At this point, the only obstacle to an Israeli military victory in Gaza is Washington.

There is desperation in Western media to declare Israel’s campaign in Gaza, Operation Swords of Iron, a failure. Over the past several months, there has been a steady supply of analysis beating the same drum: Israel is not winning. Hamas remains intact. The Israeli government has no plan. The very notion of a military victory is illusory. And so on. It’s a genre unto itself—one which, unsurprisingly, tracks precisely with the official talking points of the Biden-Harris administration and other Western governments that have been trying to bend Israel’s operation against Hamas to fit their own failed paradigms.

The latest installment came last week, courtesy of CNN. An acme of the genre, the article cast aspersions on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim, which he made in his address before Congress last month, that “victory is in sight.” Instead, CNN claimed that of 24 Hamas battalions, only three are considered “destroyed” and another eight are combat-effective, with 13 having only a “moderate” reduction in their fighting capability.

CNN was merely repeating talking points from months ago. In December, The Washington Post ran an article titled “Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas. Yet the group remains largely intact,” and NBC News published “Israel says it has degraded 10 out of 24 Hamas battalions and killed thousands of fighters. But Hamas is still fighting and its top leaders are still alive.” In May, CNN itself claimed that Israel’s military strategy was failing because the IDF had renewed fighting in northern Gaza, which raised “doubts about whether Israel’s goal to eradicate the group in the enclave is realistic.”

Never mind the veracity of such claims that demolished Hamas battalions are in fact still operational. The IDF, for what it’s worth, has dismissed them as false. The more important fact is that they are irrelevant.

The IDF’s way of war is not the West’s way of war. It is not designed to carry out protracted campaigns of attrition. It is a raiding army.

The goals of the IDF operation are to dismantle Hamas’ administrative and fighting capabilities, which are almost entirely contingent on Gaza’s network of underground tunnels. The tunnels are the main focus of IDF ground-holding operations along the Philadelphi Corridor in Rafah, while IDF maneuver brigades strike Hamas wherever they coalesce. The IDF is having to fight a determined enemy that hides among and weaponizes the civilian infrastructure and population as human shields—all with the eyes of the world ready to condemn the slightest Israeli error. This takes time. It’s a long war against a consolidated and tenacious terror army. IDF sources I spoke to predicted another six to 18 months to finish the job, assuming no cease-fire is agreed.

This is not, and never has been, a counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operation—It is a conventional urban war against an irregular but fully formed terror army, with their own underground citadel. Yet many Western analysts are incapable of seeing the conflict through anything but the lens of post-9/11 operations. The refrain, echoing official Biden-Harris administration talking points, is that Israel should be doing what the West tried and failed to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, Israel needs to make sure it follows our lead and lose.

The IDF’s way of war is not the West’s way of war. It is not designed, either operationally or logistically, to carry out protracted campaigns of attrition. It is a raiding army, and that is what its operational design reflects. It is not articulated in sequential phases in the way a Western planner would articulate a concept of operations. Rather, many of the following have occurred simultaneously:

Phase A was defense against Hamas’ incursion on October 7; airstrikes; and evacuation of Gaza’s civilian population from combat zones.

Phases B1 and B2 were the Gaza City break-in. The IDF assessed this location as the Hamas “center of gravity,” which military theorist Carl von Clausewitz defined in his book “On War” as “the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends.” Gaza City was Hamas’ power base, and the IDF plan was to destroy what Hamas capability it found.

Phase B3 was the first cease-fire and hostage return.

Phases B4 and B5 saw continued operations in Khan Yunis and northern Gaza, focusing on Hamas’ central battalions, and undertaking the Rafah operation to seize and clear the Philadelphi Corridor of Hamas tunnels. This is still ongoing.

Phase C will be to continue to dismantle Hamas’ administrative and military capabilities in those areas through intelligence-led raids. The second Shifa hospital raid in March was an example of this, which aims to create the conditions for administrative alternatives to Hamas. It is fair to say that this has not yet happened, and indeed, as I wrote in Tablet in May, may not happen at all.

Phase D will be to stabilize an alternative governance structure and maintain IDF freedom of operation within the Gaza Strip.

Each of these stages is underpinned by maintenance of operational freedom; humanitarian efforts; protection and return of the hostages (the IDF have a “no strike” policy where there may be hostages in any location in Gaza); and eliminating Hamas’ leadership where they are not using the hostages as their own human version of Iron Dome.

