Israeli General: Our Army Is Bleeding in Gaza and We Must Get Out Quickly | News

The former head of the Operations Division in the Israeli occupation army, Major General Yisrael Ziv, said that Israel is stuck in the Gaza quagmire and is bleeding and must get out of it as soon as possible, stressing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument to remain in the Philadelphi corridor is meaningless in light of the army not finding active tunnels there.

Ziv explained in an article published on the Israeli Channel 12 website that “continuing the fighting without replacing the Hamas regime does not lead to any real results and costs soldiers their lives.”

Ziv, who is also a former commander of the Israeli army’s “Gaza Division,” considered that the war on the Strip has become in itself a goal that constitutes a source of stability for Netanyahu and his government.

Israelis believe that Netanyahu wants to prolong the war in order to preserve his political survival, and to disrupt his trial on corruption charges since 2019 that could land him in prison, in addition to his accusation of failing to prevent the Al-Aqsa Flood attack on October 7, 2023, and accusations at the international level of committing crimes of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

“In the twelfth month of the longest and most exhausting war in our history, Israel finds itself stuck in a security spiral, with events unfolding and reactions following without end in all the arenas surrounding us,” Ziv continued.

He added that from a security standpoint, “our situation is not only not improving, but is becoming more complicated, and on the other hand there is no horizon indicating the end of the war or even a direction to resolve the situation.”

The former army commander noted that the war could have ended half a year ago when Netanyahu sold the public the slogan “We are one step away from victory,” but it seemed endless.

“The main effort the Israeli army is making today is to curb the revival of Hamas, which continues to control the Strip,” he added.

The former Israeli leader refuted claims that Netanyahu had promoted as an excuse to remain in the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt, which Hamas is demanding that the Israelis withdraw from as a condition for any possible deal on a ceasefire and prisoner exchange.

He believed that Netanyahu was exploiting the regroupment of Hamas elements to build a new narrative of the so-called “existential threat,” which would allow him to cling to the continuation of the war and avoid reaching a prisoner release deal that would hasten the end of the war.

Northern Front

In a related context, Ziv said, “Israel is in the midst of a war of attrition in the north with no end in sight, and the Galilee is Hezbollah’s main area and the residents of the north are the fuel for its cannons.”

He stressed that the possibility of a ground invasion into Lebanon without any exit strategy or thinking about what it would achieve, even if it was a limited invasion, would complicate the situation much more.

He believed that Israel’s entry into southern Lebanon would not push Hezbollah to cease fire, but rather might increase the firing of rockets and drones towards Israel, as happened in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip after its invasion.

He stressed that in the absence of a weak government’s ability to make decisions regarding the return (withdrawal), Israel will remain stuck there.

Since October 8, and in the wake of the Gaza war, Lebanese and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, most notably Hezbollah, have been exchanging daily shelling with the Israeli army across the “Blue Line” separating the two sides, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, most of them on the Lebanese side.

Escalation in the West Bank

Regarding the escalation in the occupied West Bank, the former military commander held the “dangerous actions” committed by the two extremists in the government, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, responsible for “setting the region on fire.”

Major General Ziv continued by saying that Ben Gvir and Smotrich are competing over who will cause a comprehensive war that will reoccupy the West Bank and overthrow the Palestinian Authority.

Ziv stressed that the two extremist ministers have no idea what their dangerous actions mean, and how their exploitation of Netanyahu’s weakness will lead to the problem of regional instability.

For nearly 10 months, the rounds of indirect negotiations between Hamas and Tel Aviv have been faltering, due to Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing the war and his insistence on controlling the Philadelphi and Netzarim axes in the south and center of the Strip, while Hamas demands a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the return of the displaced without restrictions.

Despite Israeli obstacles, Qatar continues its mediation alongside Egypt and the United States to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and conclude a prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel.

With American support, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7, leaving more than 136,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amidst massive destruction and deadly famine.

In contempt of the international community, Israel continues the war, ignoring the UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate halt, and the International Court of Justice’s orders to take measures to prevent genocide and improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.