In Gaza, Israel’s Military Has Reached the End of the Line, U.S. Officials Say

Helene Cooper, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmitt and Adam Rasgon

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Israel has achieved all that it can militarily in Gaza, according to senior American officials, who say continued bombings are only increasing risks to civilians while the possibility of further weakening Hamas has diminished.

With the Biden administration racing to get cease-fire negotiations back on track, a growing number of national security officials across the government said that the Israeli military had severely set back Hamas but would never be able to completely eliminate the group.

In many respects, Israel’s military operation has done far more damage against Hamas than U.S. officials had predicted when the war began in October.

Israeli forces can now move freely throughout Gaza, the officials said, and Hamas is bloodied and damaged. Israel has destroyed or seized crucial supply routes from Egypt into Gaza. About 14,000 combatants in Gaza have been killed or captured, the Israeli military said last month. (The U.S. intelligence agencies use different, more conservative methodologies to estimate Hamas casualties, though the precise number remains classified.)

The Israeli military also asserted that it had eliminated half the leadership of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, including the top leaders Muhammad Deif and Marwan Issa.

But one of Israel’s biggest remaining goals — the return of the roughly 115 living and dead hostages still held in Gaza after being seized in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — cannot be achieved militarily, according to current and former American and Israeli officials.