Last Thursday evening, February 13, 2025, a rocket was fired into Israel from a location in central Gaza. It was unclear who fired the rocket – Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), or some other terrorist group – and it was unclear what was its target. The going assumption is that given its trajectory, the rocket was aimed at Kibbutz Beeri. It is also unclear what type of rocket it was – it could have been a Katyusha, a mortar, or perhaps even some kind of home-made rocket. The reason that so little is known about the incident is because the rocket flew for only a very short period of time until it crashed in Gaza in the Nusseirat Refugee Camp, killing a 14-year old boy. The firing of the rocket at sovereign Israeli territory was a flagrant breach of the ceasefire agreement signed on January 19, not even one month ago.
Israel’s response would be critical. Would it strike back forcefully? Would it strike back in the sort of tit-for-tat game that Israel played with Hamas and Hezbollah until October 7? Or would Israel not respond at all? Betzalel Smotrich, the Ministry of Finance and the Head of the Religious Zionist Party, publicly reached out to Prime Minister Netanyahu on X telling him, “[This is] a moment for a harsh and disproportionate response that will make it clear that we are not returning to the [security] concept of October 6th.” Smotrich refers to what Israelis now refer to as the “conception” that posited that Hamas was deterred before the massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, and that all that was required was a slap on the wrist. Smotrich continued, “A rocket was fired from Gaza toward Israel. Mr. Prime Minister, this is a watershed moment. A moment for a strong and disproportionate response that will clarify that Israel isn’t going back to its pre-October 7 practice of limited reaction to rocket launches.” The word “disproportionate” might not be the correct word as it has a scent of being unfair. The word “powerful” would have been perhaps a better choice in relaying the message. Israel should not limit itself by destroying the launcher, rather, it should take out some buildings suspected of hiding munitions. And there are plenty of such buildings in Gaza.
Israel’s first official response after announcing that a rocket had been fired from Gaza was, “The IDF is committed to fully implementing the conditions of the agreement for the return of the hostages.” Later that evening, the IDF identified the location of the rocket launcher and promptly destroyed it. The right wing political pundit, Amit Segal, wrote on his X account, “Classic October 6 response.” Had Israel learned nothing from the Massacre of October 7? Did they not learn over the past year that our adversaries respect power, and only power? The only way Hamas was convinced to sign on the ceasefire, essentially the same ceasefire it had refused to sign on numerous times in the past sixteen months, was because the IDF had turned Gaza into a pile of smoking rubble. Hamas stood to lose more than it would gain by continuing the fighting. Why change a strategy that works? Is Israel that plain dumb?
Maybe not. Two days after the Gaza rocket attack, the IAF conducted an air raid in Lebanon that targeted and killed Hezbollah operative Abbas Ahmad Hamoud. Hamoud was responsible for Hezbollah’s fleet of drones. He was, for all intents and purposes, the Chief of the Hezbollah Air Force. After Fuad Shukr, the leader of Hezbollah’s military wing, had been assassinated by Israel in July 2024, Hamoud was about as high-ranking as they get. His assassination held long-term strategic importance for Israel. The IDF said that Hamoud was targeted after repeatedly violating the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire by launching drones toward Israel, in breach of the ceasefire signed with Hezbollah on December 15, 2024. Even though these drones were used only for reconnaissance – they were not “suicide drones” equipped with a warhead of any kind – Israel still considered the flights as breaches of the ceasefire. The IDF added in a statement, “The IDF continues to operate to remove any threat to the State of Israel and will operate to prevent any attempt by the Hezbollah terrorist organization to establish itself, which is contrary to the understandings reached between Israel and Lebanon.” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described the launch of the drones as “a red line” and “a blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement. He added, “As I warned, if there are drones, there will be no Hezbollah.” The IDF is fully capable of backing up that threat, and Hezbollah knows so. It is expected that Hezbollah reconnaissance drones will not be seen over Israeli skies for the near foreseeable future.
The obvious question is why did the Hamas rocket attack merit such a muted IDF response while the same IDF responded with such immense force over the Hezbollah drone overflights? Both provocations were in clear breach of a ceasefire. Why was this breach different from all other breaches?
An answer to this question can be found in the first words published by the IDF immediately after the Hamas rocket attack: “The IDF is committed to fully implementing the conditions of the agreement for the return of the hostages.” What does the return of the hostages have to do with exploding rockets? How was this statement meant to make Hamas shake in their boots? At the outset of war, Israel had two primary goals: the complete destruction of Hamas as a military and administrative power, and the return of the 251 Israelis, dead and alive, who had been taken hostage on the day of the Massacre. More recently, especially as Israel and Hamas entered earnest discussions towards a ceasefire, the primary goal of the government and the IDF had most definitely shifted to the release of the hostages. To many but not all Israelis, this has become the only goal of the war. Families and friends of the released hostages openly express immense relief and joy. Emotional scenes are witnessed as hostages are reunited with their loved ones. Israelis gather in public places to watch the live coverage of the releases. As the hostages are released emaciated and sickly, the criticality of the release of all the hostages, at any cost, has become imperative. The government and the IDF are afraid of doing anything that will jeopardize their safety. The hostages are a get-out-of-jail-free card to the Hamas. While Hamas cannot act with impunity, they are treated by the IDF with kid gloves in comparison with the treatment received by Hezbollah.
This could turn out to be very problematic for Israel. Hamas has no interest in freeing all of the hostages because once that happens, Israel will have no reason to step on the brakes. Even if the IDF leaves Gaza completely under the rubric of a peace treaty, there will remain no reason for them to hold their fire. It is all too possible that in the not-so-distant future, Chaim Katz might be quoted as saying, “As I warned, if there are [rockets/tunnels/signs-of-rearming], there will be no Hamas.” The IDF will be fully capable of backing up that threat and Hamas will know so. But if the hostages remain in Hamas’ hands, then the safety of Hamas is guaranteed, at least for the meantime. It’s all a game of economics. We conclude with a quote from Robert Aumann, an American-born Israeli who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2005 for his work in Game Theory, “All these cries for peace we hear in Israel, especially from our side, do not bring peace any closer, they only push it away. If you chase peace it only eludes you. That’s not game theory; that’s history.”
Good things,
Ari Sacher