TEHRAN - Growing rifts in the Israeli government are increasingly reflecting the protest movements on the streets of Tel Aviv.

The Israeli minister of war Yoav Gallant has again hit out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for lacking a clear post-war plan for Gaza after the genocidal war, set to enter its eighth month, drags on, with no clear vision for the “day after”.

As troops invade cities in northern Gaza months after Netanyahu’s government declared victory against Hamas in the north, Gallant has demanded that Netanyahu set out a clear strategy for the war. 

Former army generals also in the war cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, have both taken sides with Gallant’s position. 

However, this position has been condemned by the more fascist ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. The two ministers have threatened to pull out of the cabinet, which would trigger its collapse if Netanyahu does not keep an Israeli military government to rule Gaza after the war. 

Making things more complex, the war itself has come to a standstill as battle lines are not shifting and more Israeli soldiers are being killed. 

Hamas says the Palestinian resistance will continue to confront the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in Rafah and across the enclave “no matter how long the aggression lasts and regardless of its form”.

Reports have cited sources as saying Israeli troops have refused to comply with military orders to enter some of the streets in Jabalia in fear of being caught in an ambush. The northern Gaza city had been invaded by the IOF months after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government declared victory. 

Israeli warplanes have been forced to raze areas to the ground before IOF troops can enter. 

As the armed wing of Hamas says it has killed 15 more IOF troops, Israeli news outlets and officials have picked up on the battleground challenges facing the occupation regime’s military in Gaza. 

A reporter with the Hebrew Kan Network said “Hamas has achieved significant control and dominance over vast areas”.

An Israeli Channel 14 reporter underlined, “Hamas units are in areas where the (Israeli) army has taken control have once again revived their capabilities, and this is worrisome.”

One representative in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) went further by saying the “Minister of Defense lies when he says that most of Hamas' units and brigades have been destroyed; all Hamas brigades; all twenty-four brigades, are active, standing, formidable, and operational in the region”.

Palestinian resistance factions continue to confront the IOF in various combat zones, especially in the southernmost city of Rafah and Jabalia, where they are targeting Israeli troops and their vehicles while engaging in fierce clashes at close range.

The military wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, announced that they targeted 15 Israeli troops after their fighters stormed a house where a large number of soldiers were holed up, engaging them with gunfire and hand grenades at point-blank range, then detonating an anti-personnel mine in the neighborhood of Hay al-Tanur east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip.

The latest footage released by Hamas in Jabalia shows Israeli troops retreating and seeking safety from Palestinian resistance fighters. Unknown to them is that a Hamas operative is waiting with an RPG, which he launches in their direction. 

These types of tactical ambushes are turning Israeli media, officials and a growing angry protest movement against Netanyahu over the lack of any real progress in the war. 

Hamas is appearing from holes in the ground and engaging the IOF in the last places imaginable. There is no indication that this war of attrition will end with an Israeli victory. 

It is therefore no surprise that those in the Israeli cabinet with military experience are at odds with Netanyahu who is seeking to avoid a lengthy prison sentence at the expense of the regime’s soldiers and captives holed up in the Gaza Strip.