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Why IDF hitting terrorists in schools made sense before, but not anymore – analysis
If you look objectively and without emotions at the black-and-white letter law of the laws of war, there is no question that there are some circumstances where a military can attack a school or a religious place of worship if enemy forces are using it for military purposes.
This has been Israel’s mantra in explaining to the world why it has the right to target dozens if not some hundreds, of schools and other civilian locations in Gaza: Hamas is using them so Jerusalem can target them.
Of course, there are questions of proportionality, such as that one cannot blow up a school that has one low-grade terrorist while killing 20 civilians.
But the basic principle that the IDF – at least as a matter of law – can kill terrorists in such locations if the proportional balance of terrorists to civilians is reasonable remains unimpeachable.However, the law is only the first prong of analyzing such a military action.
Even if something is legal, the maybe more important question is: is it smart, does it make sense, do the broader benefits outweigh the costs?
If the answer to that question in the war’s early months, and maybe even at least until defeating Hamas in Khan Yunis by early February was an emphatic yes, at some point it probably shifted to a ‘no’, and by May, it probably shifted to an emphatic ‘no.’
Until February, the IDF needed to erase October 7 from Hamas’s and its other enemies’ worldview as a paradigm for a helpless and weak Israel.
The IDF needed to make it clear to Hamas and other enemies that Hamas was defeated as a national military organization, that it could take control of any area of Gaza at will, and that any enemy who made a similar mistake to Hamas going too far could face the same scenes of military defeat and destruction.
In order to do that, the IDF had to defeat Hamas’s two most powerful arms, its northern Gaza battalions and its Khan Yunis battalions.
Also, defeating Hamas in northern Gaza led to a return of over 100 hostages, and there was a real chance that defeating Hamas in Khan Yunis might lead to another hostage deal.
In order to do that, the IDF could not allow Hamas to conceal itself among human shields or civilian locations.
Anywhere in northern Gaza and Khan Yunis where Hamas hid, the IDF needed to attack it, as long as proportionality was followed, even if it meant ancillary civilian casualties sometimes.
The only path forward to defeat Hamas
This was the only way to defeat and take apart Hamas’s battalions.
Also, certainly until December, and to some extent until mid/late March, Israel had strong and consistent US backing and did not yet face significant intervention from international courts.
March saw Israel make a number of errors, such as mistakenly killing seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen organization.
There is an ongoing debate among top defense officials about how necessary or not it was for the IDF to invade Rafah, though most are happy that the IDF took over the Philadelphi Corridor.
In any case, as soon as Israel invaded Rafah, the Biden administration froze some weapons sales publicly, the International Criminal Court Prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a variety of Israeli allies started discussions about sanctions or at least weapons sales freezes.
Why did everything shift so much? It could be Hamas’s Health Ministry reporting 30,000, then 35,000, then 40,000 Palestinian civilians dead and over 90,000 wounded.
Israel can absolutely reduce those numbers by noting that 16,000 or more were probably Hamas and maybe that the number of dead is 5,000-10,000 less, given at least one UN organization admitting in May that they had collected 10,000 bodies less than the death count, so far.
But in the best-case scenario, that means Israel probably still killed 15,000 civilians, and the number could easily be closer to 25,000.
At those numbers, Israel has essentially no allies who will continue to support strikes that kill a mix of terrorists and civilians. Each such strike makes more arms embargoes, war crimes charges, and broader sanctions more likely.
Moreover, it has become abundantly clear that invading Rafah did not break Hamas much more than invading northern Gaza-Khan Yunis. Each time Hamas is attacked, they do lose some forces, but they have a significant number of forces that are just hiding and waiting patiently until Israel’s attention from “mowing the grass” in Gaza fades.
So attacking one more school and killing 20 more terrorists is not really going to make a large difference in the broader goal of getting the hostages back or bringing an end to Hamas’s political identity.
And while the IDF legal division finally started to make some headlines after 10 months, there is still almost no information about its 300 operational probes, nor is there much more about its 135 accelerated criminal and operational probes. Aside from a few indictments from Sdei Teiman, Israel has presented little to the world to assuage its doubts about Israeli justice, even regarding high-profile cases like the mistaken killing of Reuters journalists in Lebanon back in October 2023.
The bottom line is that by May, if not by February, the costs to Israel’s legitimacy of killing mixes of terrorists and civilians – even if legally permissible – have likely shifted to become not worthwhile given the negligible impact that each individual incident has on achieving the war’s broader goals.
The sooner the IDF shifts strategies, the sooner it can start the process of restoring Israeli legitimacy and cutting off the threat of arms embargoes, global war crimes prosecutions, and sanctions.
