The invading Israeli forces are still facing “fierce resistance” in Gaza, while more than three months of brutal aggression on the besieged Strip has caused a deep split in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet, according to a British daily.
Netanyahu’s cabinet is becoming increasingly isolated both domestically and internationally, said the report run by The Times on Sunday.
“Israeli forces are still facing fierce resistance in northern Gaza despite having claimed to be able to wind down operations in the area,” it added.
The report said that the ability of Hamas to “continue to put troops on the ground in Gaza City, the territory’s capital,” has raised questions about Israel’s “strategy for the war.”
It also highlighted that Joe Biden’s administration is “downgrading its expectations of the war’s outcome.”
This comes after US intelligence sources said they believe the Israeli military may have killed about 5,000 to 6,000 Hamas fighters, according to reports in American media; however, the Israeli military claims to have killed 9,000 fighters.
“[That] is a disparity which also appears to reflect the deepening divide between Netanyahu’s [cabinet], and the Biden administration,” it said.
The report also stated that Israeli and the US claims that hundreds of fighters of the Hamas resistance movement were killed in the ongoing aggression “has shown no signs of crippling its activities.”
The fighting in northern Gaza “followed a series of incidents in which Hamas attempted to show it had a broad presence there”, the daily said, noting that that the resistance fighters continued to “fire missiles into Israel from central Gaza, despite Israeli tanks on the ground.”
The Times said the prolonged fighting has also contributed to divisions in Netanyahu’s war cabinet, as Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff and now a member of the opposition National Unity party, stressed that Netanyahu’s war goal of the elimination of Hamas was unachievable.
“Whoever speaks of the absolute defeat and of it no longer having the will or the capability, is not speaking the truth,” he said in an interview last week with Israeli television, adding “That is why we should not tell tall tales.”
Eisenkot directly said the leadership is not telling the truth, the report said.
According to the report while Eisenkot and Benny Gantz, another former chief of staff, called for fresh elections in Israel within months, Netanyahu, however, insisted that there’s not going to be elections while the occupying regime is at war.
The pressure mounted on Netanyahu from the opponents comes as the number of Israeli military personnel is reportedly approaching the 200 mark.
Netanyahu also faces pressure to secure the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza, but he still continues to reject Hamas offers to end the war and release captives.
In late November, a short-lived 7-day truce saw more than 100 Israeli captives freed in exchange for Palestinians held illegally in Israeli jails. Israel says more than 132 captives remain in Gaza.
The report says Netanyahu is caught between his right-wing allies, who are urging a full-scale occupation of Gaza; the Biden administration, which wants him to begin talks for a so-called two-state solution; and the opposition, along with much of the country, who want him to quit.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 25,105 Palestinians and injured more than 62,681 others.
Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble in Gaza, which is under “complete siege” by Israel.
