Senior Israeli generals want to initiate a ceasefire in Gaza even if it would keep Hamas in power for the time being, widening a rift between the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes a ceasefire that would allow Hamas to survive the war.
According to interviews with six current and former security officials, the generals believe a ceasefire would be the best way to free the roughly 120 Israelis still held, both alive and dead, in Gaza.
Ill-equipped for another war after Israel’s longest in decades, generals also believe their forces need time to recover in the event of a ground war with Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has been engaged in low-level fighting with Israel since October, multiple officials said.
A ceasefire with Hamas could also make it easier to reach a deal with Hezbollah, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security issues, the officials said. Hezbollah has said it will continue to attack northern Israel until Israel stops fighting in the Gaza Strip.
Collectively known as the General Staff Forum, Israel’s military leadership consists of about 30 senior generals, including the army chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the army, air force and navy commanders, and the head of military intelligence.
The military’s stance on the ceasefire reflects a major shift in thinking over the past few months as it has become clearer that Netanyahu has refused to articulate or commit to a post-war plan. That decision has essentially created a power vacuum in the enclave, forcing the military to return and fight in areas of Gaza it has liberated from Hamas militants.
“The army fully supports the hostage rescue agreement and the ceasefire,” said Eyal Hulata, Israel’s national security adviser until early last year and a frequent correspondent for senior military officials.
“They believe they can always come back and engage Hamas militarily in the future,” said Mr. Hulata. “They understand that a pause in Gaza will make it easier to deescalate the situation in Lebanon. And they have less ammunition, less spare parts, less energy than before — so they also think a pause in Gaza will give us more time to prepare in case a larger war breaks out with Hezbollah.”
It is unclear how directly the military leadership has expressed its views to Mr Netanyahu in private, but there have been signs of their frustration in public, as well as the prime minister’s frustration with the generals.
Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the article. In a statement after it was posted online, Netanyahu fired back, saying Israel would end the war “
only after we achieve all our goals, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all our hostages.”
Mr Netanyahu is concerned about a ceasefire that would keep Hamas in power because it could collapse his coalition, some of which have said they would leave if the war ends with Hamas undefeated.
Until recently, the military publicly asserted that it could simultaneously achieve the government’s two main war goals: defeating Hamas and rescuing hostages taken by Hamas and its allies in the October 7 attack on Israel. Now, the military high command has concluded that the two goals are incompatible, months after The generals began to have doubts..
Since invading Gaza in October, Israel has overrun most of Hamas’s battalions and occupied most of the territory at some point during the war. But just under half of the 250 hostages taken to Gaza in October remain in captivity, and the high command fears that further military action to free them could risk killing others.
With Netanyahu publicly unwilling to commit to occupying Gaza or transferring control to alternative Palestinian leaders, the military fears a “forever war” in which its energy and ammunition are slowly eroded even as the hostages remain in captivity and Hamas leaders remain in hiding. Given that scenario, keeping Hamas in power now in exchange for the hostages’ return seems like the least bad option for Israel, Hulata said. Four senior officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed.
When asked to comment on whether it supported the ceasefire, the military issued a statement that did not directly address the question. The statement said the military was working “under the direction of the political hierarchy to achieve the objectives of the war”, including destroying “Hamas’ military and administrative capabilities, releasing hostages and returning Israeli civilians from the south and north safely to their homes”.
After this article was published, the military issued an identical statement in response to the report, again avoiding answering the question of whether it supported the ceasefire.
But in recent statements and interviews, military leaders have offered public hints about what they have concluded in private.
“Those who think we can make Hamas disappear are mistaken,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military’s chief spokesman, said in a television interview on June 19. “Hamas is an idea. Hamas is a political party. It comes from the hearts of the people.”
Admiral Hagari said that implying otherwise was a criticism of Mr Netanyahu, which was “throwing sand in the public eye”.
“What we can do is put something else in place,” he said, “something that will replace it, something that will let people know that someone else is distributing food, someone else is providing public services. Who that is, what that is — that’s for decision makers to decide.”
General Halevi, chief of the general staff, has recently tried to praise the army’s achievements, in what some analysts see as an attempt to create a pretext to end the war without losing face.
As the Israeli army advanced through the southern Gaza city of Rafah on June 24, General Halevi said the army was “clearly approaching the point where we can say that we have disbanded the Rafah brigade, that it has been defeated. Not in the sense that there are no more terrorists, but in the sense that it can no longer function as a combat unit.”
The military estimates that it has killed at least 14,000 fighters—mostly Hamas. But officials also believe that thousands of Hamas fighters are still at large, hiding in tunnels dug deep beneath Gaza’s surface, guarding caches of weapons, fuel, food, and some hostages.
Netanyahu’s office declined to comment for this article. In a statement on Monday, he said Israel was close to “eliminating the Hamas terrorist army,” but stopped short of saying that would allow Israel to end the war in Gaza.
In a rare TV interview In late June, the prime minister rejected suggestions that the war should end, but admitted that the army should reduce its presence in Gaza to “move part of our forces north”.
The move is necessary to help the army recover in the event of a wider war with Hezbollah, not because Israel is preparing to invade Lebanon immediately, according to military officials. However, other news reports suggest that Israel may be planning an invasion in the coming weeks.
Nearly nine months into a war that Israel did not plan, its military is short of spare parts, ammunition, engines and even soldiers, officials say.
The war is the most intense conflict Israel has fought in at least four decades and the longest it has fought in Gaza. In an army that relies heavily on reservists, some are in their third term as of October and are struggling to balance combat with work and family commitments.
Fewer reservists are reporting for duty, according to four military officials. And officers are increasingly distrustful of their commanders, amid a crisis of confidence in the military leadership, in part because of its failure to stop a Hamas-led offensive in October, according to five officers.
More than 300 soldiers have been killed in Gaza, fewer than some military officials predicted before Israel invaded the territory. But more than 4,000 soldiers have been wounded since October, according to military statistics, 10 times the total during the 2014 Gaza war, which lasted just 50 days. An unknown number of others are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
At least some tanks in Gaza are not loaded with the full ammunition capacity they normally carry, as the army tries to preserve its ammunition in case a larger war with Hezbollah breaks out, according to two officers. Five officials and officers confirmed that the army is running low on artillery shells. The army is also short of spare parts for tanks, military bulldozers and armored vehicles, according to some of those officials.
All the officers, as well as Mr. Hulata, said that Israel has enough ammunition to fight in Lebanon if it believes there is no other option.
“If we were to get into a larger war, we have the resources and the manpower,” Mr. Hulata said. “But we want to do it in the best possible conditions. And right now, we don’t have the best conditions.”
Johnatan Reiss Contribute report.
