Anger within the Israeli army over the high losses among its troops and calls for a change in the fighting strategy
The Israeli military and Palestinian officials are reporting heavy casualties in the heavy fighting as Israel faces challenges to its goal of quickly eliminating Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In one of the bloodiest days for Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since the war began two months ago, 10 soldiers were killed in a battle on Tuesday in the northern part of the strip, the Israeli military said, describing intense face-to-face fighting with Hamas militants.
Israel's recent losses on the Gaza battlefield show that the overall goal of the army - crippling Hamas and its ability to harm Israelis - remains elusive, including in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which has been the primary focus of military activity since the beginning of the war.
Since the beginning of the war, 115 Israeli soldiers have been killed and about 600 injured in Gaza, according to the IDF. This is a greater number of casualties than the IDF has suffered in its other ground attacks on Gaza. At least 20 of the Israeli military fatalities were accidents, mostly as a result of friendly fire incidents.
"I am worried that we will declare victory before the war is won,"said Danny Danon, an Israeli lawmaker in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. "We need to clarify what exactly the goals of the war are, and what it really means to win and eliminate Hamas."
An average of 280 Palestinians have died in Gaza every day in recent weeks, according to the authorities there. The authorities said that more than 18,600 Palestinians in Gaza were killed in the war, most of them women and children. The figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The Israeli military estimates that several thousand Hamas fighters have died in the war.
Israel is facing increasing direct pressure from the United States to end active combat operations in Gaza and do more to prevent civilian casualties.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan is traveling to Israel this week, where he said he will talk with Netanyahu about timelines for ending the main fighting in Gaza.
Sullivan said that this does not mean that Israel should stop pursuing Hamas. "It just means that you are moving to a different stage from the kind of high-intensity operations that we see today,"Sullivan said on Tuesday during an appearance at a forum hosted by The Wall Street Journal.
Biden and Netanyahu disagreed on Tuesday over who should govern the Gaza Strip after the war. Biden said his administration wants the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, to take control of Gaza. Netanyahu strongly rejected the American proposal. He previously said that the Israeli army plans to maintain control indefinitely over the Strip.
Despite the high death toll in Gaza, neither Israel nor Hamas seems ready to back down from the fighting soon, and each is pressuring the other to surrender.
"Your failed leadership doesn't care about the lives of your soldiers,"Hamas said on Wednesday. "You have no choice but to withdraw from Gaza."The longer you stay there, the higher the bill of your death and losses."
The rise in Israeli casualties reflects a shift in military warfare tactics, with a greater focus on urban and ground combat and more targeted operations. In the first weeks of the war, Israel relied almost exclusively on aerial bombing.
Shalom Ben-Hanan, a former senior Israeli intelligence official, said that conducting the war from house to house and"checking things up close instead of destroying them from afar" is part of Israel's strategy to reduce civilian casualties. But this comes at a price for the Israeli forces, and in military and security circles some are beginning to question the strategy, he said.
"I already hear criticism that our fight is not so good, we have to fight differently, and that he is an Israeli,"Ben-Hannan said. They are asking"whether it is necessary to fight this way, or via tanks and airplanes".
Some military analysts say Israel will need at least two more months to effectively uproot Hamas.
"If we have until the end of January, we will most likely achieve the strategic goal of dismantling the bulk of Hamas' military capabilities,"said Miri Eisen, a retired colonel in Israeli military intelligence. The goal of Israel's second war - the recovery of 135 hostages its military said were still being held by Hamas - is likely to require negotiations, which Israel may Press through further military action, she said.
She said one of Israel's most salient challenges is dismantling Hamas ' nearly 300-mile underground tunnel network, which is crucial for the group to move fighters and supplies. On Tuesday, Israel began flooding it with sea water.
With intense aerial bombardment and ground fighting taking place in northern and southern Gaza - and the healthcare system disintegrating - the war is entering a deadly new phase.
Israeli forces are closing in on Jabalia in northern Gaza and the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, the site of some of the fiercest fighting of the war so far, where they say Hamas is holding some of its top fighters.
The army said on Wednesday that several soldiers, including a senior officer, were killed during an intense week-long battle against militants in Shujaiya, describing it as a complex battle space that poses great challenges for maneuvering forces.
During the battle, Hamas militants threw explosive charges at Israeli troops and fired from residential buildings. While the army estimates that it killed more than 350 militants in Shuja'iya.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had hit 250 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip over the past day.
Since the temporary truce between Israel and Hamas expired two weeks ago, fighting has broken out in the south of the enclave, with Israeli forces engaged in close combat with Hamas militants in and around the southern city of Khan Yunis.
Israeli forces on Tuesday entered the Kamal Adwan hospital, in northern Gaza, where they interrogated and detained about 70 staff, according to the UN and medical aid for Palestinians, a UK NGO working there. The raid came after three days of fighting around the hospital. Many people sheltering there were evacuated.
