May 8, 2025
Operation Gideon’s Chariots in the Gaza Strip is destined to fail. Even before it has begun, it is clear that it will not achieve its goals and that it lacks all legitimacy in the eyes of many Israelis and, of course, in the eyes of the world.
Therefore, these chariots must be stopped before they set out.
Yaniv Kubovich reported on Thursday that in the orders presented to senior military commanders this week, the return of the hostages was at the bottom of the list of priorities for the operation.
It was confirmation from the Israel Defense Forces of what has long been suspected: the release of the hostages is not the real aim of the war.
The list of objectives also casts in a troubling light the promises made in recent days by IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and IDF Spokesperson Effie Defrin, according to which the hostages’ return is the supreme goal.
While that is the view of most Israelis, the government and, in its wake, the IDF, have pushed this goal to the bottom of the list.
Even the goal that appears to be a prima facie war crime – “concentrating and moving the population,” in the IDF’s language, which is nothing but a euphemism for population transfer – is above the sixth and final goal of returning the hostages.
And as if that weren’t enough, the IDF also decided to use a new Hebrew term for the hostages – “bnei aruba” rather than “hatufim.” But whichever term one uses, their fate cries out for immediate, urgent Israeli intervention. They will be freed only through a deal with Hamas.
Operation Gideon’s Chariots not only won’t lead to their release, but it will pose a clear and present danger to those who are still alive – 21 or 24 of them.
Meanwhile, the bloodbath in Gaza is intensifying even before the operation has begun. On Wednesday, the IDF killed 107 people in one of the war’s bloodiest days. Among them were 32 displaced people, nine of them children, who had found temporary shelter in a school in the Bureij refugee camp.
While the IDF was warning people to evacuate a nearby mosque, its precision bombers bombed the school-turned-shelter. Photographs from the scene were among the most shocking seen in this war to date.
Dozens of people were bleeding and dying on the floor, and there was no one left to treat them. Among them, as always, the children stood out.
That’s what a war looks like when it has no point and no moral or legal restraints. When getting the hostages back is at the bottom of the list, the war has also lost whatever last remnants of legitimacy it still had.
So now it’s time to once again demand that the government and the army hold their fire, immediately. End this war and obtain the release of the hostages through a deal.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
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