Why did Israel fail in this war?

[Anonymous]

They haven’t been able to rescue any hostages or eliminate Hamas. I thought Israel would do it in two months, especially against a weak force like Hamas, but two years have passed and they haven’t rescued a single hostage. What kind of failure is this? Israeli hostages have been in Hamas’ hands for two years.
The entire Israeli people hate the Netanyahu government. In two weeks, Netanyahu will be holding a wedding for his son. Many Israelis are against him celebrating while the hostages still haven’t been rescued, and they say they will try to ruin the wedding. The Netanyahu government is a complete failure. They will definitely lose in next year’s elections.

[Syntosi]

Israel failed to rescue any hostages because they never tried to save them in the first place.

Look. Humanity has a long history. In it we have tried most things that you can think of and we know what actions resulted in success and failure. Because it is relevant on multiple levels I am going to highlight the public library published by the US army. This is one of the largest collections of human knowledge in the world and contains basically anything you would ever want to know about anything. From how to build a house to how to torture someone for information.

Relevant for this conversation is field manuals such as FM 3-24 and others which talks about things such as terrorists and how to deal with them as well as other manuals on how to deal with hostage situations. These are published works that are built on historical examples, practical knowledge and the theoretical works of experts in their fields. In other words, this is basically our best official (they probably have more detailed versions of these manuals internally) understanding of how these things work.

So we basically have the handbook for how to resolve this exact scenario and its free for anyone to read. So how well did Israel follow these instructions? To put it bluntly, Israel did everything in the book.. on how to make the situation worse. At no point has it appeared that they made any real effort to resolve the situation. Furthermore, Israel KNEW this at the time because experts and USA themselves straight up went to Israel and TOLD them this would happen if they invaded Gaza before it happened.

Israel did not make a mistake. They explicitly chose this outcome from the beginning. This is what Netanyahu wanted. It is arguable if he knew the full scale of the consequences of his actions regarding how much power Israel has lost since but in regards to the hostages it was decided from the start to sacrifice them for some kind of other goal.

[Pterodon]

Because they have world pressure to stop including from the Biden administration.

[Asker]

Yes, there is hatred towards Israel all over the world, that is true. But why can’t they rescue the hostages because of this? They can’t find the tunnels, they can’t rescue the hostages. The Netanyahu government has literally accomplished nothing in two years. The only thing it has achieved is damaging Israel’s reputation and making it one of the most hated countries in the world. Even Netanyahu’s son fled Israel and now lives in Miami. Netanyahu will probably join him there after he loses next year’s elections.

[Pterodon]

They have accomplished a lot. They’ve seriously harmed Hamas. They know where the tunnels are but they needed 2,000 lb bombs to deal with them and Biden wouldn’t let them have any.

[Asker]

Are you kidding me? They know where the tunnels are and they still haven't rescued the hostages? For 2 years?

[Pterodon]

How will they rescue them without Hamas killing them first

[Asker]

Let Israel think about it. Not me. Haven't they found a solution for 2 years?

[Anonymous]

What is the goal of the Israeli war, the real goal?

[Asker]

Rescue the hostages and destroy Hamas.

[Opinion Owner]

Publicly yes. But its to smack the Palestinians so hard that they won't be a problem for 20 years and justification to claim more land.