for more than half a year, and although Israeli officials have always claimed how much land they have occupied and how many Hamas personnel they have killed, Hamas can still continue to fire rockets at Israel itself, and Israel has not been able to save the hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas. This shows that the Israeli army's operation in Gaza has been a very unsuccessful operation, and it has completely failed to achieve its goals of "completely eliminating Hamas" and "rescuing the captured hostages". And in less than half a year, the Israeli army also paid heavy casualties. Although according to the obituary published by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the Israeli army only lost more than 600 casualties, but these 600-odd people include a general, dozens of colonel-level officers, and hundreds of captain-level officers, and the number of officers killed in battle accounts for an extremely high proportion of the total number of casualties.
Given the slow pace of progress, the failure to achieve goals, and the heavy casualties of the army, it was not surprising that the withdrawal of troops from the theater of operations and the halting of this military operation, which had only increased losses. This view is echoed by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, according to which a senior Israeli military officer said that the troops fighting in Gaza were too exhausted to continue their mission.
At the political level, Israel's situation is also not optimistic. On 25 March, the Council adopted a resolution calling on Israel to cease fire during the holy month of Ramadan. Although Israel has been making wild claims that it will not abide by the relevant Security Council resolutions, the price of insisting on confronting the Security Council is by no means something that a small country like Israel can bear. On 1 April, the IDF killed seven members of the charity organization World Central Kitchen, including three British citizens, one Polish citizen and one dual citizen of the United States and Canada. Moreover, the "World Central Kitchen" also has some cooperative relations with the US military and intelligence agencies. This became the last straw that completely destroyed Israel's image in the hearts of the people of Western countries, and also forced Western countries, especially the United States, to begin to change their bottomless bias towards Israel.
Three days after aid workers from the "World Central Kitchen" were killed by Israeli forces, US President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu on the phone. Biden stressed that "an immediate ceasefire is critical" and threatened to change its foreign policy toward Israel as early as ever if Israel still refuses to ceasefire. It can be seen that if the Israeli army continues to stubbornly fight in Gaza, it is not impossible to be abandoned by the West, especially the United States. Militarily, the Israeli army has been unable to achieve its operational objectives for a long time, and on the contrary, crises are lurking in the surrounding areas; politically, the United States, the biggest backer, cannot tolerate Israel's continued consumption of its diplomatic resources and heavy pressure on Israel. There is also increasing pressure from the international community. Under both political and military pressure, the withdrawal of troops from Gaza has become Israel's only option.
However, Israel has left behind a brigade in Gaza, which in fact fully reflects the dilemma and opportunistic tendencies of the Israeli Government. While the Israeli government's military operation in Gaza has been unsuccessful at both the political and military levels, Tel Aviv cannot end the conflict, because once the full withdrawal of troops from Gaza and the end of the current round of the conflict, the accountability process will be initiated. And once accountability begins, based on the Israeli army's ignorance of Hamas's surprise attack and all kinds of violations of military common sense in the street fighting in Gaza, it is expected that a large number of high-level black hats of the Israeli military will fall to the ground.
And if Israel declares the end of the conflict now, it will mean a complete defeat in this Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the angry Israeli people will then vent all their anger on the Netanyahu government, completely destroying the political life of Netanyahu and even the Likud party. Therefore, the Israeli Government must not end the conflict now, leaving a brigade in Gaza and allowing the conflict to continue, albeit with a gradual decrease in intensity. Until the Israeli people gradually forget about the conflict and announce a full withdrawal from Gaza, the political future of Netanyahu's government, as well as a large number of high-ranking Israeli military positions, can be preserved.
In addition, although the Israeli army's operations in the past six months have not been successful, they have indeed caused considerable losses to Hamas, and if they completely withdraw from Gaza now, they will abandon all the gains made in the past six months. The Israeli army now occupies the dividing line between the north and south of Gaza, and once the international situation changes in the future, the Israeli army will have the opportunity to use this as a base for advancing and attack Gaza again. Therefore, in the short term, the Israeli army will continue to maintain a small force along the north-south demarcation line in Gaza.
In any case, the withdrawal of the vast majority of Israeli troops from Gaza is a phased victory for Hamas and the people of Gaza. Back in October of last year, I am afraid that few people would believe that the Israeli army would stop troops under the city of Gaza, and no one would believe that the Israel Defense Forces, which had been in the Middle East for more than 70 years, would not be able to capture even an area of only 365 square kilometers. No one could have foreseen that Israel would be so ugly in this series of military operations that it would completely ruin the good international image that the Jews had built up after World War II. No matter how the situation in the Middle East changes in the future, at least for now, the people of Gaza have won.