In the aftermath of Hamas’s assault over the weekend, officials
from Israel and the United States are saying the group must not be allowed to
survive.
“Just as the forces of civilization united to defeat ISIS,
the forces of civilization must support Israel in defeating Hamas,” Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address to the nation this
week.
Israeli
officials and regional experts are warning of, at least, a months-long Israeli
military campaign in the Gaza Strip. And there are immediate fears the conflict
could spill out across the region and beyond.
While Hamas’s main base of military operations is in Gaza —
a narrow strip of sandy land sandwiched between Israel, Egypt and the
Mediterranean Sea — its leadership lives across the world.
Its funding and military materials are largely provided by
Iran, whose militant network extends to Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq
and the Houthis in Yemen.
“We
understand that you cannot kill ideas, but you absolutely can demolish the
regime or the leadership,” said Neumi Neumann, former director of research for
Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, now a visiting fellow with the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
She said a narrow campaign could avoid a larger conflict,
focused on targeting Hamas’s two top leaders, Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader
based in Gaza, and Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau,
who lives in Lebanon.
“They
both are trying to incite Palestinians in the West Bank, they incite Israeli
Arabs inside east Jerusalem. They are trying to do a multi-front campaign
against Israel,” Neumann said.
The group needs to be “taken off the battlefield, that could
mean kill or capture, whatever the Israelis need to do,” Jason Crow said to
reporters Tuesday evening after a classified briefing on Israel.
“It’s clear that Hamas needs to be fully neutralized here,
and there’s bipartisan consensus around that issue.”
Joni
Ernst, speaking to Fox News from Jerusalem after leading a congressional
delegation across the Middle East, said Israel will not be safe until Hamas is
gone.
“It is
extremely important that Israel proceed and make sure that they are absolutely
destroying Hamas,” she said.
“This organization I would equate to ISIS. They are
barbarians, and yes there will be some horrible tragedies along the way, but
Israel is warning the people of the Gaza Strip, please move away from those
Hamas targets. But Israel will not be safe; the people will not be safe until
Hamas is gone.”
The
European Union and United Nations have already warned that Israel is committing
war crimes in its response to Hamas, pointing to Jerusalem’s announcement of a
sweeping siege on Gaza.
Biden has avoided similar public statements, giving Israel
space to target Hamas in what is likely to be a brutal military operation on
the densely populated Gaza Strip, where the terrorist group has blended its
infrastructure among the civilian population.
Israel
is reportedly preparing to launch a ground assault on Hamas-controlled
territory, which would begin a bloody new phase in the war.
“The calls in Israel to topple Hamas now are loud. I do not
know if they will win the day, but I would not rule it out,” said Natan Sachs,
director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, on
a panel Tuesday.
“It is possible that Israel will try to go all the way in or
find itself going all the way in to Gaza. And what would be the day after? I
don’t know. And more importantly, the Israeli leadership doesn’t know. It would
be an extremely difficult, possibly terrible scenario afterwards.”
Shibley Telhami, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings
and a former senior adviser to the State Department, said in the panel
discussion that the US has a critical role as a level-headed advisor to
Israel.
“I also think that one cannot be confident that the policies
that are being made right now — whether it’s by Hamas or by Israel, anybody
else — is sound policy,” Telhami said.
“It’s on the fly. This came as a shocker. The urge to
respond is not necessarily going to lead to wise decisions. And I think the
United States has a critical role in counseling.”
Israeli
hearts are hardened amid the trauma of Hamas’s assault, a barrage of missile
attacks alongside more than 1,000 of its fighters infiltrating nearly a dozen
communities in the south and attacking a music festival. Hamas massacred people
in their homes and kidnapped others, with estimates putting the dead in Israel
at more than 1,000 and at least 150 hostages taken into Gaza.
And now, Palestinians in Gaza are suffering under punishing
Israeli air strikes against Hamas targets and are caught behind a hermetically
sealed blockade.
Gaza’s
Ministry of Health, which operates under Hamas’s control of the strip, said
that more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday — when Hamas
launched its assault on Israel — and more than 5,000 injured, with 60 percent
of those women and children. Nearly 200,000 Gazans are believed displaced amid
punishing Israeli air strikes.
US officials are so far silencing calls for a cease-fire and
holding back criticism of Israel’s decision to cut off electricity, water and
supplies to Gaza and to send extra military support for the Israel Defense Forces.
“Israel
has a right to conduct an aggressive response to respond to the terrorism
that’s been committed against its citizens,” State Department spokesperson
Matthew Miller told reporters Tuesday when asked whether cutting off supplies
to Gaza constituted a war crime.
“We expect them to follow international law, we believe that
they will, and we will remain in close contact with them about it.”
Biden
is also challenged with avoiding a larger outbreak of war in the region, sending
the most advanced carrier strike group to deter Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon
from trying to open up separate fronts against Israel.
“Let me say again — to any country, any organization, anyone
thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t,”
the president said in Tuesday remarks at the White House.
American
and Israeli officials say there’s no evidence Iran had a direct hand in the
Hamas attack, even as they acknowledge Tehran’s longtime military backing of
the terrorist group.
It’s a delicate distinction. A more direct Iranian role in
the attack could push the US and Israel into a direct confrontation with Tehran
— particularly with at least 14 Americans believed to have been killed in
Hamas’s assault and at least 20 Americans taken hostage.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US
acknowledges Iran is complicit in Hamas’s assault, but said there’s no
confirmation that Iran knew about the attack in advance or helped plan or
direct this attack.
Even as Republicans are irate at the Biden administration’s
policy towards Iran, their calls for action have largely centered around
freezing US$6 billion of Iranian funds the US freed up in exchange for
releasing American prisoners, along with calls for imposing more
sanctions.
There’s
near-unanimous support in Congress to fulfill what is likely to be a White
House request for more aid to Israel. However, the request may also inflame
ongoing debates about US support for Israel, and how it should be balanced with
America’s other military commitments, like aid for Ukraine.
The House is largely paralyzed until Republicans can elect a
new Speaker after ousting Kevin McCarthy earlier this month. However, interim
Speaker Patrick McHenry has suggested Congress might act to support Israel
without a permanent speaker if necessary.
Meanwhile, the White House has dispatched Secretary of State
Antony Blinken to Israel in a signal of solidarity.
“In the
days ahead, we will continue to stand with our Israeli partners,” Blinken said
in a statement ahead of his departure Wednesday.
“As I
head to Israel, I will be working to ensure they are equipped to defend
themselves and making sure any hostile parties know they must not seek to take
advantage of the situation.”
