Four key takeaways from Israel's Operation Steel Swords

Last Friday, the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, which ended after a week, was not extended, which led to the resumption of active hostilities.

Meanwhile, it is clear that the end of the war is in the long term. Apparently, the completion of operations to clear the northern part of the Gaza Strip from terrorists may require about another month, if not more. Establishing control of the central and southern parts may take two to four months after this.

What is even more important is that in the medium and long term, the results of Operation Steel Swords will depend not so much on the number of shells fired and the degree of success in completing the task of eliminating the Hamas military infrastructure, and not so much on the number of Gazans killed during the fighting, how much depends on the ability of all the players involved to negotiate or at least communicate.

And in this area I would like to record a few preliminary results.

The story of the ceasefire and the release of hostages is indicative, in my opinion, in two respects.

First, it is important to emphasize that even after October 7, if there is serious motivation and the ability to attract mediators acceptable to both sides, negotiations and even agreements between the Israeli government and Hamas are still possible, as before . This is actually extremely important.

Secondly, any agreements, no matter how interested both parties are in them, can be broken at any moment. The external reason can be any - the influence of random factors here is very significant. This could be a terrorist attack like the one that occurred in Jerusalem on Thursday last week, or a one-time shelling of Israeli territory of any scale. These could be drastic actions by any of the external players, such as, say, Hezbollah or other proxies of Tehran. These could even be reckless (or deliberately provocative) statements or symbolic gestures by one of the Israeli politicians, as has happened many times before during periods of calm, or even outside the relatively successful progress of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Whatever the trigger, the reason for the ease with which any fateful agreement can be disrupted lies in the total distrust of each other , the reluctance to give up the maximalist goal and the inability to find compromises.

Viewed from a longer perspective, it seems that the real reasons for the problem are that the elites (or at least a significant part of them) on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in fact perfectly adapted to function in a situation of unsustainable status quo, which any changes may threaten. Any agreement with the eternal enemy is too significant a risk for the establishment. Therefore, you can refuse it at any moment, returning to the usual, albeit not entirely comfortable, situation of confrontation.

As for the broader regional geopolitical context , there are such observations based on the results of almost two months of war.

Firstly , it seems that we can now cautiously state that the IDF operation against Hamas has not developed into a large-scale regional conflict . It would be unjustified to say that Hezbollah’s provocations are purely symbolic (people on both sides of the Lebanese-Israeli border are dying in numbers not seen since 2006), however, as they say in Israel, the intensity of the escalation is being kept “below a threshold level.” In Israel, of course, there is talk about the impossibility of coming to terms with the very fact of the existence of a terrorist force that looms over the north of the country and has a military power tens of times greater than that which was at the disposal of Hamas in Gaza. However, it is clear that even if the Israeli government decides to undertake a truly serious operation to eliminate this threat, this will not happen until the end of the main hostilities in Gaza.

Far from explosive is the intensity of the already familiar strikes by missiles, drones and aircraft on other potential fronts of a hybrid regional war, into which the escalation funnel could potentially involve the US and Iran . For example, even the death in Syria of two high-ranking Iranian officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Saturday night due to an Israeli airstrike did not lead to an immediate increase in the stakes on the part of the “resistance forces,” as Tehran calls the totality of its proxy forces in the region.

Secondly , as was expected from the beginning of hostilities in Gaza, each new day of military operation will reduce support for Tel Aviv's actions by its allies . The shock of the October 7 terrorist atrocities outside Israel subsided very quickly. Since then, the daily news has been filled with images of destroyed homes in Gaza and gruesome statistics on Palestinian casualties. The catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the IDF's actions will leave few people indifferent.

Pressure on Israel is growing even from the United States , which is gradually evolving from unconditional support to very persistent criticism. In addition to the humanitarian component, Washington is alarmed by the lack of clear and clearly articulated post-war plans for Tel Aviv. Like most of the world community, the United States would like to see a future in the Middle East in which both the State of Israel and the State of Palestine . From some perspective, despite the colossal destruction and losses, the IDF operation, which will inevitably lead to the removal of Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, may offer a chance for the reunification of the Palestinian territories as a single political entity . However, Benjamin Netanyahu is not ready to confirm that he agrees with this development of events. On the contrary, he argues that Israel's forceful presence in the Gaza Strip will remain after the end of the active phase of hostilities and the completion of the objectives of Operation Steel Swords.

The lack of understanding of the strategic prospects for overcoming the current crisis, along with the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe, remains the main factor causing concern not only in Washington, but also among the entire world community.