‘A Very Slow Game:’ Why the Pace of Israel’s Ground Operation Matters

In the 23 harrowing days since Hamas attacked Israeli civilians and soldiers, Israel’s Western allies have had to perform a delicate balancing act: showing steadfast support for the country during its darkest hours, while dealing with growing public anger in their streets about the increasing bombardment of the Israeli air force. Gaza.

Israel’s neighbors in the Middle East have walked another tightrope: containing outraged populations and, in some cases, militant groups that threaten to drag them into a broader war with Israel that they may not seek.

For both, the Israeli ground invasion of the densely populated Gaza Strip has complicated their calculations.

The phased nature of the operation has lacked the thunderous impact of a large-scale infantry and tank attack, something Israel’s rivals had warned against given the likelihood it would cause untold civilian casualties. And yet the growing Palestinian death toll – more than 8,000, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry in Gaza – and the prospect that fighting could continue for months to come, has already drawn thousands of demonstrators onto the streets from London to Istanbul, demanding a ceasefire.

Israeli officials said their planning was driven by military, not diplomatic, imperatives: the need to prepare troops for a prolonged campaign; a desire to avoid harming the more than 200 people held as hostages by Hamas; and tactical problems, such as searching for mines and other defenses built by the militants.

Yet the operation’s deliberate pace could nevertheless influence the response of allies and enemies, from the United States, which has offered Israel both public support and private pleas for restraint, to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group, which has peppered Israel. with missiles from Lebanon, but threatened to cause even more damage.

On Sunday, President Biden reaffirmed his support for Israel in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But he urged Netanyahu to “immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza,” according to a White House readout of the conversation.

While military considerations drove Israel, “the question also in the minds of the planners was: ‘Can anything we do tip the balance in Tehran-Beirut’s calculations?’” said Nimrod Novick, a former adviser to Israel’s late prime ministers. minister Shimon Peres, referring to Iran’s capital and Hezbollah’s base in Lebanon.

Hezbollah fired nearly twenty rockets into Israel on Sunday, setting a house on fire in Kiryat Shmona, near the Lebanese border, prompting an Israeli response. But the attacks, an Israeli official said, were within a predictable range and did not indicate that Hezbollah was about to join the war.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said on Sunday that his government does not want the war to “expand.” Two weeks ago, he had declared that Israel would face a “multi-front war” waged by a network of militias across the region if Israeli forces did not stop killing civilians in Gaza.

“Israel has not yet made the decision that it wants to test its enemies,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who now heads the US/Middle East Project, a think tank based in London and New York. “Both parties have taken this into account in their calculations. There is a very slow game of chess that can quickly gain pace.”

Israel’s methodical approach has not stopped some Muslim leaders from hardening their rhetoric. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a major pro-Palestinian rally in Istanbul on Saturday that Israel was “behaving like a war criminal.” Israel responded by pulling its diplomats out of the country.

There are other signs of increasing international pressure. On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The vote, which passed by 120 votes to 14 with 45 abstentions, was supported by eight European Union countries, including France, which had previously expressed strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself.

The fact that France voted in favor of the resolution is “problematic” for Israel, said Emmanuel Navon, executive director of ELNET Israel, a nonprofit organization that aims to strengthen ties between Israel and Europe. At the Security Council, Mr. Navon said: “Israel does not want to rely solely on the American veto.”

The Security Council has not adopted any resolution on Gaza, nor condemned the Hamas attack on Israel, nor called for a ceasefire. Four attempts to do so failed due to vetoes of pro- and anti-Israel resolutions by the council’s permanent members, which include the United States, Russia and China.

As European leaders continue to express public support for Israel, they face growing demands for a ceasefire at home. Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through London on Sunday, many expressing outrage that Britain has so far refused to back a ceasefire.

A lawmaker from the British Conservative Party was dismissed on Monday from his junior government role after calling for a ceasefire in a letter to the prime minister.

For the leader of Britain’s opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, the war has led to a wider political mutiny. More than a dozen members of his leadership team in parliament have broken with the party by calling for a ceasefire, disrupting Labour’s show of solidarity with Israel in the days after the Hamas attack.

Mr Starmer this week sent his shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, for meetings in Jordan, Qatar and Egypt, while the government is sending the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, to the United Arab Emirates. Both are consulting with Arab leaders on how to prevent the war from escalating into a regional conflict.

Some foreign policy experts argue that fears of a broader war are exaggerated. Despite all their warnings, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Emirates have so far shown little desire to become involved in the conflict.

Iran is facing water shortages, economic problems and ongoing civil unrest following the case of a young woman who died under suspicious circumstances in September 2022 after authorities arrested her for improperly wearing a hijab. With all these distractions, analysts say, the country is reluctant to get drawn into a regional war, even as it wants to show its support for Hezbollah.

They also say Iran has little interest in a direct confrontation with the United States, which has warned the country to stay on the sidelines and sent two groups of aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean to reinforce the message.

“What we have always assumed is a geopolitical tinderbox, culminating in a broader regional war,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a former State Department official and research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. “It doesn’t seem to have happened, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.”

Still, Mr. Shapiro said global public opinion would inevitably turn further against Israel as the number of civilian deaths in Gaza increases. And he predicted it would have little influence on the decisions of Israeli commanders, who have vowed to destroy Hamas.

For foreign leaders, that could mean an increasingly difficult balancing act.

Adam Sella contributed reporting from Tel Aviv