Al Jazeera :
After six months of relentless attacks on Gaza, Israel remains no closer to a victory than it has been at any point since October of last year.
Whether it has plans for the enclave beyond the fighting remains unknown, while more than 33,000 people, the majority women and children lie dead.
More than 75,000 people have been injured and most of the population has been displaced.
Some 1.5 million of those displaced are sheltering in the southernmost city of Rafah, whose future remains uncertain in the face of constant Israeli bombardment and threats of a ground invasion.
In the meantime, Israel, which claims that it killed some 12,000 fighters among the tens of thousands of dead, is using their alleged presence to press on.
Beyond this assault, what Israel wants in Gaza remains unclear, and there is no Palestinian, international or Israeli consensus on who would administer the enclave in the future.
Israeli forces, dramatically reduced in number from the massive deployment at the beginning of the war – with just one brigade reported to be present in southern Gaza – have struggled to gain and retain control over territory crisscrossed by unknown miles of tunnels that allow Palestinian fighters mobility and access.
Areas such as al-Shifa Hospital, which was stormed for a second time in mid-March after Israeli claims of having searched and cleared it in November.
Among other areas it claimed to have “cleared of terrorists”, the Israeli army has returned to the Zeitoun neighbourhood in Gaza City, the Shati refugee camp and the city of Beit Hanoon, among others.
Hamas fighters, aided by what appears to be a still serviceable tunnel network, which a Western intelligence official told the BBC in February seemed to have only been reduced by a third, have forced Israeli forces into a deadly chase across the enclave.
Current troop numbers stand in stark contrast with the 360,000 reservists mobilised to counter the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, which saw 1,139 people, the majority civilians, killed and 250 taken captive into Gaza.
To return to Gaza in the numbers needed to prove effective would be costly. After the call-up for the initial surge into Gaza, the Israeli economy shrank by 7 percent as the war drew workers from their jobs.
Moreover, the possibility of a fresh front opening on Israel’s northern border with the Lebanon-based group, Hezbollah, with which it maintains a steady exchange of fire, remains a possibility. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defines the war aims as defeating Hamas and freeing an unknown number of remaining Israeli captives.
A wartime opinion poll during December’s brief ceasefire suggested an increase in support for Hamas across Gaza, as well as a clear rejection of the West’s preferred candidate to administer any post-war settlement in Gaza: Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Israel will probably “face lingering armed resistance from Hamas for years to come, and the military will struggle to neutralise Hamas’s underground infrastructure, which allows insurgents to hide, regain strength, and surprise Israeli forces”, the US said of the situation in its Threat Assessment in March.
“I don’t know if it’s about support for Hamas as much as it is whoever’s striking back,” Baraa Shiban, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute said, referring to Palestinians responding to Hamas as a resistance group rather than a political entity.