Three Years On, Israel's Military Might Has Failed to Deliver Its Political Goals in Gaza

Three years after the October 7 attack that shattered the image of the Israeli army as an invincible force, an assessment of the war in Gaza suggests that overwhelming military power has not translated into the political outcomes Israel set out to achieve. According to an opinion analysis published by Al Jazeera, Israel has deployed nearly the full spectrum of its military capability—short of nuclear weapons—and mobilized its Western allies to wage an unprecedented campaign of death and destruction across the territory, yet the stated objectives remain largely unfulfilled.

The human and physical toll has been staggering. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 180,000 injured, according to the article. The entire population has been subjected to starvation conditions, the healthcare system has been destroyed, the education system devastated, and most of Gaza's life-sustaining infrastructure—including water treatment and desalination plants and the electricity grid—has been wiped out. The article argues that the Israeli military did not confine itself to targeting military positions and fighters, but deliberately set out to punish the civilian population through massacres and mass destruction.

The central argument of the analysis is that if military power is meant to serve political objectives, then success cannot be measured by the number of people killed or the scale of destruction. It must be measured by whether the conflict has ended on the terms Israel desired. By that standard, the article contends, Israel appears unable to convert its military superiority into a political reality that reflects its declared goals.

From the outset, the Israeli government made clear it aimed to free the captives, eliminate the Palestinian resistance, impose security control over the Gaza Strip, and establish an alternative administration. It also tacitly signaled a wish to prepare the ground for the eventual expulsion of Palestinians from the territory. Three years into the war, the article examines each of these objectives and finds them largely unmet.

On the captives file, all have now been freed—but the overwhelming majority were released through intense diplomacy and negotiations with Hamas rather than military rescue. Of the roughly 250 people taken to Gaza, the Israeli army managed to free just eight and recovered the bodies of another 12. It shot dead at least three and killed an unknown number of others during bombing operations. The article notes that the Israeli army's point man for the captives issue recently acknowledged that the captives could have been released a year earlier and that some of those who died could have been saved—a striking admission that overwhelming military power failed on this front.

Second, Israel has been unable to end the presence of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza despite extensive military operations and the assassination of a large number of its leaders. Hamas continues to control parts of the Strip, even while facing continuing Israeli bombing campaigns and attacks by pro-Israel Palestinian militias. Israel has now been forced to negotiate Hamas's disarmament rather than achieve it by force—a significant reversal of its stated aim of eliminating the resistance outright.

Third, the Israeli army has occupied 60 percent of the Gaza Strip but has stopped short of a massive operation to take over the remainder. According to the analysis, this is because Israel understands that the political, humanitarian, and military costs of such a decision would be too high. The partial occupation reflects not a position of strength, but a recognition of the limits of what force can achieve.

Fourth, Israel and its foremost ally, the United States, invested considerable effort in creating the Board of Peace and a plan for reconstruction and an alternative administration of Gaza that excludes the United Nations. That effort has largely failed. The administrative committee for Gaza has not entered the territory to take over governing, and the humanitarian provisions of the agreement have yet to be implemented. The vision of a post-Hamas governing authority remains unrealized.

Fifth, preparations for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza have not made significant progress. Israel has tried to push Palestinians to leave through repeated displacement, starvation, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and various schemes for so-called "voluntary departure." Destruction has rendered the Strip unlivable, yet the majority of the Palestinian population has made clear it intends to stay. There have even been returnees from Egypt—a direct rebuke to the expulsion agenda.

At this point, the article argues, Israel faces a "day after" problem in Gaza. Its military is able to raze the Strip, but it cannot build a new political reality that satisfies Israeli aims and desires. The hope that reducing Gaza to an apocalyptic landscape would push the entire population into such despair that it would abandon its cause and its rights has been quashed.

The continued presence of Palestinians, the continued resistance, and the growing political and international prominence of the Palestinian cause have demonstrated that Israel's approach of brutal aggression has failed, according to the analysis. Military power can impose a temporary reality, but it cannot produce political legitimacy on its own. Worse still, it can actually destroy legitimacy—and that is exactly what has happened to the Israeli government and the Israeli project as a whole.

The diplomatic fallout has been tangible. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly last month, representatives of the majority of UN member states walked out of the hall. Netanyahu himself faces an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Israel is increasingly spurned by the global majority. A Pew Research survey across 36 countries found that 67 percent of adults view the country unfavourably. Among key Israeli allies, negative perceptions are similarly high: 60 percent in the United States, 73 percent in Germany, 69 percent in the United Kingdom, and 68 percent in France. In Washington, the debate over US support for Israel has intensified to the point that a growing number of lawmakers are supporting bills proposing to curb military aid or impose sanctions—a shift that could carry significant consequences for Israel's ability to sustain its campaign.

Taken together, the article concludes that three years of war have exposed a fundamental gap between what military force can destroy and what it can build. Israel has demonstrated the capacity to devastate Gaza, but it has not achieved the political objectives it declared at the start of the conflict. The captives were returned through negotiation, not rescue. The resistance endures. The occupation remains partial and costly. The alternative administration has not materialized. And the Palestinian population has refused to leave. The measure of the war, by the standard the article sets, is not the scale of killing but the failure to secure a durable political outcome—a failure that continues to define Gaza's "day after."