[News] From Gaza to the West Bank: Israel’s unyielding war machine

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 From Gaza to the West Bank: Israel’s unyielding war machine
By Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012>

Tuesday 11-February-2025 -
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/from-gaza-to-the-west-bank-israels-unyielding-war-machine/

“A year of combat”—this is how Israel’s new Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir,
described 2025 at a conference organized by the Israeli Ministry of Defense.

The exact sentence, translated from Hebrew, was: “The year 2025 will
continue to be a year of combat.” The word ‘continue’ is crucial,
suggesting that Israel will resume its wars, despite ceasefire agreements
signed with the Lebanese government in November and Palestinian groups in
January. In other words, it seems that Zamir is signaling that Israel will
reopen these two fronts, even in the face of ceasefire deals.

Despite Israel’s insatiable appetite for war, it is hard to imagine what
the Israeli army could achieve through renewed violence when it has already
failed to accomplish its objectives in nearly 14 months in Lebanon and over
15 months in Gaza.

Israel launched thousands of air strikes on Lebanon, destroying entire
towns and villages and killing and wounding thousands. It also dropped over
85,000 tons of bombs on Gaza, leading to the unprecedented genocide and the
killing and wounding of over 170,000. Despite this, Israel has failed on
both fronts. In Gaza, as reported by Reuters, Hamas alone managed to
recruit up to 15,000 fighters just before the end of Israel’s 471st day of
relentless warfare.

Furthermore, the return of nearly one million Palestinians to northern Gaza
has reset Israel’s so-called tactical or strategic achievements. These
efforts, aimed at depopulating northern Gaza to create permanent military
buffer zones, were reversed by the population’s return.

The war also came at a staggering cost to the Israeli army. Ironically,
during the same Ministry of Defense conference, Zamir revealed the actual
costs of Israel’s wars in the past year. He stated that the Ministry “now
provides care for 5,942 new bereaved family members”, adding that the
“Rehabilitation Department has taken in over 15,000 wounded service
members, many bearing both physical and mental scars from the war.”

These figures were not broken down by category or war front and did not
include casualties from 7 October, 2023, to the end of the year. However,
they represent the highest estimate of Israeli casualties provided to date,
raising the question: Can Israel afford to return to war?

Former Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who was dismissed by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 5 November, offered clues about Israel’s
military crisis during an interview on Channel 12. Gallant recalled a
conversation he had with Netanyahu after the Hamas assault on the Gaza
Envelope region in southern Israel.

“The Prime Minister told me that we would see thousands of dead in the
offensive in Gaza. I told him: We will not see thousands of dead,” Gallant
said. Zamir’s numbers, however, have now validated Netanyahu’s estimates,
not Gallant’s.

Another early fear of Netanyahu was that “Hezbollah will destroy everything
if we hit it”, referring to the city of Tel Aviv. While that particular
prediction did not fully materialize, the stalemate in Lebanon ensures
Israel will remain haunted by similar fears.

So, will 2025 be a year of combat for Israel?

Netanyahu faces a twofold challenge: if all war fronts officially end, his
government will collapse; but if he returns to active war, he will fail to
claim any decisive victory.

It is possible that Zamir’s “year of combat” doctrine is aimed at saving
face—projecting strength without reopening major war fronts. Israel may
continue to create crises in Gaza and Lebanon without fully engaging in
war, perhaps by delaying scheduled withdrawals, adding new demands, and so
on.

But this may not be enough for Netanyahu to stay in power, especially in
the face of growing dissatisfaction. This is where the Iron Wall, Israel’s
ongoing military operation in the West Bank, comes into play.

Though Israel has launched numerous raids in the West Bank, the 21 January
campaign was directly linked to the war in Gaza. It began two days after
the latest ceasefire, signaling that a large deployment of Israeli forces
in the West Bank was meant to offset reduced combat in Gaza.

It also served to distract from Israel’s sense of failure in Gaza, as
described by Israeli National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who quit
Netanyahu’s coalition on 19 January.

The war in the West Bank, centered in the Refugee Camp of Jenin, has used
tactics similar to those employed in Gaza. Tens of thousands have been
displaced from Jenin, Tulkarem and other northern West Bank regions;
hundreds have been killed, wounded and had their homes demolished. The
Israeli army seems to be attempting to compensate for its failure to
ethnically cleanse Gaza by displacing entire communities in the West Bank.

If Israel persists in making 2025 a “year of combat” focused on the West
Bank, the consequences could be dire, especially for an army that has
already suffered unprecedented losses on multiple fronts.

If Israel continues on this path, an all-out uprising may become imminent,
and new, unexpected fronts could open up simultaneously.

Israel must be reined in. It is acting like a wounded animal and, in doing
so, it continues to kill Palestinians in the name of security while
destabilizing the entire Middle East. Netanyahu must be stopped.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
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