The fallout of Israel’s failed attempt to crush Gaza

The guns have fallen silent in Gaza, for now. After fifteen months, a ceasefire agreement has brought a pause to the relentless genocidal killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians and the near total destruction of the Palestinian enclave by the state of Israel.

The first thing to note is this: the Palestinians did not bow or surrender even as they stood there, practically defenceless, under the ceaseless onslaught of one of the deadliest military machines in the world. Israel on the other hand, with its jets, bombers, missiles, tanks, drones and the support of the US military and other western militaries, did not manage to enforce any of its stated war aims. Thus, to paraphrase the words of Henry Kissinger, they have lost the war because they failed to win it. This has important consequences that must be analysed.

To begin with, the standstill will no doubt usher in a sense of relief amongst the Palestinians and the millions of workers and youth who have stood in solidarity with them. Likewise, many Israelis will be celebrating the end of hostilities and the instability they bring, along with the return of the hostages. Nevertheless, the relief will not stop the critical question from being asked: what was it all for? And, does it bring the end of the decades-long oppression of the Palestinians closer?

Destruction

After spending 15 months propping up, funding and arming the Israeli war machine, Joe Biden and other European leaders were quick to congratulate themselves and cynically rejoice at the prospects of peace. But what peace is it exactly that these people have helped prepare for the Palestinians?

After one year of relentless bombardment, the scale of destruction in Gaza is nothing short of catastrophic. The official death toll is over 46,000, 13,000 of those being children. However, these figures are an underestimate of the true extent of the carnage. A study published in The Lancet, a respected medical journal, estimates that by October 2024 the true direct and indirect death toll likely exceeded 70,000, and could, as The Lancet also informs us, plausibly be higher than 186,000.

Beyond the immediate loss of life, the war has inflicted deep wounds on Gaza's social fabric. Over 90 percent of the population, a staggering 1.9 million people, have been displaced from their homes. Healthcare facilities have been repeatedly targeted, with over 650 attacks documented, resulting in the deaths of more than 1,000 health workers. The education system lies in ruins, with 95 percent of all schools and all Universities damaged or destroyed, leaving 660,000 children without access to formal education.

According to the UN, in January 96 percent of children under two were not getting their required nutrients. In total, 345,000 Gazans faced catastrophic food shortages, and 876,000 faced emergency levels of food insecurity.

A recent BBC programme painted a harrowing picture of daily life in Gaza, where families scavenge through rubbish heaps for scraps to sell for food, and children are forced to relieve themselves in the open, vulnerable to attacks by wild dogs.

The cumulative impact of the war extends far beyond physical destruction. Widespread malnutrition, the collapse of sanitation systems, and the psychological trauma inflicted on the population will have lasting consequences for generations to come.

The deal

Following the red thread running through this conflict, the ceasefire agreement itself, and the manner in which it came about, illustrates the cold-blooded cynicism of Israeli imperialism and its backers in the West.

The deal outlines a three-phase process aimed at addressing key issues and restoring stability. The first phase centers on a prisoner exchange, with 33 Israeli captives being released in return for about 1,700 Palestinians. Amongst those to be released are over 1,000 detained without charge or trial after October 7, 2023. And yet those held by Hamas are called ‘hostages’ and Israeli captives are called ‘prisoners’ by the western press, but they too were hostages. Israel will also begin withdrawing troops from populated areas in Gaza, and the Rafah crossing with Egypt will reopen for humanitarian aid.

In a White House press conference to announce the deal, Joe Biden refused to acknowledge the role of Donald Trump in securing the deal / Image: Trump White House Archived, Flickr

The second phase aims for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of all remaining Israeli captives. And finally – if we ever get this far! – there will be a third phase where the bodies of Israeli captives who have died will be returned and a long-term reconstruction plan for Gaza will be implemented.

But this raises some important questions. The deal in all its crucial elements is exactly the same deal that Hamas agreed to back in May 2024! While Israel dragged its feet, this was agreed to by both parties last summer, but scuppered by Netanyahu who insisted that Israel could not withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor on the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Netanyahu claimed this was critical to Israel’s national security. But the deal that was agreed to this weekend indeed included precisely a withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor. That was always nothing more than an excuse. This has exposed the cynical calculations of the Israeli PM, callously motivated by reasons of personal and political survival, something which was not lost on the families of the Israeli hostages.

