The odds of achieving the complete elimination of Hamas were nil from the moment that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared them to be the chief goal of the war. Even then it was clear to anyone who thought about it that the complete destruction of the terrorist organization is wishful thinking that is militarily unfeasible even under conditions unlike those that exist in the Gaza Strip.
The intelligence (which has since proved to be very limited) that we had before October 7 was enough for us to realize that a sophisticated network of tunnels was spread all across the Gaza Strip. What we suffered from these attack tunnels in the 2014 Gaza war was enough to know that the tunnel network, which runs under hospitals and many other public buildings in the relatively small area that is the Strip, would preclude a quick and decisive military operation that could eliminate the terrorist organization even under more favorable conditions. Hamas is not easily defeated.
Of course Netanyahu knew from the get-go that his rhetoric was baseless and would ultimately collapse in the face of a military and humanitarian reality that would force Israel to reach an end point in the current campaign. That time has now arrived. The defeat of Hamas is a long way away. We haven't even reached the point at which we are in control of the timetable of the war that began on October 7.
The best of Israel's enlisted and reserve troops are fighting with determination, courage and admirable professionalism. Cooperation, coordination and synchronization between the army, the air force, the navy and Military Intelligence has been more effective than in any conflict since the Yom Kippur War. Never have the various fighting forces demonstrated such an impressive level of coordination – not in the first or second Lebanon wars, nor during any of the military operations in the West Bank. That includes the operation in 2002, at the height of the second intifada, which was in essence a violent conflict inside several refugee camps without the subterranean infrastructure that poses such a threat to our forces today. The 2002 operation didn't lead to the elimination of terror groups in the West Bank, but it did dramatically reduce the incidence of terror. It took several years before we could say that the operation was truly over.
The various military operations of Gaza – in 2008-2009, 2014, 2021 and all the others – were not as impressive as the offensive being waged today. But it's deceptive to think that it will bring about the destruction of the terrorist organization, unless it is a pre-planned and comprehensive campaign that is designed to drag on long after the events of October 7 in order to create time for Netanyahu to stave off a rapid descent into the abyss of the forgotten, as he deserves.
We should expect difficult days ahead, with a growing number of fallen soldiers and painful scenes of destruction and desolation in Gaza, which cast a heavy shadow on the State of Israel and undermine the support and patience shown toward us by even the friendliest countries.
What should we do? I believe that the time has come for Israel to express its readiness to end the fighting. Yes, end the fighting. Not a pause and not a temporary cessation of two, three or four days. An end to the hostility – period. At that time, Israel will need to bring back the hostages, those who are alive and those who are dead. If we wait, it won't be long before the only ones we can bring back will be the dead, because there won't be any living ones. A cessation of hostilities must be conditioned on the release of all the hostages, every last one of them, the soldiers and the bodies of all those who have been held by Hamas for years. All of them.
In exchange, Israel will have no choice but to release all the Hamas prisoners it holds. I refused to agree to a deal that was offered to me when I was prime minister that would have led to the release of Gilad Shalit. The terms were much better than those that Netanyahu finally agreed to, that called for freeing 1,027 murderers, among them the one whom the prime minister today calls a Nazi, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. He released all those murderers, including residents of East Jerusalem and citizens of Israel, in exchange for one soldier.
Back then, I refused the dubious honor of taking credit for the joy at Shalit's release because I feared that releasing far fewer prisoners, even without blood on their hands, was unacceptable. Today, I say, release them.
If there is no other way to bring the hostages home, there is no way to avoid a swap. The obligation of the State of Israel to those of its citizens who were abducted from their homes, their bedrooms, living rooms and shelters is greater than the shame entailed in making concessions to Hamas.
Israel must say that the end to the fighting will involve freezing the deployment of the military forces wherever they are on the day the cessation goes into effect. At the same time, Israel must say that negotiations will begin with the Palestinians on the future of the Gaza Strip, with Egypt acting as mediator.
This is how the situation looks today: On the one hand, Israel has racked up impressive military achievements. At the same time, Israel's justified and inevitable military action threatens the existence of Gaza as a habitable place. On the other hand, a black cloud is casting a shadow over the State of Israel as a result of the destruction it has wrought. We can justifiably be angry at the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of public opinion, governments and world leaders who preach morals to us in circumstances that, had they suffered them, they would have reacted to more harshly than we have. Many of those who criticize us have acted no less brutally themselves without hesitation, indiscriminately bombing and wreaking destruction on countries and populated areas thousands of kilometers away from their homelands when their citizens have been threatened, and in some cases killed by terrorist organizations.
But only complete fools, like the ignoramuses from Channel 14 and their viewers who eat up such nonsense, fail to understand how much Israel depends on the goodwill of the leaders of these countries, led by U.S. President Joe Biden, and how much their cursed messiah, Netanyahu, has made Israel dependent on aid from the United States and other countries for its stability and deterrence.
The time has come. We need to take a determined stand without hesitation, without political calculations about opinion polls and future Knesset mandates, and immediately bring about the next phase of the current conflict – the cessation of hostilities, the return of the hostages (living and dead) and negotiations mediated by Egypt on the future of Gaza.
There is no chance that Netanyahu will ever agree to this because he believes his personal future, his survival, his political career, his legacy, his family and children all depend on continuing the war. For that, he is willing to let the nation burn.
Will any of his war cabinet colleagues have enough courage and determination to do what is needed now?
Ehud Olmert is a former prime minister of Israel