Israel's war with Iran lasted just 12 days. So why has the fight with Hamas in Gaza lasted for over 600?

Israeli undercoat government minister Benjamin Netanyahu's triumph swish o'er Iran turned out to be painfully short lived.   

Just hours after announcing a ceasefire Tuesday and proclaiming that "every military in the world" would study Israel's successes in the attacks he authorized, there was word of heavy losses in Israel's other war — against Hamas in Gaza.

Seven Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers were killed when their armoured personnel carrier was attacked near Khan Younis. In all, 30 Israelis have been killed in Gaza since the IDF broke its ceasefire with Hamas in March. 

Overall, the IDF says 879 of its soldiers have been killed since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a total that includes deaths fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Whereas the war with Iran lasted barely 12 days, Israel has been fighting in Gaza for more than 600, in spite of Hamas being a much smaller adversary. However, the longer the war drags on, the more pressure Netanyahu faces — both inside and outside Israel — to reach a deal and bring the remaining hostages home. 

Some observers in Israel believe the effective defeat of Iran, Hamas's major benefactor, could force the Palestinian militant group to reassess its ability to hold out in Gaza.

"It may clear the way for a deal, because Hamas looks around and sees their Iranian sponsors have been taken out," said Dan Diker with the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

Diker's centre engages in public diplomacy and lobbies on behalf of Israel across the Middle East. It's on the record as opposing a two-state solution to the more than 70-year conflict.

Like many Israelis, Diker says he believes the Gaza Health Ministry figures of 56,000 dead in Gaza are inflated, and that the number of people going hungry there is also overstated. (The United Nations considers the death toll reliable and other estimates put it even higher.)

Diker says he can see a scenario where Hamas's remaining leaders in Gaza agree to live in exile, because political and military assistance from Iran is no longer available. 

Israel and the U.S. Claim that Iran trained, funded and equipped many of the Hamas militants involved in the Oct. 7 attacks that killed some 1,200 people.

Heading into the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump raised hopes of a breakthrough in negotiations.

But later, Qatari officials involved in mediation said they had received no new offers from either side.

In late May, Hamas reportedly rejected an offer put forward by U.S. Emissary Steve Witkoff. It would have seen the gradual release of hostages along with the IDF pulling back from many parts of Gaza. It also would have frozen the war for 60 days.   

Hamas has been consistent in its demands for a permanent end to the fighting. While the group denied rejecting the proposal outright, it did stipulate unspecified changes that Witkoff called unacceptable.

Qatari negotiators have reportedly been holding indirect talks with both Israel and Hamas to see what, if anything, has changed in their position.

"We are left behind and no one is paying attention to us," said 29-year-old Bakr Awda.

"The negotiations are for nothing, they come and go and they don't add anything," said 24-year-old Abdul Hafez Saleh.

However, President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, said he believes there is a window to make a deal in Gaza if Trump personally intervenes, as he did with the Iran-Israel ceasefire.

Netanyahu is facing pressure from inside and outside the country to bring the war in Gaza to a long-overdue conclusion.

Among those who have pushed hardest are the family members of some of those held by Hamas.

As many as 25 hostages are believed to be alive in Gaza. Within hours of the Iran ceasefire, many of their family members were urging Israel's prime minister to extend it to Gaza.

"To conclude this decisive operation against Iran without leveraging our success to bring home all the hostages would be a grave failure," said a group of the hostages' families. 

Critics on Israel's left accuse Netanyahu of keeping the war going to ensure the support of far-right groups in the Knesset, so he doesn't lose his majority and face an election. Netanyahu is also currently on trial facing three corruption-related charges.

His government has previously said the prime directives are still to free the hostages, destroy Hamas and ensure militants in Gaza no longer pose a threat. But it has never spelled out precisely when those conditions would be considered met.

Some of Israel's traditional allies in the West, including Canada, are also applying pressure to end the war. 

Several governments, including Canada's, have condemned Israel's actions in Gaza — including cutting off most food and aid deliveries for almost three months — saying the denial of such humanitarian assistance is a breach of international law.

Notably, Palestinian suffering in Gaza is rarely discussed on Israeli television or by government officials.

Indeed, Israel's government has accused the United Nations, international aid agencies and many private humanitarian groups of antisemitism for contradicting its narrative over how the war is being fought.

Unlike with Iran, where most Israelis were fully supportive of the attacks, the longer the war in Gaza continues, the more polarizing it appears to get with the Israeli public.

At the same time, members of Israel's government, which includes influential members of far-right parties, openly and regularly suggest that destroying buildings in Gaza and herding people into tiny parcels of land could be the first step in the mass displacement of Palestinians to pave the way for new Jewish settlements — tantamount to ethnic cleansing. 

On Israel's Channel 12, a Tuesday morning panel criticized what it viewed as Israel's lack of clear war goals.

"I think that over the last 12 days, we may have been blinded by the sparkle of victory — so much so that our pupils shrank, and we stopped seeing that behind it all, there are still 50 hostages," said Gilad Shalmor, one of the channel's top correspondents, who included in his count hostages already believed to be dead. 

How the U.S. Was so sure Iran was building a nuclear bomb

Some Israeli commentators believe Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, may want to leverage the success of the campaign against Iran and call an early election — but that could be difficult for him to win with hostages still in captivity, so a compromise over Gaza may be necessary.

"I don't believe there will be elections before the resolution of the Gaza hostage situation and the Hamas situation," said Diker.

Foreign correspondent

---

---