Israel’s political echelon, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered the IDF to prepare for an “immediate” return to fighting in Gaza, KAN News reported on Friday evening.
The Jerusalem Post reported earlier this week that Israeli officials estimated that if no agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas, Israel would return to fighting in Gaza in about a week and a half.
“Hamas is currently rejecting [US Middle East envoy Steve] Witkoff’s proposal, so it is very difficult to make progress,” one official said.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Witkoff’s plan involves the release of half of the living hostages and the return of half of the bodies on the first day of the continued deal. The rest of the hostages and bodies would be returned on the 42nd day, which would be the final day of the ceasefire.However, some claim that the terrorist organization has not rejected the proposal. According to a source familiar with the negotiations, “Hamas has neither accepted nor rejected the Witkoff proposal.”
Eyal Zamir to Gaza border community heads: We’re preparing to fight
On his first day as the new IDF chief of staff on Thursday, Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir told heads of local councils from the Gaza border communities that “we are preparing to return to fighting” in Gaza.
“We must defeat Hamas,” Zamir said. “We are also preparing to resume fighting. The hostages are our top priority.”
Amichai Stein contributed to this report.
Negotiations over the continued release of hostages held in Gaza have stalled, and “right now there is nothing happening,” sources familiar with details of the talks admitted in conversation with The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
“Right now, there’s nothing happening,” an Israeli official told the Post, adding that “Hamas is currently rejecting the Witkoff proposal, so it is very difficult to make progress.”
According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, the Witkoff plan involves the release of half of the living hostages and the return of half of the bodies on the first day of the deal. The second half of the hostages and bodies would be returned on the 42nd day, which would be the final day of the ceasefire.
On the other hand, some claim that Hamas has not rejected the proposal. “Hamas has neither accepted nor rejected the Witkoff proposal,” said a source with knowledge of the negotiations with the Post.“Hamas has said it is willing to negotiate and has not rejected the plan. Since Israel currently states that this is the proposal on the table, from Israel’s perspective, Hamas has rejected it.”
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff not expected to visit Israel soon, source says
An Israeli source told the Post that there is no expectation for Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, to visit the region at the moment, adding, “He will only come to finalize a deal. And since there is no real progress right now, it is unclear when or if he will arrive.”
Without an agreement on the release of additional hostages in the coming days, Israeli sources say Israel is preparing to escalate its actions against Hamas. After the decision on Sunday to stop humanitarian aid, Israel is preparing to cut off water and electricity to the Gaza Strip, as well as resume fighting – some say this might happen, without a deal, as early as next week.
Israeli officials suggest that even without accepting the Witkoff initiative, Hamas might agree to release additional hostages in the near future in exchange for the release of terrorists from prison and the entry of caravans and humanitarian aid, but they add that this also depends on other issues.
“The Israeli government needs to decide what will be negotiated with Hamas and what they will receive in exchange for the release of hostages in the coming weeks,” said an Israeli source. “Hamas’s agreement to release more hostages depends on the answers to these questions.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday that Israel responded to the mediators’ request to allow a few more days of negotiations. Katz added,d “If Hamas does not release the hostages soon, the gates of Gaza will be locked and the gates of hell will be opened – we will return to fighting, and they will face the IDF with forces and methods they have never encountered before.”
Israeli officials suggest that even without accepting the Witkoff initiative, Hamas might agree to release additional hostages in the near future in exchange for the release of terrorists from prison and the entry of caravans and humanitarian aid, but they add that this also depends on other issues. “The Israeli government needs to decide what will be negotiated with Hamas and what they will receive in exchange for the release of hostages in the coming weeks,” said an Israeli source. “Hamas’s agreement to release more hostages depends on the answers to these questions.”
No progress has been made in the ceasefire talks in Cairo, and Israel is reaching a dead end, a source familiar with the details of the negotiations told The Jerusalem Post Saturday.
There were lots of technical discussions but no results, the source added.
Israel and mediating countries believe that only the Trump administration can perhaps break the talks out of the impasse.
“When [US Middle East envoy Steve] Witkoff arrives, things may happen. Everyone is waiting for him,” the source said.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene a meeting on the hostage deal in the next several hours with senior officials and the negotiation team, an Israeli official told the Post.
Hamas refusing Israeli proposal to extend phase one of deal
Hamas is refusing the idea of extending the first phase of the deal, Israeli officials said.
The Israeli and Qatari delegations arrived in Cairo on Thursday. The delegation is led by Coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing Persons, Brig.-Gen. (Res.) Gal Hirsch, as well as “M,” an anonymous officer from the Shin Bet. M is the former deputy of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, who is reportedly no longer part of the hostage deal negotiating team.
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