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Seth Frantzman Profile picture
@sfrantzman
May 12 • 9 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
It appears there is emerging concern within the IDF about the policy of going into neighborhoods like Jabalya and Zaytun again and again without a plan of who will run them after; essentially returning them to Hamas. In operations in Zaytun for instance, several soldiers have been killed in the last days.
For instance:

“We are now operating once again in Jabaliya. As long as there’s no diplomatic process to develop a governing body in the Strip that isn’t Hamas, we’ll have to launch campaigns again and again in other places to dismantle Hamas’s infrastructure,” Halevi was quoted by Channel 13 as saying. “It will be a Sisyphean task.”

timesofisrael.com/idf-chief-said…
Example 2:
"Even after all these actions and raids, Hamas will remain there," the IDF said this morning, "to influence Hamas, a governing alternative to Hamas is needed. There are no magic solutions. The most important thing is to decide and indecision drags the current reality"

Example 3:
Senior military officials say that "as long as there is no governing alternative to Hamas, we will continue to return to the same places." Meanwhile, the rocket fire from the Strip is expanding Nahal registers successes and reveals headquarters in Zeyton
Bennett's critique is the most clear and he correctly notes that removing the IDF from Khan Younis basically enables Hamas to move from Rafah to Khan Younis again as the IDF moves into Rafah.

"I’ve no idea why our government is so slow and seemingly indecisive. Neither do understand why we pulled out division 98 that had been sealing the Hamas fighters trapped in Rafah. Sort of like removing the lid on a can in which they were trapped, allowing them to disperse all across the Gaza Strip."
"It’s necessary so that when we capture a certain city (e.g. Han Yunus) in a tough and costly battle, we know who we hand it over to and who runs it. This ensures that Hamas will not re-enter the moment we leave, thus causing us to have to fight 3-4 times to recapture the same place(!). We can decide to keep Israeli temporary admin, or local Palestinian, or other options. But we need to decide SOMETHING. Who fills the void. Otherwise by default it’s Hamas, the worst of all options. And that’s what’s happening right now."
The most clear explanation of the emerging problem can be found in this article "Wasting troops’ hard-fought gains, Israel is taking time it doesn’t have in Gaza" timesofisrael.com/wasting-troops…
There are voices who portray what is happening in Gaza as a thought out tactic...as if there is a larger strategy, for instance making it so the IDF can easily raid parts of Gaza the way it does Jenin. Some say the IDF looked at the concept of "clear, hold, build" and simply decided to "clear" because it doesn't want to hold or doesn't have the manpower. But the statements above make it clear that it's not that this is a wider strategy, this is actually the result of not having a strategy.
Also:
"Senior National Security Council official Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yoram Hamo resigned from his post, according to a Sunday Kan report. Hamo, who headed the Division for Strategic Defense Policy and was reportedly responsible for Israel's plan for Gaza after the war, reportedly resigned due to indecision by the political echelon on the subject."

jpost.com/breaking-news/…

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More from @sfrantzman

Seth Frantzman Profile picture
May 13
There's something complex and symbolic about this, that requires a short article looking back at what could have been and how it all ended up.

My view has always been that Gaza was betrayed by the international community. The airport had long ceased to function due to the second intifada, but when Israel left in 2005 there was ample opportunity to make a change for the better.
However, what happened was that Hamas was allowed to take over Gaza via a violent coup. Very quickly after that, the international community embraced working with Hamas and NGOs and the UN and others began to partner with them, rather than condemn Hamas and isolate it and get the PA back into Gaza, the int'l community paved the way for its increasing authoritarianism and then its wars.
The fact that Hamas was very quickly backed by two western allies (Ankara and Doha) and that by 2012 its leaders were in Doha (a bizarre decision that the US supported)...led to Hamas getting legitimacy and getting massive funding. And it also acquired a huge arsenal.
Read 11 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
May 10
I see sometimes comparisons between the war in Gaza and the battle of Mosul, comparing the number of terrorists estimated killed and number of civilians. I think these comparisons require an additional layer of analysis. It’s not just about numbers and estimates, it really should be about the end result too.

