TEL AVIV – Israel’s army said Thursday that it would seek the end of Hamas in Gaza as airstrikes on the besieged enclave targeted the group’s senior leaders and caused widespread civilian casualties.
The intensifying conflict with Hamas comes as a shaken Israel wrestles with the aftermath of an attack that saw the group’s militants stalking civilians and soldiers throughout Israeli-border communities on Saturday, killing more than 1,000 people and kidnapping scores more, in one of the deadliest attacks in Israeli history.
The unprecedented incursion has left the region reeling, upending a years-long stalemate between Israel and Hamas, which effectively rules the Gaza Strip and its population of more than 2 million civilians. Israeli leaders are foreshadowing a ground invasion that seeks to change the status quo forever – in marked contrast to past incursions that left Hamas in place.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said in a televised briefing Thursday that Israel would no longer allow Hamas to exist as an entity next door.
“Unlike other operations, we are collapsing the governance and sovereignty of the Hamas organization,” he said. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists in recent days and armored divisions are massing near the border with Gaza.
The toll in Gaza from six days of airstrikes had reached 1,417 killed, including 447 children and 248 women, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry – rapidly approaching the more than 2,000 killed in the 2014 war even before the start of the ground invasion.
Humanitarian groups are issuing increasingly dire warnings about the consequences of a military campaign in a densely populated urban area already throttled by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade, which prevents many goods from entering the territory and most people from ever leaving.
Palestinians evacuate wounded in Israeli aerial bombing on Jabaliya, near Gaza City on Wednesday. Mohammad Al Masri/Associated Press
Doctors Without Borders described the situation in Gaza’s hospitals as “catastrophic.” As local authorities said that the enclave’s main power plant had now run out of fuel, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that “without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.”
“We know what it was like in 2014 and 2021, thousands died. Each time, our medical colleagues go to work, not knowing if they will see their homes or their families again,” said Matthias Kennes, the head of the mission for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza. “This time, after five days, there have already been 1,200 deaths. What can people do? Where are they supposed to go?”
Israel has not let any goods into Gaza since airstrikes began, describing the intended conditions as total siege – a tactic outlawed under international law. On Thursday, Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, doubled down on that threat, saying there would be no pause in the siege unless Hamas released the hostages that are believed to be in Gaza.
“Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be lifted, no hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And nobody should preach our morals,” he posted on the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter.
Hagari said Thursday that the army had notified the families of the 97 Israelis being held captive by the militants. Relatives said that the group – which includes women and young children – had been abducted from their homes and a music festival and driven into the Gaza Strip.
Most learned the news not from officials but from the internet. Some recognized their loved ones in videos circulating on social media. Others tracked their journeys from southern Israel across the border into the Gaza Strip using cellphone location data.
Palestinian women cry over the loss of their families in the northern Gaza Strip, at Al-Shifa Medical Hospital, on Wednesday. Loay Ayyoub/For The Washington Post
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday that it stood ready to help. “We have people on the ground, and we are ready to play our role of neutral intermediary and contribute to the release of these people,” regional director Fabrizio Carbone told reporters.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday in a show of support for Israel. “The message that I bring to Israel is this: You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourself, but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to,” he said from a podium in Tel Aviv, where he stood side by side with Netanyahu.
The United States is “working closely with Israel to secure the release of the men, women, children, elderly people, taken hostage by Hamas,” Blinken said. More than a dozen Americans were unaccounted for on Wednesday, according to the White House.
Any ground invasion is expected to be longer, bloodier, and larger than last time in 2014 and would likely have to destroy Hamas’s extensive underground tunnel network. In that war, troops just focused on the outskirts of urban areas. But the Israeli military insists this time that the soldiers will not hesitate to enter even the most densely packed areas, where the hostages are believed to be held.
Airstrikes have already been wider than in the past, and the army has abandoned engagement rules like “roof knocks,” a tactic by which the Israeli air force delivers warnings by firing nonexplosive or low-yield devices on buildings before destroying them.
During past conflicts, Israel has proclaimed repeated successes in assassinating leaders and bombing training grounds, rocket factories, and other facilities associated with Hamas and other militant groups in the enclave like Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But after the cease-fires, it has also watched as those groups rebuilt their reserves and new leaders arose.
Mourners attend the funeral of Israeli soldier Shilo Rauchberger at the Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel, on Thursday. Francisco Seco/Associated Press
Even if an invasion unfolds, Israel wants to avoid the reoccupation of Gaza, which promises to be costly and prolonged, said Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israeli military intelligence. Israel has superior weaponry, but Hamas knows the dense urban landscape and a sophisticated tunnel system, that it has been digging for years.
Yadlin said that Israel sought to remove Hamas from Gaza, then transfer it to the Palestinian Authority, or another Arab entity, but would retain its right to still counter Palestinian militant buildup there, as it does in the West Bank.
“Whoever wants Gaza will get it,” he said. “We don’t want to rule 2 million Palestinians.”
Hamas, which is widely believed to have sought this conflict to stymie the regionwide process of normalization with Israel and raise its profile, has welcomed a ground war – despite the untold suffering it would cause.
“We’re waiting for (an Israeli ground invasion) because we can’t confront the American fighter jets from the skies,” senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said in an interview with the Economist on Wednesday. “But we have tough men on the ground, they can confront any threat.”
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