In a White House press conference to announce the deal, Joe Biden refused to acknowledge the role of Donald Trump in securing the deal – “is that a joke?” he said. The fact is however, that Biden did not have anything to do with the agreement finally coming together. It was secured solely through the intervention of Donald Trump – before he had even entered office!

Acting on behalf of Trump was his envoy Steven Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer and a close ally. Witkoff had no official position, yet he not only pushed through the finalisation of the deal in Qatar, where the negotiations were taking place, but also forced Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in a rude and brusque manner, to sign it without delay.

Let us restate the basic facts so far: Donald Trump secured, in a matter of days, a deal that the Biden administration could not secure for more than eight months. It is clear from this that Biden had no intention or specific desire to make a real effort to bring Israel to stop its war.

They were talking about peace, while at the same time arming Israel to the teeth and giving it any support it asked for. In total, the United States spent $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel from October 2023 to October 2024. American and British forces also supported Israel with intelligence gathering and target acquisition. Western governments also formed a political united front in defence of Israel.

In all but words, therefore, Washington and its European lackeys have formed part of Israel’s war coalition and had no intention of forcing Netanyahu to make a deal. This was part of Biden’s core foreign policy, which dictates that the US must forcefully defend any challenge to its domination or that of its allies anywhere in the world.

Accordingly, whatever happens, the US cannot be seen to retreat and, if at any time it comes under pressure, it must merely double down with force. But doubling down to showcase the power of American imperialism merely led to a display of its limitations.

Victory or defeat

Despite the overwhelming military force deployed against Gaza, Israel failed to achieve its key war aims, which were the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages. Hamas to this day, remains a potent force, capable of inflicting casualties on Israeli troops and launching rocket attacks. Meanwhile, the war has enormously radicalised Palestinian youth who are ready to replenish the ranks of the organisation.

Despite the overwhelming military force deployed against Gaza, Israel failed to achieve its key war aims / Image: Michael Shvadron, Wikimedia Commons

“We are in a situation where the pace at which Hamas is rebuilding itself is higher than the pace that the IDF is eradicating them,” Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli brigadier general, told The Wall Street Journal.

Not only is Hamas not destroyed, but it is fully in charge of Gaza from which Israel has agreed to a complete withdrawal. With the withdrawal from the Philadelphi corridor and the resumption of trade and aid, the situation is, from the point of view of who rules Gaza, being rolled back to exactly how it was on 6 October 2023. In other words, a total failure of the Israeli mission and a humiliation of the Israeli state. At a certain point, this must lead to critical questions being asked inside Israel.

Officially, Netanyahu claimed that the war was necessary to bring the hostages back, and yet we can see that the war did not bring the hostages back at all. It is clear that to a large extent this war was fought and continuously extended as a means for Netanyahu to maintain his own grip on power and to avoid corruption cases which were being brought against him.

Meanwhile, Israel has paid a price. Officially, at least 400 Israeli soldiers were killed and up to 6,000 wounded. The real figures are much higher and do not account for PTSD and other mental traumas which shot up amongst soldiers engaged in the war. Meanwhile, it is clear that many hostages died while Netanyahu was busy disrupting any deals.

Cracks in the armour

It’s clear that, if Trump twisted his arm, war weariness extending into the Israel Defence Force itself also played a part. While support for the war remained high, the initial mood of war hysteria had begun to dissipate. This was clear as the number of reservists who showed up after being called up dropped from almost 100 percent at the beginning of the war to 75-85 percent last November.

Haaretz has published a damning report of the rising unease amongst rank and file reservists. According to one survey, they found, “only 56 percent of Jews would encourage a family member who has already served in the reserves to go back again.” In fact, according to the same survey from August, only “57 percent of Jewish Israelis would encourage their kids to get drafted at all.” and furthermore, “from June to November, the portion who said they would not encourage them nearly doubled (from 7.5 to 13 percent).”

One higher ranking officer interviewed by the paper echoed the difficulties getting soldiers to go to Gaza saying that, “it's getting worse – there’s less and less sense of an endpoint.”

