Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Death toll from latest Israeli strikes on Gaza rises to 30
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: Five killed in the Israeli bombing of a civilian vehicle on Al-Qassam Street in Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip
Hamas confirms that it has no connection to the shooting incident in Rafah and affirms its commitment to the ceasefire agreement
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: Two civilians were killed and four others, including a child and an infant, were injured in an Israeli bombing of a house belonging to the Al-Banna family in the al-Sabra neighborhood, south of Gaza City
Al Mayadeen's correspondent: An Israeli airstrike targets the vicinity of Al-Shifa Medical Complex, west of Gaza City
Al-Qassam: We will postpone the handover of the body of the Israeli captive we found, which was scheduled for today, due to the occupation's violations
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in Gaza: Israeli occupation aircraft launch airstrikes on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
Netanyahu's office: At the end of the security consultations, the prime minister instructed the military to launch massive military strikes on the Gaza Strip immediately
President Aoun: We urge the activation of the monitoring committee, the cessation of hostilities, ongoing Israeli violations, attacks
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to US Envoy Morgan Ortagus: Southerners must be enabled to return to their homes and rebuild

Here is why the Israeli occupation of Gaza won’t work

  • Robert Inlakesh Robert Inlakesh
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 26 Aug 2025 12:40
  • 13 Shares
9 Min Read

Robert Inlakesh argues that "Israel’s" shifting military plans in Gaza, each sold as “decisive”, have failed, exposing that the occupation strategy is neither practical nor winnable.

Listen
  • x
  • Although it does seem likely they will launch some kind of operation in northern Gaza, one which will accelerate its mass murder of civilians, but will fail to achieve its stated objectives. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)
    Although it does seem likely they will launch some kind of operation in northern Gaza, one which will accelerate its mass murder of civilians, but will fail to achieve its stated objectives. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

At every key juncture of the Zionist regime’s “seven front war”, it has announced new plans that it will claim are going to defeat Hamas or that they will reach a ceasefire agreement. The truth is that they have no intention of reaching a negotiated settlement, nor do they have a plan to achieve “victory” in Gaza.

At the beginning of the Zionist entity’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, in late October of 2023, its military campaign had focused on northern Gaza. For those who remember, the major goal of their operation at the time was to take control of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, claiming it to be a "Hamas command and control center”. 

Back then, the Western corporate media reported that US intelligence reports supported the notion that at the very least, there was a Hamas “command node” based there, as the Israeli army released CGI footage featuring an extensive tunnel network under the hospital.

After committing various massacres, in and around al-Shifa Medical Complex, it became clear that the claims were all lies and no Hamas infrastructure existed underneath the hospital. However, the Israelis and their Western allies did not admit that the entire military operation was based upon a pack of lies and that no Hamas targets were there; instead, they simply moved on to the next major set of lies, as the Zionist military finished off its genocidal missions in northern Gaza.

Failing to inflict any major blow, let alone a total defeat upon Hamas or any of the some dozen Palestinian armed groups in northern Gaza, then came the claim that “the real Hamas headquarters” were in Khan Younis. In December of 2024, again with the full backing of their Western allies and their media machines, the Israelis launched the invasion of Khan Younis.

After besieging Khan Younis in January of 2024, they eventually made it their final mission to assault the Nasser Hospital, again claiming that it was used by Hamas as a major base. By this time, the Israelis had launched a campaign to systematically target every hospital their forces worked in the vicinity of, seizing medical workers and the injured as captives, inflicting massacres, setting up bases inside the hospitals, and always claiming that Hamas was there.

As the military campaign on the ground waged on, the Israeli public realised that they were not even one step closer to the “total defeat” of Hamas that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised them. So then began the talk of invading Rafah.

Israeli political leaders vowed that without invading Rafah, they could not “win the war”. They claimed that tunnels were leading into Gaza from Egypt, despite knowing they were all sealed off around a decade ago.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Rafah, a massive deception campaign was launched with the full unquestioning complicity of the Western media. We heard about then US President Joe Biden’s alleged “red line” being Rafah. Up until that point, we had also heard about Biden hanging up the phone on Netanyahu, yelling at him and even swearing, for which there was never any evidence produced.

We had the propaganda of a “Christmas ceasefire” and a “Ramadan ceasefire”, with even the UN Security Council voting on the temporary Ramadan ceasefire that never materialised. The public was also informed about all of the alleged hard work that the US government was doing to achieve a ceasefire, which we would later learn never happened from Israeli media leaks; Biden never once asked his Israeli allies for a ceasefire.

In the lead-up to the invasion of Rafah, which would eventually happen on May 6 with full US support, we heard two main narratives. One warned of the impending humanitarian disaster after the Israelis had displaced the majority of the population to Rafah, the second was the idea that this would mean the defeat of Hamas and would rob the group of its financing networks.

Evidently, the Israelis launched their invasion, and unsurprisingly, it was more of the same; they continued mass murdering civilians and destroying Gaza’s infrastructure. Hamas still lived. There were even initiatives then like the failed US military aid pier, which only appeared to have been used one time, for a deadly military operation in Nuseirat that killed around 300 civilians to seize back Israeli captives.

Related News

What is the Israeli strategy in Gaza?

Western journalists know they have a case to answer for their betrayal of Gaza, and it frightens them

Fast forward to October 2024, when we began to hear about the infamous “General’s Plan”, an operation that was again sold by the Israeli regime and its media as the final blow to end Hamas by besieging northern Gaza entirely and then starving out the remaining fighters. This went on for months, until there was a ceasefire declared in January.