During a visit to Israel last month, the IDF Southern Command showed me designs for the whole Gaza operation. It is truly impressive: Hamas defensive positions were oriented from west to east, and the IDF operational plan outflanked them by coming in from the north, along the coast, and then turning east to hit Hamas from behind. In military terms, Hamas was completely dislocated.

Operations are, of course, severely hampered by the IDF’s remarkable efforts at civilian protection—a factor that condescending international media analysis either ignores or cynically uses as further evidence for the need to end the operation in line with Washington’s demands. The IDF has moved hundreds of thousands of people out of harm’s way, and it has sacrificed surprise to ensure civilians are protected. Of course Hamas fighters have moved to humanitarian zones along with the civilians. This is why they are “safer zones” rather than “safe zones”: The IDF reserves the right to strike Hamas fighters where they reasonably and proportionally can. It is unquestionable that the IDF’s extraordinary efforts to protect civilians have made the war far more difficult to fight. These are the actions of a moral army. The constant disruption and interference by a U.S. administration seeking a quick end to the operation have prolonged both the war and the suffering of the people of Gaza.

Hamas, by contrast, is a terror army, with well-dug-in and planned defensive positions among the population, a clear command structure, and a motivated and well-trained fighting force. The war has only been ongoing for nine full months. No other army in recent history has confronted an enemy of this nature. It is ludicrous and unrealistic to expect the IDF to fully dismantle Gaza’s government and military of 20 years in a few short months.

It is also worth noting that Hamas, whether it still has cohesive battalions or not, has been unable to land a decisive blow against the IDF since the start of ground maneuver operations. The IDF has killed some 17,000 Hamas fighters, and Hamas’ senior leadership has taken significant casualties, including the group’s former head, Ismail Haniyeh, and before that, its top military commander Muhammad Deif. Those who are still alive are in hiding. The group’s battalion command structure is badly damaged. Their weapons manufacturing capability is diminished. They cannot launch a repeat of October 7. The Philadelphi Corridor has been seized and the tunnels to Egypt are being dismantled. Importantly, Netanyahu’s office has stressed that Israel has no plans to cede control of the corridor.

At the start of the war, Western analysts and government officials told us that none of this could be done. In less than 10 months, this is an impressive achievement by the IDF, given the remarkable built-in defensive capabilities of Hamas. Finishing the job will take longer still.

What’s more, IDF combat operations in Gaza have led to an astonishing degree of operational freedom. The IDF’s 162nd Division, which led the charge in Gaza City and Rafah, has only lost four armored vehicles in nine months of fighting; 2,831 vehicles have been damaged by enemy action, but every single one has returned to the front lines. In the second Shifa hospital raid—a masterpiece of operational design—the IDF was on objective within 15 minutes of the start of the mission. It deployed Special Forces and killed 200 members of Hamas, and captured 600 more. Interestingly, the reason so many Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters were present in the first place is that the IDF applied both pressure and deception to encourage them back into the hospital, thinking it was safe.

The impact of IDF operations on the behavior of Hamas’ leadership has also been noteworthy, because the destruction of the tunnels is beginning to force them above ground. At the start of the war, senior commanders stayed inside underground; as of this writing, the 162nd Division alone has destroyed 1,635 tunnel shafts and 90 kilometers of tunnel network. The tunnels’ dwindling viability forces Hamas commanders to hide in the humanitarian zones above ground instead, presenting the IDF with opportunities for high-value targeting—this is how Deif was killed—despite the difficulties of operating against the human shield strategy. The IDF will continue to strike in these zones when circumstances require it.

Hamas will fight for as long as its commanders remain in control. The IDF’s operational plan at this point is to force them to crack when they understand their own lives are in danger. The IDF has its boot on Hamas’ throat and will keep pressing until it quits.

This, in turn, is why Washington’s unrelenting campaign to force a cease-fire is so pernicious: It attempts to ensure Hamas will survive and have a vote in the outcome of the war. So far, Netanyahu has resisted the pressure, allowing the IDF to continue tightening the vise until Hamas is forced to agree to Israel’s terms for a cease-fire. Israel does not accept the artificial Western separation of diplomacy from military force, as if they were opposite tools with conflicting objectives. It is leveraging both toward the same goal.

The IDF is only midway through a gargantuan task. The job is far from finished, but it is making progress. At this point, the only thing that can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and ensure the survival of the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist group on Israel’s border, is Washington.

Andrew Fox served as an officer in the British Army from 2005-2021, retiring with the rank of Major. He completed three tours in Afghanistan, including one attached to U.S. Army Special Forces. He also served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East. He is a Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and a lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.