It would be hard to imagine that almost exactly six months after October 7, I would find myself saying this, but Israel is either on a path to defeat or has lost the war already.

The forces ranged against Israel have been powerful, from those squatting in Gaza and Tehran to the mobs on the streets of western cities and their allies on Capitol Hill.

The way in which the Jewish state – the regional military superpower, enjoying huge military support from the global superpower – is being forced to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory is a cautionary tale for the West. It is often correctly said that Israel is on the frontline of the struggle against jihadism. Well, pay attention: the collapse of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which after the October atrocities was the most justified imaginable, is a harbinger of what may lie ahead.

Let’s look at the facts on the ground. At the height of the war, there were hundreds of thousands of troops in Gaza. This week, however, almost all Israeli forces were withdrawn, leaving behind only 1,000 combat troops from the Nahal Brigade. They are deployed only along the narrow Netzarim corridor, which bisects Gaza from east to west to prevent Hamas creeping north. The southern portion of the Strip, from Rafah on the Egyptian border to Khan Yunis – where the 98th commando division sacrificed many lives to root out Hamas and pursue a fruitless search for its leader, Yahya Sinwar – has been abandoned to the jihadis. And there remain pockets of Hamas in the north.

The official Israeli line is that all this is simply a regrouping tactic to prepare for a future invasion of Rafah, which is backed by most Israelis. This is not out of some bloodlust: Israel understands that without taking Rafah, Hamas will simply return and repeat October 7. In the words of a senior Israeli politician, you can’t extinguish 80 per cent of a fire.

In a desperate attempt to steady his restive coalition and calm the voting public, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have set a date for the Rafah operation, once the troops are ready. But few people believe him. It is now very difficult to see how this can ever take place.

With Hamas once again taking control of the south, Israel would need to pull hundreds of thousands of reserves away from their families once again and re-conquer that territory before driving down towards Rafah. In fact, now that the troops have left, the jihadis are already returning.

Just hours after the exhausted men of the 98th division pulled out of Khan Yunis, a barrage of rockets was fired at Israel from the freshly vacated town. This is a hint of the scale of the challenge that the withdrawal has created.

Once the south was secured again, the IDF would need to evacuate the 1.4 million people Hamas is using as a human shield from Rafah and direct them to a safe zone in the........

© The Spectator