Smell of gunpowder returns in Gaza Experts on a potential Israeli offensive

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have developed a plan to resume intensive military operations in the Gaza Strip in March. According to the scenario, an advance on Gaza City is planned to expand the territory of the enclave under Israeli control, an Israeli official and an Arab diplomat told The Times of Israel.

The report notes that details of the planned operation have emerged against the backdrop of the IDF’s recent announcement that three Gaza residents were killed in Israeli strikes. According to the army, the deceased had approached units stationed along the so-called “Yellow Line”—the ceasefire line that, under the proposed operation, could be shifted westward, closer to the coast.

At the same time, the Arab diplomat emphasised that the offensive is unlikely to proceed without U.S. support. However, Washington continues to push for advancing the October truce into a second phase, which would involve the disarmament of Hamas.

According to a source, although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump to cooperate on extending the ceasefire during their meeting, he reportedly doubts that Hamas can be fully disarmed. For this reason, the Prime Minister is said to have tasked the IDF with developing a plan to resume military operations in Gaza.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that Hamas continues to refuse full disarmament and is focused on rebuilding its military capabilities. Arab officials note that while the group may hand over remnants of heavy weaponry, it has no intention of relinquishing small arms. Israel estimates that Hamas still commands around 20,000 fighters. Sources also indicate that, with an influx of funds, the movement has resumed regular salary payments to its combatants.

How likely is such an operation? What objectives would Israel pursue? And is full disarmament and withdrawal of Hamas from Gaza a realistic prospect?

Caliber.Az consulted leading regional experts to provide answers to these critical questions.

Ruslan Suleymanov, an expert on the Middle East, noted that after the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October last year, the implementation of the so-called “Trump plan” to resolve the situation in Gaza began.

“In particular, the document envisages transferring authority in the Palestinian enclave to a certain supranational body. It also calls for the disarmament of Hamas and the deployment of third-party international forces to control the situation on the ground. However, none of these points have been implemented to date—mainly due to Hamas’s rigid stance, as the group refuses to disarm and leave the Gaza Strip. The movement does not accept these conditions, although it is ready to share power with other Palestinian factions and form a coalition government—the so-called technocratic government—but no more than that,” the expert explained.

In this context, he added, Israel is responding quite firmly, reminding everyone of its right to resume a ground operation in order to resolve the Hamas issue by force if necessary.

“Essentially, the situation in Gaza is now at a crossroads: either a complex negotiation process with Hamas, involving concessions from both Israel and the Palestinian radicals, or a resumption of military operations. Judging by the signs, the Israeli leadership is leaning toward the second option.

However, given the enormous pressure on Trump from the Muslim world, Washington has so far not given Israel the ‘green light’ to conduct a full-scale operation in Gaza. The most likely scenario is limited actions, which are already ongoing in the form of periodic raids and strikes against Hamas in Gaza. It is in this slow-moving mode that the situation will most likely develop. But I do not believe this will lead to full-scale hostilities like those seen over the past two years,” Suleymanov predicts.

Israeli military expert and author of a military-analytical YouTube channel, Sergey Auslander, said that the likelihood of such an operation depends on the agreements reached between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump during their most recent meeting on December 29, 2025, at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

“In principle, Netanyahu’s main task regarding Gaza was to explain to Trump that Hamas is unwilling to disarm. He wanted to demonstrate that the president’s peace plan has a vulnerability—the absence of a scenario in case Hamas refuses to comply. Netanyahu needed to convince Trump that if Hamas rejects this plan, it should be punished, for example by being deprived of territory. Ideally, it should be destroyed, but that is problematic due to a number of circumstances.

That is why the army is actively refining its plans, and this is being widely covered in the media as a means of psychological pressure on Hamas,” the analyst explained.

According to him, the deployment of forces and the summoning of reservists are being demonstrated to send a clear message: “Move, or we’ll start!”

“In principle, the second phase was scheduled to begin on January 15, but it does not seem likely to happen, because Hamas simply does not want to and will not agree. For Hamas members, this is a matter of physical survival—not just for the organization, but for individuals themselves, since they could be eliminated for what they have done in Gaza.

The likelihood of such an operation is not 100 percent, but it is fairly high. However, it should be taken into account that for Trump, of all the wars he claims to have ended, the war in Gaza is the only real one whose resolution (at least in part) would be considered his accomplishment,” Auslander noted.