Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said the IDF was pummeling Hamas to destroy its military capabilities, on its path to total victory and the release of the hostages.
"I heard claims that the government was preventing the IDF from advancing and they are untrue," Netanyahu said. "The military was systematically destroying Hamas and governing capabilities while at the same time working toward the release of the hostages," he said.
Netanyahu responded to claims from military commanders that the war in Gaza had no strategic purpose and troops were forced to return time and again to the same areas after Hamas reinstated their infrastructure and resumed their attacks.
The frustration in the military has increased over what senior IDF officials described as the government's indecisions in Gaza and on the northern border and the struggle in the IDF to decide on the deployment of forces and on long-term planning.
"We can set up military outposts inside Gaza and protect them with troops if the government wants us to. It has the mandate to decide long-term policy," a member of the IDF's General staff said.
"Another strategic decision could be a military rule over Gaza which would include control over the humanitarian aid that is currently being taken and controlled by Hamas or allowing the Palestinian Authority to replace Hamas as rulers of the Strip, under international supervision. But there is no decision made and without it, the IDF will be stuck fighting a tactical war, for years," he said.
High-ranking commanders warned that there was a decline in the number of reserve troops willing to fight for a third time and that only 80% of those called, showed up for duty, unlike the over 100% response in the early days of the war.
The attack on Gaza on Saturday, when the IDF bombed a school compound that it said was used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad as a command post, shed new light on the fighting after over 10 months of war.
Hamas claimed at least 100 people were killed in the air raid where evacuated civilians were sheltering but the military said that 19 senior terrorists were killed in the strike.
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Aftermath of an Israeli strike on a school compound in Gaza which the IDF says was Hamas HQ
(Photo: Omar AL Qattaa / AFP)
Over the weekend, residents of the northern neighborhoods in Khan Younis, including a humanitarian safe zone, were told to evacuate ahead of IDF fire, after Hamas used the area to launch some 60 rockets at Israeli communities.
Other than two or three enclaves in the central Gaza Strip, where according to a CNN report, Hamas was holding live Israeli hostages, the troops have been conducting repeat raids on areas it had already operated in and withdrew from, for the past six months.
Hamas forces return to these areas after IDF troops leave and rebuild their terror infrastructure.