An Israeli soldier carries a tank shell near the border of Gaza on Oct. 14, 2023. (Heidi Levine/for The Washington Post)
JERUSALEM — On Tuesday, 17 days after the Hamas attacks that killed or captured more than 1,400 Israelis, the country’s top general addressed the huge retaliatory military force poised on the Gaza border: We are ready.
A day later, the troops were still waiting on the Israeli side. And the questions inside and outside of Israel continued to grow on when — or possibly whether — Israel will send its forces into Gaza in what military officials have promised to be an assault large enough to “destroy Hamas.”
Both those who yearn for the ground war to begin and those who dread it are looking for clues. Debates are going on inside the emergency war cabinet, according to officials familiar with the process. Now that the military has publicly signaled its readiness, the possible greenlight will come from the small team led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top opposition leader Benny Gantz, a former army chief of staff.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu gave his strongest signal that a ground offensive will take place, saying that the war cabinet and military chief of state “determined unanimously” on a timetable. There was no hint, however, on when it could occur or at what scale.
“We are preparing for a ground incursion. I won’t specify when, how, how many,” Netanyahu said in an address to the nation. “I also won’t detail the range of considerations, most of which the public is not aware of. And that’s the way it is supposed to be. This is the way, so that we protect our soldiers’ lives.”
Those familiar with the process say the cabinet had been looking at a fearsome and shifting decision matrix. The top variables include the daunting realities of fighting prolonged urban combat in Gaza and the risks of triggering a full-scale regional conflict with Hamas allies such as Iran. Washington has appealed for Israel to carefully weigh its next moves as the Pentagon deploys warships to the region and sends experts in urban fighting to Israel.
Some families of nearly 200 captives held in Gaza have asked to delay a ground attack while negotiations continue for more releases.
“Everyone expected that we would be in there by now, and under a normal situation would have been,” said a former member of the military’s top command, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss high-level deliberations. “But this operation is complicated by any standard. Time is not a bad thing.”
The complexities may be largely lost on the broader Israeli public. Many Israelis remain enraged by the brutality of the Hamas attacks, characterized here as the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Israel’s nonstop air campaign on Gaza is unlikely to cripple Hamas even as it claims a growing tally of civilian lives.
Israeli media has been increasingly filled with reports of disagreements in the war cabinet and of disputes between Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and military chief of staff Herzl Halevi. None of their offices have commented on the reports.
Signs of possible division have spilled into public view. Some Netanyahu supporters have suggested it is the military, not the prime minister, holding up the operation. On Monday, one of Netanyahu’s longtime allies implied as much in public remarks at a party meeting.
“This is not a situation in which the army is ready and the political echelon is holding back,” said Aryeh Deri, former health and interior minister.
Military leaders, in turn, have become more explicit that they just need the word to unleash one of Israel’s largest ground force mobilizations in history. “I want to be clear, we are ready to invade,” Halevi said in remarks Tuesday during a tour of units along the Gaza border.
Netanyahu is said to be consulting a brain trust of security veterans, including Yaakov Amidror, a former general and Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2011 to 2013. Amidror would not comment on any discussions he has had with the prime minister but said that clashing viewpoints between political and military leaders are how strong plans are forged.
“Thank God there are disagreements,” he said. “They should argue for hours, for days and nights. To argue about ideas versus other ideas, that is the system.”
One of the biggest shocks, he said, was the launch of cruise missiles toward Israel last Thursday, a barrage that was shot down by some of the American battleships President Joe Biden has dispatched to the eastern Mediterranean.
That attack highlighted the growing volatility of the region as Israel continues to pound Gaza with airstrikes, which have killed more than 5,700 civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Casualty figures in Gaza could not be independently verified.
In Lebanon, Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants have launched antitank missiles over the Lebanese border for weeks, leading Israel to return fire and to evacuate more than 130,000 civilians from the frontier and amass troops for a potential second front. Other groups with ties to Iran, including the Houthis in Yemen, have called on members to target Israel and its allies over their support for the war against Hamas.
The Israeli military says it is prepared to defend against a major escalation near the Lebanese border in the north. But a second front could stretch thin Israeli forces. “We don’t have any interest in fighting a second front,” said the former senior military commander. “But if we have to fight, we will win.”
The Biden administration, which has expressed unwavering support for Israel’s fight against Hamas, has also counseled caution about rushing into a ground war. Officials have warned their counterparts to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible and to consider who would govern Gaza if Hamas is removed. Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2007 and has effectively crushed any internal opposition.
“I cautioned the government of Israel not to be blinded by rage,” Biden said after his visit last week.
In a rare move, the U.S. Defense Department recently deployed a small number of senior military officers with experience in urban combat to Israel, including Lt. Gen. James Glynn, a Marine Corps officer who led forces on the ground during the Iraq War and later had a senior role in the campaign against the Islamic State.
Joseph Votel, a retired Army general, said in a briefing hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington on Wednesday that the Israeli military could pursue one or more courses of action, including a deliberate clearing operation that goes house by house, a rapid advance on critical locations, and targeted raids and strikes on Hamas strongholds. All of them come with risk, he said, including unpredictability about how the militant group Hezbollah responds.
“This is an important part of their calculation,” said Votel, who oversaw operations across the Middle East as chief of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019. “Because there could — and very likely will be — some type of response, big or small, to any type of incursion in Gaza.”
As the United States has preached patience, it also has surged additional firepower and defensive systems into the region. The additional forces include both two aircraft carrier strike groups and weapons such as the Patriot air defense system.
The situation was further complicated when Hamas began a halting release of hostages, two American citizens Friday and two elderly Israelis on Tuesday. Israeli officials said the former captives have provided valuable details of the “spiderweb” of tunnels, the subterranean network used by Hamas leaders to shield from attacks and now hold the hostages.
But the few releases also raised hopes for a bigger hostage deal. Washington has requested that Israel hold the greenlight for the ground war to give negotiations a chance to progress and for humanitarian aid to reach 2 million Gazans who are increasingly without water, food and medical care.
When asked by reporters last week whether Israel should delay a ground invasion to allow time for more hostages to be freed, Biden replied, “Yes.” Previously, the administration asserted it would not try to dictate the timeline on Israel’s military actions.
As the expected invasion remained in a holding pattern, some influential Israeli commentators on security affairs have called for the government to find another way. Some object on humanitarian grounds; others have warned that a ground war is what Hamas — and Iran — want to alienate Israel from the region.
But the unexpectedly slow pace is probably still headed for a full-scale incursion, according to former prime minister Ehud Barak. There is no other way to achieve Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas than “thousands of boots on the ground,” he said.
“We have a compelling demand to destroy Hamas,” said Barak, who also served as minister of defense. “No free nation can live side-by-side with an organization that can wake up in the morning and slaughter 1,400 victims.”
Noga Tarnopolsky in Tel Aviv and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.