On March 18, the Israelis violated the Gaza Ceasefire. Then came an escalation in its genocidal campaign against civilians in the territory, an uptick once again in the bombardment, coupled with the total blockade on all aid into the territory that would last over 80 days. 

For some time after violating the ceasefire, the Israeli media and regime’s officials promoted the idea of a new operation that was going to be the most explosive yet and the final blow against Hamas. They spoke of potentially new weapons and strategies, hyping up the campaign to be a game changer.

The May offensive was then labelled “Operation Gideon’s Chariots”, dubbed “Phase 2” of the Gaza war. First, the Israeli media hyped it up and put out reports that 20,000 reservists had been called up to duty, then we heard 60,000, the next day 50,000, some even claimed 100,000 soldiers would be used to invade Gaza. 

The real result was a few small incursions into the outskirts of major cities and camps, which were met with deadly ambushes carried out by the Palestinian resistance. “Gideon’s Chariots” was a game changer, but repeated the exact same cowardly strategy as every Israeli operation before it.

So now we have the approval of plans to “occupy Gaza”. Originally, the idea communicated across Israeli media platforms was that all of Gaza would be occupied, which is what Netanyahu would go on to claim. Then it went back and forth between all of the territory and just Gaza City, which is not the established goal of the newly approved operation.

Logistically, this plan makes no sense for an already overburdened Zionist military force that does not want to fight in the Gaza Strip at all anymore. They’ll need an absolute minimum of 200,000 soldiers just to occupy Gaza City, a plan that, according to Israeli military analyst,s will take between 2 to 5 years to properly complete.

On top of this, the strategy runs contrary to the Israeli military’s doctrine and strategy that it has followed throughout the entire war. The reality on the ground is that with the exception of a limited number of special forces operations, the Israeli army never targeted Hamas. They invaded with the intention of making Gaza unlivable and have systematically dismantled the territory's infrastructure, while inflicting a genocide. 

The truth is that they have no military strategy to defeat Hamas. They don’t even have an answer as to how to end the fighting at all, even as their allied Arab regime attempts to give them solutions. A ceasefire would happen within a day if they wanted it to, but they clearly don’t, and no Israeli politician even accepts the notion of the Palestinian Authority taking over Gaza because they believe it will lead to a so-called “Two-State solution”.

So here we are again, back to the same old tired Israeli script. They send negotiating delegations with no intention of reaching deals and launch new operations that will ultimately fail to achieve anything other than continuing the slaughter of civilians.

The Zionist Entity has done everything except actually target and try to fight the Palestinian Resistance on the ground, hiding in fortified areas and inside their military vehicles, occasionally getting picked off by ambushes. This is also why they have no battle footage despite having fought for 22 months, because they only engage in armed clashes on the ground when they are being attacked by the Palestinian armed groups. There is no real army, it's a glorified police force that was built to bully teenagers, with a sophisticated intelligence apparatus and air force behind it.

It appears very unlikely that we will see Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints in between tent cities in Gaza and managing everyday life like we see in the occupied West Bank. Simply put, they are too cowardly for this task, and unlike the case in the West Bank, it will be extremely dangerous for them to do this, costing them thousands of casualties over a long period of time.

More likely than not, this has all been psychological warfare, as the Israeli military prepares to attack on a different front. Although it does seem likely they will launch some kind of operation in northern Gaza, one which will accelerate its mass murder of civilians, but will fail to achieve its stated objectives.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • Israel
  • Palestine
  • Gaza
  • war on Gaza
  • Israeli occupation
  • Gaza genocide
Robert Inlakesh

Robert Inlakesh

Political Analyst, Journalist, and Documentary Filmmaker.

Most Read

All
What Marr evidently didn't seem to understand was that Hedges isn't saying that Western journalists manipulate the truth, but that they systematically amplify Israeli narratives they know are false. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Western journalists know they have a case to answer for their betrayal of Gaza, and it frightens them

  • Opinion
  • 24 Oct 2025
Manufacturing civil war: The Zionist doctrine to destroy resistance

Manufacturing civil war: The Zionist doctrine to destroy resistance

  • Opinion
  • 21 Oct 2025
Documents submitted to the UK Foreign Office by ARK - founded by MI6's Alistair Harris - noted the FSP were “revolutionary entities who share a general ideological affinity with the Syrian rebels.” (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

How MI6 built Syria’s extremist police

  • Opinion
  • 16 Oct 2025
It is no secret that removing Russia from Syria in preparation for isolating it in Libya and Africa is a Western goal. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Will Damascus be willing to pay the price to restore relations with Moscow?

  • Feature
  • 25 Oct 2025

Coverage

All
Gaza: An Epic of Resilience and Valor

More from this writer

All
In the Zionist regime’s thinking, now is a historic opportunity to exterminate all those who resist it, eliminate Gaza entirely, and impose uncontested dominance over the region. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

What is the Israeli strategy in Gaza?

Manufacturing civil war: The Zionist doctrine to destroy resistance

Manufacturing civil war: The Zionist doctrine to destroy resistance

Zionists Fundamentally Misread Iran Due To Their Own Echo Chambers

Zionists fundamentally misread Iran due to their own echo chambers

All these decades and the billions of dollars spent by the Zionist Lobby on its propaganda is being rapidly undone, all thanks to the Israeli murder machine exposing itself. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Israeli seizure of social media is a declaration of defeat

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS