Israel's Victory Doctrine Achieves Indeterminant Outcomes
On January 19, 2025, a ceasefire was agreed to after nearly 16 months of continuous combat in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. In short order, every side immediately began to claim victory, glory, or defeat. As predicted in 2021, Israel's victory operational concept led it down a path of two further indeterminate outcomes against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Hamas initiated its genocidal total war on October 7, 2023 with a genuinely deluded sense of their own combat power, expecting Israel to collapse under the weight of a few thousand irregular fighters. Instead, the war soon turned into one of the most punishing urban conflicts of the 21st century, transforming Gaza into a ruin. The war would kill around 50,000 Palestinians, with 1,200 people killed, raped, and tortured in the initial Hamas attack, 251 hostages taken, and nearly 1,000 Israelis killed in ground combat. It would end with Hamas's governance and military capabilities, as well as the social bonds of Gaza, significantly degraded, even as the fighting continued.
Acknowledging Owen's point that there is no official, singular, victory doctrine, the intended purpose of the mosaic of changes to Israeli strategic thought, often colloquially described as its 'victory doctrine', was to ensure victory into the future. This was to be achieved via, according to Eran Ortal,
A "turn on the light and extinguish the fire" maneuver would be able to attack deep into enemy territory to conquer main nerve centers and inflict a decisive [military] defeat, while suppressing enemy rockets and missiles launched nearby toward Israeli forces and toward the home front.
Having learned from the 2021 short war between Israel and Hamas, Israel had the benefit of additional years of capability purchases and training before October 7. While Gaza was the primary battlefield, it was ultimately used most powerfully against Hezbollah.
The Cry for Total Victory
It was not just the character of the attack by Hamas, the humiliation of the surprise, nor the savagery shown by Hamas on October 7, that drove the Israeli demand for victory. Over the past decades, Israel itself had become increasingly uncomfortable with the outcomes of the various wars, quick battles, and intifadas it had fought. Israeli society became more willing to unleash such destruction in the hope victory would be achieved finally.
Symbiotically, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would utilize this shift and begin to call for "total victory" against Hamas. What this actually meant in practice was never really described beyond generalised demands for the destruction of Hamas and the return of the hostages, however. It was emblematic of the overall problem with contemporary Israeli strategic thought under Netanyahu: superior military action to defeat enemy military forces that distracted from larger political questions that undermine overall strategic effectiveness.
However, others attempted to fill this vacuum. The most notable idea floated was by Einat Wilf, who suggested "the Palestinians of Gaza, either collectively and individually, surrender." Specifically, that the Palestinians accept the state of Israel, to settle in Gaza as citizens, and to accept the loss of the right of return. This was the closest anyone came to defining goals that meet the real test of victory, contra Owen's peculiar assertion that victory only occurs in the military realm.
No Day After Plan
Israel's victory operational concept focused on high-tech enabled fires, with ground forces to cordon off territory and search and destroy enemy forces within the buildings and underground bunkers in claustrophobic close quarters battle. But those units would soon leave, and operations were then carried out by units raiding from outside the Gaza border into urban areas, as well as special operations units to engage in small unit actions. The effect of this was to destroy Hamas' standing armed units when they could be found, and slowly fracture the bonds of Gaza as flee...
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