When war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu cheered the Israeli brutal Gaza genocide on, he put up a façade of occupation triumph and normalized Palestinian bloodshed front and center. He feels he can carry on this exhibition of massacres indefinitely, but ground realities suggest that the occupation’s manpower challenges – a key internal weakness – will continue to run deep.

Despite Israeli plans to mobilize tens of thousands of reservists to scale-up its raging genocide in Gaza, Netanyahu appears on the backfoot due to shambolic recruitment gains from the ultra-Orthodox “Haredi” community. Lack of troop support marks a blow for Netanyahu, who has sought the favor of the ultra-Orthodox community to keep the onslaught on course. But as recent developments make clear, ultra-Orthodox pandering has struggled to reflect in tangible troop numbers for the occupation, marking a challenge for Netanyahu to prolong the onslaught.

In some ways, these shortcomings were in the pipelines for Netanyahu. Amnesty International has found the Israelis guilty of conducting live-streamed genocide in Gaza, and his occupation machinery has greenlit many settler attacks to date. Entire generations of Palestinian families have been erased, as occupation destruction has ranged from homes to schools and mosques. Persecution and apartheid of the Palestinian population has continued with impunity, while forced displacement and Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe has sustained with unspeakable intensity. These developments are firm reminders that Israelis' genocidal pursuits will not go unnoticed. Netanyahu feels he can enjoy a climate of impunity, and face no internal repercussions for his sustained aggression. But as the occupation military extends compulsory military service by four months, a move widely seen as a “temporary solution,” Netanyahu’s fanfare around a brutal genocide may prove difficult to sustain.

Prolonged period of intense fighting, and the accumulation of heavy losses by the occupation military, scores this point home. The Palestinian Resistance has moved from strength to strength to neutralize Netanyahu’s genocidal atrocities, including efforts to prolong the suffering of battle-hardened Palestinians and ways to force occupation footprints on sovereign lands. So many months into the Gaza genocide, and the facts speak for themselves: the treasured resistance emerges triumphant, undiminished and with double the courage and determination. These are precisely the traits that unnerve an illegal occupation that has violated international law with impunity, waged a genocide in the name of a so-called “war,” and used its sold-out occupation media to justify Israeli falsehoods.

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But the coming down of Israeli troop strengths is a sign of deep weaknesses for the occupation, and Netanyahu’s fragile coalition at large. For instance, the coalition has a history of intense internal fighting, and is often marked by conflicting positions on what genocidal extremes to favor. Now as the manpower crisis takes on a new severity, Netanyahu has no solid reason to skirt this reality. A burgeoning opposition to his rule has a new rationale to back, while sentiments within the ultra-Orthodox ranks could harden further. After all, the ultra-Orthodox ranks have held heated exchanges with the occupation High Court, making their exemption from military service – a key consideration for more Palestinian bloodshed – a bone of contention for Netanyahu.

From a domestic viewpoint, there are limits to how Netanyahu could play this out. Prolonging the genocide is a recipe for more resistance, and there are no signs that Palestine’s treasured responses to Israeli aggression could ever dial down. This marks a painful scenario for Netanyahu, who has refused to answer for the Israeli numerous troop losses, incurred attacks, tactical failures and exposed propaganda. If he goes international, then the nexus between an increasingly warmongering Trump administration and Netanyahu could only strengthen to "Israel’s" peril. For instance, plans to confiscate Palestinians’ lands have been in the works for years, and Israeli racist far-right has made multiple attempts to concretize such seizure with the support of the US. Efforts to tilt further in this direction would bring Washington in the crosshairs of an anti-occupation war that will continue to put a target on its back, as well as "Israel".

This should be a wake-up call for Netanyahu, who is openly responsible for pushing ahead with the genocide and believes that more occupation belligerents on ground would translate into a “victory.” Such condemnable notions of triumph are an admission of Israeli years of land theft, its open massacres of Palestinians, documented war crimes, and beyond. In many ways, it serves the war criminal right to bear witness to scores of heavy troop casualties as the Palestinian Resistance conducts sophisticated ambush operations.

Gaza’s al-Shujaiya ambush is a proof point: the tactical prowess and guerilla techniques of Resistance fighters easily subdued occupation belligerents, as witnessed on countless occasions in the past. If Netanyahu and his warmongering Israeli occupation want to press ahead with the same hostilities, let it be clear that the results would be the same: more humiliation and annihilation. As Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy, and Campaigns, notes “the extent of human suffering in Gaza for the past 19 months has been unimaginable, and it is a direct consequence of Israel’s ongoing genocide. Apart from a brief respite during the temporary truce, Israel has relentlessly and mercilessly turned Gaza into an inferno of death and destruction.”

This scale of genocidal belligerence will not go unnoticed, and a massive depletion in occupation troop strength shows "Israel" feels the pain.