One three-tour reservist made a series of remarkably revealing comments:

“There's a general sense that the structure isn't holding up. Discipline isn't what it should be. We don't feel that there's a plan for the day after and for the next day. It's not very clear what we're doing – there's a sense that each division commander does what he thinks, because there's a sort of vacuum. If the soldiers ask, they say ‘It's complicated, you don't understand.’”

These are serious words coming from soldiers who would be under enormous pressures to maintain a united front around the army. Officially, the war was being fought to uproot Hamas and free the hostages, but the soldiers on the ground were seeing a different reality:

“By the summer, soldiers had much less faith in the major war aims, and there was no progress with the hostages.”

In fact hostages were dying due to the actions of the IDF: “We got the sense that we're not doing anything good. Then we had operations [whose purpose] we didn't understand, [...] people get killed in these operations, and we didn't understand the tactics or the strategy.”

Not only was the IDF not able to defeat Hamas in Gaza, its aggression opened the doors to retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, as well as from Iran / Image: IDF Spokespersons Unit, Wikimedia Commons

These are serious warning signs to the Israeli ruling class, which relies on the myth of its state and in particular its military as an omnipotent defender of the Jewish people. Both these assertions have been seriously shaken by the past 15 months of conflict.

Not only was the IDF not able to defeat Hamas in Gaza, its aggression opened the doors to retaliation from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, as well as from Iran which overwhelmed Israel’s missile defences in a convincing show of force in October. In fact, Israeli defences could not even stem Hamas’ rocket attacks which continued throughout the conflict.

Meanwhile the Israeli economy has been severely impacted. According to the Bank of Israel, Israel's war-related costs from 2023 to 2025 could end up amounting to $55.6 billion, a cost amounting to 10 percent of GDP. The long-term prospects of Israel’s high tech economy in a state of increasing instability are not looking good. The sector relies on an educated young workforce of call up age, which has been particularly impacted by the war. All of this will push Israel down a spiral of successively deepening crises which will gradually undermine the cohesion of Israeli society.

Thus, nothing has been solved. Far from it. Israel is more exposed and fragile than before the war. In effect, this is a defeat. But the damage is not merely material. What has suffered is the reactionary idea that only a highly militarised state can guarantee the safety and wellbeing of the Israeli Jews. Without this lie, the Israeli ruling class could not have maintained itself for eight decades.

But, as reality is proving to us, the exact opposite appears to be true. Israel’s aggressive stance is increasingly inviting aggression and disorder into Israel itself. As Haaretz ominously stated:

“The headwinds of war are working against morale in the long term. If the war ends tomorrow, Israel will need years to rebuild its own social and apparently military contract back. If the war restarts the next day, the decline in morale will spread.”

Crisis of the regime

Netanyahu and his wing of the Israeli ruling class has undoubtedly received a defeat of their own making. His project has been rejected and he has been humiliated by Donald Trump, whom he claimed as a firm ally.

That might have been the case, but Donald Trump is his own ally and that of American imperialism before anyone else, and a neverending continuous war in the Middle East does not suit his purposes. However much Netanyahu squirmed, Trump showed him who is the real master in this relationship. Without American military and economic support, the Israeli state would unravel quickly.

Netanyahu and his wing of the Israeli ruling class has undoubtedly received a defeat of their own making / Image: public domain

Trump has undoubtedly promised a series of concessions in return for Netanyahu swallowing the ceasefire agreement, but that does not change the fact that it is a humiliating climbdown for Israeli Imperialism.

Of course, there is no guarantee Israelis will stick to their words. Undoubtedly, the reactionary settler movement and its parties which have been key allies to Nenanyahu, will push for renewed war at a certain stage.

One of their main representatives, far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, has already resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. This leaves him with only the narrowest of parliamentary majorities, thus increasing the leverage other parties in the coalition have. Far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has remained in the government, but has threatened to resign if the war does not resume after the initial 42-day phase of the ceasefire. If they continue with this line however, all of the contradictions which have so far accumulated will only grow and thus prepare a deeper crisis further down the line.

