Israel’s War Aims Unravel as Gaza Stalemate Exposes a Military Built for Short Battles
JERUSALEM —
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise of a strategic victory is unraveling. Instead of triumph, Israel faces the contours of strategic defeat: a grinding stalemate in Gaza, an economy losing investor confidence, a fractured society, and the looming prospect of a confrontation with Iran that Israel is ill-prepared to fight. This is not a war Israel can win; it is a war that is consuming Israel from within.
Gaza as Prelude
Two years into the Gaza war, Hamas remains entrenched. Its tunnel system is largely intact, its ambushes more sophisticated, and its fighters still capable of inflicting mounting losses on the Israel Defense Forces. Attrition has failed to produce decisive results. The repeated assaults on Gaza City recall the Stalingrad analogy: an army flinging troops into fortified positions, eroding its own strength more than the enemy’s.
Gaza, like Stalingrad, has been reduced to rubble. For civilians it is misery; for defenders it is opportunity. Collapsed apartment blocks, shattered streets, and ruined neighborhoods now serve as cover and concealment. Tanks struggle to maneuver through debris. Every pile of broken concrete can conceal explosives, tunnels, or fighters. The destruction, intended to break resistance, instead creates a defensive terrain that favors the insurgents and magnifies Israeli losses.
An Army Built for Short Wars
The IDF was designed for short, high-intensity wars fought by a relatively small standing force backed by a large reserve. In peacetime, citizens rotate through reserve duty for limited stints; in wartime, they are mobilized quickly, serve for weeks, and then return to civilian jobs.
After October 7, 2023, Israel called up nearly 300,000 reservists, later raising the legal cap to 450,000, a scale consistent with a short, decisive campaign—not an open-ended occupation. Yet this war is now well into its second year. Reservists have been asked to serve far longer: in practice, many combat soldiers have logged 100 to 130 days in a single year, according to figures reported in the Israeli press.
The strain is visible. In July, as Israel prepared a renewed push into Gaza City, senior officers admitted to local media that reservist turnout was lower than expected, citing fatigue, family obligations, and a growing sense of futility. One retired general, quoted by Yedioth Ahronoth, warned bluntly: “We built this army for short wars. This is not a short war.”
Facing persistent shortages, Israeli officials have openly discussed recruiting from abroad. In July, the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration confirmed that it was expanding programs to bring in diaspora Jews willing to serve, with several hundred new recruits expected annually from the United States and France. Critics inside Israel have called the idea “desperate,” but its emergence reflects a manpower crisis in what has historically been one of the world’s most mobilized societies.
Regional Adversaries Rising
Rather than deterring adversaries, Israel’s campaign has emboldened them. On July 18, Israel launched a decapitation strike in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, killing the Houthi prime minister and eleven ministers during a cabinet meeting. According to Israeli officials, the operation was “a necessary blow to a terror government aligned with Iran.”
The Houthis responded by escalating. Within days, they expanded missile attacks in the Red Sea and unveiled new weapons that disperse multiple warheads before interception. Each inbound missile now forces Israel to fire as many as a dozen interceptors, turning the battlefield into an economic war of attrition. “For every missile they launch, we launch two, sometimes three,” an Israeli air defense officer told Maariv. “It’s unsustainable.”
Iran as the Strategic Trap
The 2025 “twelve-day war” with Iran underscored the imbalance. Israel relied on surprise, American intelligence, and covert access to Azerbaijani airspace. Those advantages are gone. Iran has since accelerated its missile development, boasting that it used weapons two or three decades old in the first round and now has far more advanced systems ready.
The United States, wary of escalation, has quietly withdrawn some assets from the region. Israeli planners can no longer count on limited retaliation and carefully choreographed exits. As one Iranian commander warned, “the next time will be for blood.” For Israel, a war with Iran is no longer a speculative scenario—it is a looming trap.
Hypocrisy and Blowback
After the July 18 strike in Sana’a, the Houthis raided United Nations offices and detained aid staff, accusing them of passing intelligence to Israel. The episode highlighted a bitter symmetry: Israel has long accused Hamas of infiltrating aid agencies in Gaza, even as it exploits similar avenues itself. Such actions deepen Israel’s legitimacy crisis abroad and reinforce the narrative of double standards in its conduct of war.
The Road to Defeat
Israel can devastate, but it cannot secure strategic victory. Gaza remains unbroken, regional adversaries are multiplying, and Iran is stronger than ever. Far from deterring Tehran, Israel is edging toward a confrontation it cannot win on favorable terms.
The road from Gaza to Tehran may not lead to deterrence but to strategic defeat — a trajectory less of triumph than of exhaustion, isolation, and eventual collapse.
