Israel’s Operational Success and Strategic Shortcomings in the Gaza Strip

Israel’s Operational Success and Strategic Shortcomings in the Gaza Strip

By Brian Carter

January 31, 2025

The Israeli campaign into the Gaza Strip was a military success but has fallen short thus far of setting conditions to replace Hamas as a governing entity. The Israeli government enumerated three objectives at the beginning of the war: destroy Hamas’ military, return the hostages, and destroy Hamas’ government.[1] These objectives—though expansive—were achievable through a combination of military and political action. The Israeli campaign succeeded in destroying Hamas’ military and securing a ceasefire that would release the hostages. The campaign has also isolated Hamas in the Gaza Strip, though Israel and its partners will need to ensure that Hamas remains contained. But neither Israel nor the United States has tried seriously to achieve a political end state that would build upon this military success and permanently replace Hamas as a governing entity in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s failure to achieve this final war aim means that the strip will remain without an alternative governance structure and security broker, and Hamas remnants will inevitably try to fill that role again, especially as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdraw. Hamas will use this space to reassert its political authority and reconstitute its forces—unless the United States and Israel take further steps to prevent those things from occurring.

Source: Barak Ravid and Reuters.[2]

The IDF destroyed Hamas’ military through systematic clearing operations and targeted raids. The IDF isolated and then degraded Hamas units until they could not operate without being fully rebuilt, the doctrinal definition for destroying a military force.[3] Hamas could not impede any Israeli operation by late 2024, which demonstrated Hamas’ weakness. The IDF established two operationally significant corridors during its clearance operations that isolated Hamas forces in the north from their counterparts in the south and isolated Hamas from external resupply.[4]

The seizure of the two corridors can enable the IDF to prevent Hamas from reconstituting militarily.[5] The first corridor, which cut off the northern strip from the south, meant that Hamas’ forces in the south could not resupply those in the north, preventing Hamas‘ reconstitution in the north.[6] The IDF used this corridor to launch repeated raids into the northern Strip and disrupt Hamas' efforts at reconstitution because reconstitution requires a force to remain out-of-contact for substantial periods of time.[7] These raids prevented Hamas from benefiting materially from new recruits because they had no sanctuary in which to learn ambush techniques or how to build improvised explosive devices or rockets. The repeated IDF raids also killed key Hamas commanders and destroyed weapons stockpiles. Hamas in the northern strip could not readily replace dead commanders or destroyed weapons. The Philadelphi corridor, which cut Hamas off from external resupply, could prevent Hamas’ reconstitution over the long term if Israel or its partners secure the Gaza Strip-Egypt border after the ceasefire. This corridor could enable Israel to block Hamas resupply from elsewhere abroad and contain the group after the war.

The IDF’s isolate-and-raid concept was operationally sound but worked only so long as the IDF was in the Gaza Strip. Though Hamas is destroyed militarily, small cells of fighters remain throughout the strip. They will exploit the IDF withdrawal to establish a sanctuary for themselves and begin reconstitution efforts. Hamas may thus be able to reverse over time some of the hard-fought victories that the IDF achieved. A Hamas force reconstituted under these conditions is very unlikely to be able to launch another October 7-style attack any time soon, however.

IDF military pressure compelled Hamas to seek a peace agreement to release the hostages. The purpose of military force is usually to render an enemy unable or unwilling to fight. The Israeli logic was that military pressure on Hamas would make it lose either the ability or willingness to fight, which would eventually translate into a ceasefire-hostage deal.[8] Hamas was not willing to agree to a US-proposed, Israeli-accepted ceasefire in May 2024. The IDF’s military campaign compelled Hamas to concede military defeat when the group agreed to the May 2024 ceasefire in January 2025.[9]

The Israeli government has yet to translate the IDF victories in the Gaza Strip into a political victory that eliminates Hamas as a governing entity, however. The IDF and the Israeli government needed to define a clear political end state to turn the military victory into a victory that secured all three war aims.[10] The Israeli government refused to identify such an end state, making it difficult for IDF commanders to execute military operations that would have set better conditions to destroy Hamas’ ability to control the strip and rebuild its government.[11] The United States similarly never seriously articulated a desired political outcome in the Gaza Strip beyond a nebulous “peace.”[12] US and international insistence on political outcomes based on the Palestinian Authority, a body that has no capacity to govern the Gaza Strip (and can hardly control the West Bank), greatly constrained creative thinking about an approach to post-Hamas governance in Gaza that might actually come to pass.

The Israeli government and its allies and partners can still contain Hamas and limit its ability to threaten Israel again even without the group’s permanent destruction. Destroyed military organizations can reconstitute themselves given the space and time to do so, and Hamas will almost certainly attempt to rebuild its military and governance capabilities in the coming years, even if it does not fully take over the government in Gaza. The United States and its partners must prevent Hamas from rebuilding itself in order to avoid future rounds of conflict in the Gaza Strip. The United States, Israel, and their partners should support adequate border control measures to prevent weapons smuggling and ensure that humanitarian aid does not benefit Hamas. The fact that Hamas says it is prepared to distribute aid in Gaza is an alarming indicator in this regard.[13] It is not yet clear how Hamas will rebuild, or if Hamas in the Gaza Strip will remain part of the wider, multi-territory Hamas organization as Mohammad Sinwar takes control of the organization‘s military in the Gaza Strip.[14] Hamas will certainly attempt to reconstitute and could become a threat to Israel once more—even if Hamas never again reaches the capabilities it possessed on October 7, 2023. US policy should attempt to support Israeli efforts to prevent Hamas’ reconstitution.

[1] https://www.gov dot il/he/pages/spoke-statement251023

[2] https://x.com/BarakRavid/status/1879929140914319392; https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-are-main-elements-gaza-ceasefire-deal-2025-01-15/

[3] https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-90-1.pdf

[4] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/hamas-view-of-the-october-7-war/

[5] https://mrandrewfox.substack.com/p/ceasefire-in-gaza;  https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/hamas-view-of-the-october-7-war/

[6] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/hamas-view-of-the-october-7-war/ 

[7]  https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2023/01/31/5bdfe452/20-01.pdf

[8] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-netanyahu-says-military-pressure-needed-free-hostages-2023-12-25/

[9] https://www.timesofisrael dot com/biden-us-backed-pressure-on-iranian-axis-helped-secure-hostage-deal-end-of-gaza-war/;  https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-4-2024; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-6-2024; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-7-2024; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-11-2024; https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-12-2024; https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-the-hostage-ceasefire-agreement-reached-between-israel-and-hamas/ 

[10] https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-may-15-2024

[11] https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-05-15-2024-e9696aa2da25e447219f2be0c1926b11?utm_campaign=TrueAnthem&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

[12] https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/hamas-view-of-the-october-7-war/

[13] https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-ceasefire-hostages-militants-rule-93da074c251d0fcaa395503749e2849e

[14] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-has-another-sinwar-and-hes-rebuilding-0a16031d