I was in Mosul and Gaza so I know something about both.
Let’s just say that Hamas had 30,000 fighters and ISIS had 5-10,000 in Mosul maybe. If you go in with a measure of trying to get civilian casualties at 1:1 or something, is that really a good goal, or is the BETTER goal to defeat the enemy and control the area and end the war as fast as possible with minimum civilian deaths?
If the goal is just numbers then you resign yourself to trying to eliminate terrorists but you don’t put a priority on defeating them. And so you likely prolong the suffering of everyone. You can get your civilian casualties down to 1:1 but if your goal is to eliminate 15,000 terrorists or something as “victory” then you resign yourself to killing 15,000 civilians. That’s not good.
Read 11 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
May 9
One of the greatest misconceptions of the war, in my view, is that Hamas has taken heavy losses and is somehow on the ropes.

It is not. Hamas has returned to 90 percent of Gaza, mostly because Israel left every place it "cleared." The evidence for this is that Israel has gone repeatedly back into areas like Zaytun to fight Hamas again...it literally returns immediately after Israel leaves.
There is zero evidence that Hamas is under pressure. Hamas feels it is winning. Hamas may have lost thousands of its fighters, including senior commanders. But Hamas has ALWAYS been willing to take losses. It's entire history is full of it losing men, and having them detained and eliminated.
If Hamas was under pressure we would be seeing concessions. Israel claimed in November during the first hostage deal that pressure brings hostage released. Well...there is NO EVIDENCE that pressure was maintained and Hamas learned immediately that Israel was going to leave most of Gaza, all it had to do was wait.
Read 19 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
May 9
yes the goal is to keep Hamas in power, a goal of the west, and of Russia, Ankara and other countries, since at least 2012 and likely before. I don't know why, but Hamas is a group that a lot of countries want to run Gaza, even though it does tremendous harm and even though it massacred 1,000 people on Oct. 7...it's the most favored group in the entire region. Hamas gets more support than the PA, it gets more high level meetings, and it is a kind of consensus that Hamas should not just run Gaza, but I think quietly a lot of countries want to position it to run the West Bank also.
After 2007 when Hamas illegally took over Gaza and set in motion numerous wars...a decision was made to have western allies, who backed Hamas, to also host their leaders...the goal here (as with the Taliban) was to bring them to power. It took more than a decade...but they are on the verge of the goal.
Those who back Hamas are long-term planners. They knew it wouldn't happen overnight. They wanted to position Hamas to take over more areas when the PA leadership gets old. So they chose 2023 as the year to launch the big attack and they knew that after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, they would get more backing from Moscow and Beijing.
Read 11 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
May 8
Here's a question. According to the optimistic data on the Gaza war, the IDF has defeated up to 19 of the Hamas "battalions" and eliminated up to 14,000 terrorists and wounded the same number (i.e 28,000) and detained others. So if you add it up...you'd get the picture that Hamas barely has any men left, just a few thousand or so.

But let me ask this...how many men has Hamas recruited in seven months of war.
One of the things that the stories about Hamas "battalions" never seems to take into account is the fact that Hamas has access to more men. It has plenty of weapons stockpiled over a decade and a half. It doesn't require men to do much more than use rifles and RPGs nowadays.
I don't know about other terrorist insurgencies, in terms of how many men ISIS could recruit a month for instance, but clearly Hamas can recruit more people. Can it train them? Not so well. But Hamas has returned to control most of Gaza. It usually returns with plain clothes men, but they can access weapons usually quite easily if they need to.
Read 17 tweets
Seth Frantzman Profile picture
May 8
The story of the US delaying munitions for Israel is getting a lot of coverage, the BBC call it the "biggest warning yet for Israel."

So here's my question. While countries are growing frustrated with the long war in Gaza, have there been any real repercussions for Hamas since Oct. 7 on the global stage?
What I mean is this. Hamas is hosted by two western allies, in Doha and Ankara. There were no repercussions for Hamas leaders in Doha after Oct. 7. While the US and western leaders expressed support for Israel, they didn't move to sanction those leaders more or put them on trial for crimes against humanity.
Hamas leaders openly celebrated in Doha on Oct. 7. They faced no repercussions from the US, and Doha is the major non-NATO ally. And since Oct. 7 the Hamas leaders have jetted around the region, hosted as if they were a state by Turkey, a NATO member. So Hamas has gotten the message after Oct. 7 that there are no repercussions for its attack.
Read 14 tweets

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