On the other side, there is the attitude of a sizable part of the urban population which has always hated Netanyahu, the settlers and the right wing. As the dust clears and the extreme war frenzy subsides to a certain extent, many in this layer will be forced to reckon with a new reality. In this context, some will begin to look for an alternative path forward – one different from militarism and imperialism – and thereby come into conflict with the established norms of Israeli Zionism.

Here we see the faultlines of social strife, which will widen in the future and which at a certain point could also acquire a class nature.

Crisis of western imperialism

Since the start of this war, we have stated time and again, that the West is complicit and a direct participant in the crimes of Israeli imperialism. They supported the war on Gaza financially, militarily and politically. And they threw their full might behind Israel to show the whole world the might of western imperialism. And yet, the result was the exact opposite. What we have is a defeat, not just for Israel, but for US imperialism, the collective West, as well as the liberal political establishment.

In spite of all attempts, the Israeli military machine, supported by its powerful allies, could not grind down the Palestinian resistance. This is a stark reminder of the limitations of western imperialism, which suffered a similar fate in Iraq and Afghanistan, and which is staring an even bigger defeat in the face in Ukraine.

The war has whipped up widespread dissatisfaction within the US where millions of workers and youth turned their backs on the Democrats for their warmongering. This was a significant factor in the collapse of support for the Democrats and the election of Trump, who promised to end endless wars. Of course, whether he will actually do that is another matter altogether.

Trump’s foreign policy is an admission of the limitations of US imperialism. Rather than doubling down in a counter-productive military show of force, he is inclined to retreat, give concessions, and protect the core interests of American capitalism. An unwinnable war on Gaza and destabilising the Middle East is not one of these. America First, the rest of the world second. At least, that appears to be his aim. Whether he succeeds or not is another matter.

The war has whipped up widespread dissatisfaction within the US where millions of workers and youth turned their backs on the Democrats for their warmongering / Image: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons

This, in essence, amounts to a partial retreat for US imperialism which will have far reaching consequences. Most importantly, it will affect the consciousness of millions of people in the United States and the West. All the ideas of western moral superiority and might stand increasingly exposed with every setback. This is adding to the crisis of the liberal establishment which has controlled Washington and European capitals in the whole of the post-war period.

They have presented themselves as the upholders of the principles of democracy, human rights, international law. But for more and more people, what becomes clearer every day, is that today’s liberalism is the fountainhead of reaction, and that their “rules based order” is a cynical sham meant to cover up their barbaric imperialist self-interest.

It is these ladies and gentlemen, well-dressed and sometimes even well spoken; educated in top universities with practiced polished smiles and refined manners, who are the sources of the most reactionary policies abroad as well as at home.

They are the ones who cut winter fuel allowances for the poor elderly in Britain while sending billions to fight wars in Ukraine and Gaza. They are the ones who cut healthcare and other welfare spending while spending trillions on militarisation. And they are the ones who talk about democracy while persecuting people who stand up for the rights of Palestinians. It is no wonder that every country is witnessing a backlash against these forces.

And it is precisely this backlash, that is the rising class struggle in the West, that presents hope for Palestinian liberation. The Palestinian masses have shown an outstanding resilience and spirit of struggle. But we need to look reality in the eyes. Israel’s war has failed, but the Palestinian liberation struggle has not won. In fact, it has failed to solve any of the fundamental problems that it has posed.

The Palestinians have now been sunk even deeper into the abyss of barbarism from which no real peace can come. They have been reduced to small enclaves of impoverished, lightly armed masses, faced with a powerful high-tech military state. In a purely military campaign, the Zionist state cannot be overthrown.

The best way to strike at Israel is, on the one hand, by dividing the Zionist state along class lines with an appeal to all those Israelis who in the next period will begin to doubt the current direction of Israel and break with their own ruling class, and on the other hand to strike against Israeli supplies of arms, funding and political cover flowing from the West. The fate of the Palestinians today therefore is more intertwined with that of the world working class than ever. A struggle to end the Zionist Israeli state and for a truly free Palestine is the same as the struggle against capitalism in the West, and in particular in the United States. The two struggles must be connected.

The crisis of world capitalism is fanning the flames of the class struggle everywhere. In this struggle, the workers and poor can only rely on their own forces. On a united basis however, nothing can stop them. The struggle for a free Palestine starts with the struggle against capitalism and imperialism at home.