The Times of Israel June 5, 2025
2. …whereas the Gaza campaign has been a halting muddle

At the tactical level, the IDF has performed impressively in Gaza.
It can reach anywhere it wants in the Strip, easily rolled up Hamas defenses early in the war, and has adapted to the complex challenges presented on a battlefield prepared by Hamas for 17 years.

It has also killed all of Hamas’s top leadership in Gaza, and the vast majority of its battlefield commanders.

Yet Hamas fights on. And it remains the only force in the Strip able to assert control over the population:
Nearly 20 months after it perpetrated the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, Hamas is still not defeated.

Israel has not been clear about how exactly tactical success leads to the strategic goal of defeating Hamas. Is it through taking territory?
Israel seemed to think so early in the war, boasting about the areas it had captured — Gaza City, the Netzarim Corridor, the Philadelphi Corridor, the Rafah Border Crossing.

But there is no one particular piece of territory that Hamas needs to hold onto in order to outlast Israel. Almost anywhere will do.
Perhaps the killing of Hamas fighters is the key to victory?

Then-IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi said in April 2024 "this is the way to eventually pressure for the release of the hostages,”
“Another battalion dismantled, another commander killed, another infrastructure destroyed"