For nearly a year, Palestinians in Gaza have endured relentless bombardment, mass displacement, and the collapse of every semblance of normal life. Israel’s leaders told the world they were on the path to “decisive victory” over Hamas. But a newly leaked internal Israeli military report tears apart that narrative.
The assessment, authored by Brigadier General (res.) Guy Chazut, concedes what Palestinians have long known: Israel’s war in Gaza has been a failure — militarily, politically, and morally.
“Every possible mistake was made”
While bombs reduced Gaza’s cities to rubble and hospitals turned into shelters of the displaced, Israel’s own generals admit they fought “against their own doctrine.” According to the report, Hamas was given every condition it needed to endure: time, space, and the ability to adapt.
Despite the devastation — over 40,000 Palestinians killed, the majority women and children — the report acknowledges what Palestinians cry out every day: Hamas has not been defeated, and the hostages remain in Gaza.
Israel’s overwhelming firepower turned Gaza into a graveyard, yet even from within its own ranks comes the admission that it achieved little beyond human suffering.
A war of starvation and spectacle
The report goes further, exposing the contradictions at the heart of Israel’s strategy. It criticizes humanitarian aid operations, not for their cruelty, but for their incompetence: Israel allowed Hamas to frame the blockade and food restrictions as a campaign of deliberate starvation.
For Palestinians, this is no “narrative.” Starvation has been lived reality. Parents search for flour; children collapse from malnutrition; hospitals have no medicine. Now Israel’s own military admits its tactics backfired, eroding legitimacy abroad — even as they inflicted unbearable pain on civilians.
The illusion of “achievements”
Yes, the report lists partial achievements: targeted killings, strikes on infrastructure, the return of some hostages’ bodies. But for Palestinians, these “successes” translate into endless funerals, shattered families, and another generation growing up in ruins. When measured against the stated goals — ending Hamas and freeing captives — the report’s conclusion is blunt: “We failed.”
The document describes an army mired in contradictions:
- No clear timeline, leading to drawn-out battles that bled soldiers and civilians alike.
- Repeated invasions of the same neighborhoods, leveling them over and over while residents returned to find nothing left.
- Overemphasis on troop preservation, slowing operations and dragging the war into a war of attrition that Palestinians bore the brunt of.
- Failure to adapt to guerrilla warfare, as Hamas fighters used tunnels and urban density to outmaneuver Israel’s conventional strength.
The most chilling line of all is not that Israel failed to meet its goals. It is that those goals were pursued through collective punishment — starving, bombing, and displacing civilians — with the knowledge that none of it would bring true victory.
If, after so much destruction, Israel’s own army concludes the campaign has failed, what does that say about the war’s true purpose For Palestinians, the answer has always been clear: this was never about defeating Hamas alone. It was about breaking Gaza, crushing resistance by any means, and proving that Palestinian lives are expendable.
The report leaks now, but Gaza has lived its truth since the first missile fell: Israel’s war was not a path to security — it was, and remains, a war on existence itself.
©TNPP
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