Nearly two years have passed since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Nearly two years since families were butchered in their homes, since babies were taken hostage, since thousands of rockets rained down on Israeli cities. And nearly two years into this war, Israel has achieved much. And yet, the war is not over because Hamas is not yet destroyed.
True, Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the massacre, is dead. So is Mohammed Deif, his chief engineer. So is Ismail Haniyeh, the suave terrorist politician. The tunnel systems in Khan Yunis and Rafah have been collapsed, although, as a recent attack shows, not completely. Much of southern Gaza is under IDF control. Hezbollah has been defeated. Iran is but a shadow of itself.
Still, while Hamas’ senior leadership has been eliminated, its organizational structure, ideology, and terror capabilities still exist. And where are they now? Mostly in northern Gaza. The very territory we cleared at the beginning of the war, and then left, believing that Hamas was broken.
It wasn’t.
Over the past eighteen months, Hamas has quietly reconstituted its fighting capacity in northern Gaza – in Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, Shati, and parts of Gaza City. On the recent USIEA congressional tour we stood in the ruins of Kfar Aza where we could see high-rises in Gaza City and Jabalia, perfect locations for snipers and anti-tank crews. Fighters have returned. Weapons have been smuggled back in. Commanders who fled south early in the war have resurfaced. And, critically, this area is likely where many of the remaining hostages – fewer than 20 still believed alive – are being held.
These facts force us to face a hard but unavoidable conclusion: Israel must return to northern Gaza, and this time, not with caution, but with overwhelming, unrelenting force. Not to “degrade” Hamas. Not to “pressure” them into releasing hostages. But to finish the job. Permanently.
Because here is the truth: Hamas will not give us the hostages back. If they were planning to do so, they already would have. The hostages are not prisoners – they are pawns, human shields, and psychological weapons. Hamas uses them with great success to fracture Israeli society, to buy time, and to manipulate international pressure.
Some still believe that maybe, just maybe, Hamas will trade the hostages for a ceasefire, or a prisoner exchange, or international guarantees. But that belief has already cost us time and it has cost lives. Each cease fire, Hamas regroups. They dig more tunnels and they implement lessons learned from the previous round of fighting. They booby-trap more buildings and lie in wait. The longer we wait, the fewer hostages there will be left to rescue.
Yes, the Israeli public is tired. Many Israelis have already done three hundred days of reserve duty since October 7. The Israeli economy is strained. But what was the point of all this, if we stop now?
What was the point of burying our dead, calling up our sons and daughters, standing against the world’s hypocrisy, if we’re going to leave Hamas breathing?
We’ve tried restraint. We’ve tried precision. We’ve tried humanitarian pauses. And in return, we’ve received condemnation, lies, and more rockets. What we haven’t received is our hostages and a sense of security. If we want this war to end, there is only one way: finish the fight.
That means reinvading northern Gaza with full force. No more “surgical” operations. No more holding back for the cameras of Al Jazeera. No more worrying about “optics” while Israeli hostages waste away in underground cages. And no more UN humanitarian aid that goes directly to Hamas to fund its operations.
The moral argument is not on the side of restraint, it is on the side of liberation. Liberation of the hostages and liberation of Israel from the shadow of the next massacre.
We are told incessantly by the international community to be “measured.” But Hamas was not measured when it beheaded our citizens. It was not measured when it launched a war from hospitals. It is not measured when it puts children in front of machine guns. So why must we be the only ones measured in a fight for our survival? Where has being measured gotten us?
The IDF has done extraordinary work. We have uprooted one of the most entrenched terror infrastructures the world has ever seen. But if we stop now Hamas will rise again, as it did everywhere in Gaza the IDF pulled out, and the next October 7th will come.
And when it does, we will ask ourselves: why did we not finish them when we had the chance?
That moment is now. Not when the UN approves. Not when Western journalists feel satisfied. Now.
We owe it to the hostages still in captivity.
We owe it to those murdered on October 7 and the soldiers who have fallen in the fight.
And we owe it to the next generation of Israelis, who deserve to grow up in a country where Hamas is not a looming threat, but a historical footnote.
Hamas must be destroyed, not weakened, not contained. Destroyed. And northern Gaza must be the next – and final – battlefield.
Ari Sacher is a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Israel Education Association and has worked for over thirty years as a rocket scientist in Israel.
