At 1pm on 7 October 2023, hours after Palestinian armed groups launched their daybreak attack, the high command of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) issued a stark order: up to 20 Gazan civilians could be killed in a single strike on even the lowest-ranking member of Hamas. With AI to speed up the targeting, that order began a punishing bombing campaign in a war that has killed some 74,000 Palestinians.
As a result, Israel won a crushing victory over Hamas, but lost public support around the world, including in the United States. For a country that has long relied on US backing, that could be the lasting and most important legacy of the Hamas assault on 7 October, which left some 1,200 people dead.
The New York Times and +972 magazine in Tel Aviv found that the rules actually allowed for 100 civilians to die if a senior member of Hamas was the target. A sinister-sounding AI named Lavender churned out tens of thousands of targets; human operators spent about 20 seconds approving each one.
Another system – allegedly called “Where’s Daddy?” – tracked targets and alerted the army when they got home, so they could be bombed there, often alongside their families.
I have written about one such strike, which took place on 10 October 2023, three days after the new rules came into force. A six-storey building in Gaza City was hit and collapsed, killing at least 40 civilians. People were seen digging through the rubble with their bare hands to find survivors.
One man, Mahmoud Ashour, said he had lost his daughter and her four children, a girl aged eight and three boys of six, two, and six months. Amnesty International, which supplied the details, found that a Hamas member lived in the building but that he was not there at the time. The IDF did not comment, except to say that Hamas often puts its military infrastructure in civilian areas.
That attack, and many others like it, show how much changed following the darkest day in Israel’s history. In the aftermath, as Israel was reeling from the bloodshed and the 251 hostages taken – many of them young people attending a music festival and some who would be held captive for over two years – it turned to a savage response. Wounded to its core, enraged and vengeful, Israel became numb to international outcry over civilian casualties.
After three years of war, much of Gaza remains in ruins (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP)As the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen wrote during an earlier Gaza war in 2008, Israeli military commanders assume two separate clocks start ticking the moment they go into action. The military clock tracks the time needed to achieve their objectives. The diplomatic clock measures the time before international pressure forces a ceasefire.
For much of the past three years, Israel’s political and military leaders have ignored the second clock.
A documentary film, to be released in the UK later this month, talked to 24 of the Israeli soldiers who did the targeting. The film is called NAZA, the acronym of the Hebrew term “Nezek Agavi,” or “collateral damage”. One of the interviewees – his face in shadow – said his personal body count numbered in the thousands. Another said the prevailing attitude was “there are no innocent people in Gaza”.
The film also relays a claim that one strike was approved that could kill up to 500 people, in order to eliminate a single Hamas operative.
Israel’s military has issued a statement accusing the filmmakers of “manipulative editing,” adding that they had failed to mention the steps the IDF always took to try to limit civilian harm.
Many proposed strikes were cancelled because of the risk to non-combatants, the IDF said. It also denied the specific allegation that a strike had been approved in which 500 civilians “or anything close to that number” could be killed.
A wall showing some of the hostages taken during the 7 October attack on Israel (Photo: Lisi Niesner/Reuters)Miki Zohar, Israel’s minister of culture, accused the filmmakers of treason, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a new bill to strip citizenship from anyone who “smears” soldiers and “defames” the country. He also described the film as part of “global antisemitic incitement,” a charge his government has reached for reflexively in the face of difficult criticism.
But Netanyahu was surely right when he said that “portraying the officers and commanders of the Israeli army as war criminals causes us untold harm”.
The fact that Israel’s prime minister feels the need to comment on a documentary underlines the importance of the battle of ideas for the future of the Jewish state – the loss of international goodwill threatens to turn a tactical victory in Gaza into a long-term defeat.
The still-open wounds from 7 October can partly explain what came after, but each month that passes pushes Israel’s allies further away.
For Israel, public opinion is nowhere more important than in the US. America is the ultimate guarantor of Israel’s survival. Last month, the Trump administration approved sending some 40,000 one-ton bombs to Israel, in effect free of charge, as the US taxpayer is footing the bill.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump have remained close allies, despite tensions growing between their countries (Photo: Jim Watson/AFP)It’s far from clear whether this kind of transfer would continue under the next president, whether Democrat or Republican. But the draining away of support for Israel is clear, and most evident in the Democratic Party.
In July, 103 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to cut off aid to Israel. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democrat standard-bearer for the next generation, opposes all US military aid. Even Rahm Emanuel, a possible 2028 candidate and longtime defender of Israel, has called for an end to US subsidies for Israel’s defence.
When it comes to Republicans, Donald Trump likes to say he’s the most pro-Israel president ever – but his party is split. According to a Pew poll published in April, 57 per cent of Republicans under the age of 50 now view Israel unfavourably. Tucker Carlson – immensely popular with Trump’s Maga base – has backed Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat running for the Senate, against his Republican opponent in Michigan, in part because of Israel.
US Vice President, JD Vance, told the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas that it was “frankly absurd” to say the broadcaster’s views put him outside conservatism. A White House staffer told the New Yorker earlier this year: “This is where the Maga civil war starts – you’re either America First or pro-Israel.”
Activists hold signs during a protest near the White House as Trump meets with Netanyahu in July (Photo: Mehmet Eser/Getty)Israel used to be one of the few foreign-policy questions both parties agreed on. No more. Part of this is about Netanyahu, a divisive figure in both the US and in his own country. Israelis may come to regret the way he apparently bounced Trump into the war with Iran, if this ultimately turns the Republican Party against Israel.
But even if Netanyahu’s opponents win this month’s general election in Israel, its foreign and security policy won’t be vastly different.
Netanyahu’s main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, has said no Palestinian state would be set up under his leadership. “Anyone who is thinking about a two-state solution after October 7 is just delusional,” he added.
While Hamas is dramatically weakened after the last few years of fighting, the outline of the Israel-Palestine dispute is unchanged, despite everything that has happened since 7 October 2023. The issue is as intractable as ever, but the US consensus that helped manage it for fifty years has gone. When Israel next goes to war, American support will be neither automatic nor unconditional.
Hence then, the article about netanyahu s victory in gaza may become a long term defeat was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Netanyahu’s ‘victory’ in Gaza may become a long-term defeat )
Also on site :
- ‘Artificial’ First Reactions: Luca Guadagnino’s OpenAI Drama is ‘Provocative,’ ‘Downright Horrifying’ and His ‘Best Film in a Decade’
- ‘Artificial’ Review: Luca Gaudagnino Has Made the Real Sequel to ‘The Social Network’ — a Brain-Spinning Tech-Geek Docudrama, Brilliantly Acted by Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov
- Martha Stewart, 85, Chops Off Her Signature Locks for Dramatic New ’Do—Her Boldest Hair Move in 3 Decades