WASHINGTON − Israel has achieved most of its battlefield aims against Hamas in Gaza, but is unlikely to eliminate the militant movement by continuing combat operations that have cost an estimated 40,000 lives, current and former U.S. officials say.
The assessment came as a new round of Gaza ceasefire talks started in Doha on Thursday, with CIA Director William Burns joining Israeli and Egyptian spy chiefs for closed-door negotiations. Hamas representatives did not take part.
The talks are happening under the shadow of the massive Gaza death toll and the looming threat of Iranian retaliation for the bombing death last month of a top Hamas leader in Tehran. Iranian officials have said a Gaza cease-fire would temper their promised response to the assassination, which they blame on Israel.
"The Biden administration does not want the Gaza war to expand into a regional war, and does not want the U.S. drawn into a regional war," Edward Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, told USA TODAY.
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Gaza death toll tops 40,000, Palestinian officials say
Even as negotiators met, violence continued in Gaza. Palestinian health officials said at least six people were killed on Thursday night in an Israeli air strike on a house in Jabalia in northern Gaza. The reported death toll of 40,000 is “a grim milestone for the world,” U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk said.
While U.S. arms sales continue, some officials are questioning whether Israel’s military has hit a wall in Gaza.
Ten months after Islamist fighters from Gaza rampaged across southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, Israel has largely met its military objectives in the tiny coastal enclave, U.S. officials told USA TODAY.
Tens of thousands of lives lost: Visualizing the death and destruction of Israel's war in Gaza
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Israel has seized terrain from Hamas in Gaza, and has rendered Hamas combat units largely ineffective. The officials, who characterized the conflict on condition of anonymity, said further security gains will require diplomacy rather than air strikes.
The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq proved that defeating conventional forces isn't sufficient for lasting peace, one official noted. Hamas is based on an ideology that can only be defeated through non-military means, the officials said.
'No such thing as total victory'
Continuing to kill Hamas fighters and leaders may benefit Israel in the short term, one official said. But unless Hamas is replaced with a post-war government that offers Palestinians a future, attacks on Israel are likely to continue.
Israel, however, still sees a military threat in Gaza, one official said, and Israeli leaders have said they won’t stop fighting until the threat is completely eliminated.
"There is tension within the Israeli government about the meaning of the 'total victory' that Benjamin Netanyahu aspires to,” Djerejian said, referring to the Israeli prime minister. “There is no such thing as total victory in the context of the Gaza war."
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Rooting out terrorists from Gaza's urban terrain is difficult and dangerous, said Mark Quantock, a retired Army general and former Central Command intelligence chief.
“I'm dubious of the notion that Hamas can be completely eliminated as a terror threat through military means,” Quantock told USA TODAY. “Like other terrorist movements, it's incredibly tough to get them all – or even most of them.”
Civilian deaths and 'lifelong animus'
If the Gaza death toll is half of the 40,000 reported by Palestinian authorities, Israel has likely doubled the next generation of Hamas fighters, Quantock said.
“Not an optimistic assessment for sure, but killing civilians creates lifelong animus,” Quantock said. “People don't easily ‘get over’ the killing of their family members. They just don't.”
It was back in December, a little more than two months into the Gaza war, that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that Israel risked “strategic defeat” through the civilian toll.
"In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” Austin said then. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat."
On Thursday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby signaled that, whatever misgivings might exist behind closed doors in Washington, the U.S. would continue providing Israel military and political support.
Israel’s military haa achieved "the vast majority of their objectives," Kirby said, but Hamas retains an ideology ”which continues to persist in the warped idea that what happened on the 7th of October ought to be able to happen again. So we're going to continue again to make sure that Israel has what it needs to continue to defend itself against that threat."
It was unclear what progress was made Thursday in the cease-fire talks, which include U.S. Middle East envoy Brett McGurk, David Barnea, head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, and Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel.Hamas negotiators waited on the margins to learn Israel's demands.
"The remaining obstacles can be overcome, and we must bring this process to close," Kirby said.
A key goal of the cease-fire talks is the return of more than 100 hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 and the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Israel and Hamas have each blamed the other for failure to reach a deal first outlined in June by President Joe Biden.
In Gaza, residents prayed for an end to the fighting.
"Enough is enough, we want to get back to our homes in Gaza City. Every hour a family is getting killed or a house getting bombed," said Aya, 30, sheltering with her family in the central part of the Gaza Strip.
"We are hopeful this time. Either it's this time or never, I am afraid," she told Reuters.
After more than 10 months of bombardment and displacement, many were losing hope.
“There is a sense that the will is still missing to make this war stop,” said Federico Dessi, Middle East director for the aid group Humanity and Inclusion. "The situation is pretty desperate."
