Israel has achieved all that it can militarily in Gaza, according to senior American officials, who say continued bombings are only increasing risks to civilians while the possibility of further weakening Hamas has diminished.
With the Biden administration racing to get cease-fire negotiations back on track, a growing number of national security officials across the government said that the Israeli military had severely set back Hamas but would never be able to completely eliminate the group.
In many respects, Israel’s military operation has done far more damage against Hamas than U.S. officials had predicted when the war began in October.
Israeli forces can now move freely throughout Gaza, the officials said, and Hamas is bloodied and damaged. Israel has destroyed or seized crucial supply routes from Egypt into Gaza. About 14,000 combatants in Gaza have been killed or captured, the Israeli military said last month. (The U.S. intelligence agencies use different, more conservative methodologies to estimate Hamas casualties, though the precise number remains classified.)
TVNL Comment: At what price? This is the bloodiest land grab since the US stole the land that belonged to the Native Americans. Biden and Harris financed this carnage. How ugly it has been, and continues to be. Israel will not stop killing Palestinians until the last of them is dead or gone from the land Israel is already selling to Jews who are interested.
More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its war on Hamas following...
US officials are assessing how the incursion might reshape the political and military dynamics of the...
