The Doctrine of Total Victory and Its Discontents: A Strategic History of the Israel-Palestinian War (2023–2025)
1. Introduction: The Collapse of the Status Quo and the Emergence of Total War
The period between October 7, 2023, and November 2025 represents the most significant and transformative rupture in the geopolitical architecture of the Levant since the 1967 Six-Day War. What began as a catastrophic intelligence failure and a localized, albeit massive, terrorist assault by Hamas evolved into a protracted, multi-front "total war" driven by the maximalist doctrine of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This conflict, initially framed by the Israeli leadership as a necessary campaign to restore deterrence and eliminate the existential threat posed by Hamas, metastasized into a regional conflagration that fundamentally altered the demographic, territorial, and political realities of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Southern Lebanon.
By late 2025, the operational map of the region had been redrawn. The Gaza Strip, once a contiguous coastal enclave, had been bifurcated and partially re-occupied, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) retaining direct military control over approximately 53% of the territory.1 The West Bank, historically governed under the bifurcated framework of the Oslo Accords, faced an accelerated process of de facto annexation, driven by aggressive settlement expansion and the economic strangulation of the Palestinian Authority (PA).3 Simultaneously, the northern border with Lebanon saw the erosion of the decades-old status quo, replaced by a militarized buffer zone and proposals for international economic zones that masked permanent displacement.5
This report offers an exhaustive analysis of these twenty-five months of conflict. It examines the military evolution of the campaign from the initial aerial bombardments of 2023 to the grinding insurgency of 2025; the privatization of humanitarian aid through controversial mechanisms like the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF); the collapse of the Israeli domestic social contract over issues of conscription and hostages; and the ultimate imposition of an external diplomatic framework—the "Trump Peace Plan"—which froze the conflict without resolving its core antagonisms. Through a detailed reconstruction of events, this analysis argues that while the doctrine of "Total Victory" successfully degraded the conventional military capabilities of Israel's adversaries, it failed to achieve a decisive political end-state, leaving behind a landscape defined by permanent occupation, humanitarian dependency, and strategic fragility.
2. The Strategic Rupture: October 7 and the Failure of Conception
2.1 The Collapse of the "Konceptzia"
For years prior to 2023, Israeli security strategy was governed by a concept—known in Hebrew as the Konceptzia—which posited that Hamas could be contained through a combination of economic inducements, Qatari cash infusions, and high-tech border defenses. This doctrine relied on the assumption that Hamas had prioritized governance over resistance and was deterred by the prospect of Israeli military retaliation.
This assumption was violently shattered on the morning of October 7, 2023. In a coordinated assault launched on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, Hamas operatives breached the sophisticated border fence at multiple points. The attack began at 6:30 am with a barrage of at least 2,200 rockets launched in mere minutes, serving as cover for a ground infiltration that targeted military bases, civilian kibbutzim, and an outdoor music festival.7 The operational success of the assault was absolute: 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, and 251 hostages were abducted into Gaza.8
The intelligence failure was systemic. It was later revealed that IDF intelligence had tracked Hamas preparations for five years, possessing an early version of the attack plan as far back as 2018. This plan explicitly detailed the intention to attack kibbutzim, take hostages, and focus on critical sites, yet Israeli analysts dismissed the preparations as aspirational rather than operational.9 The failure to internalize these warnings stemmed from a rigid adherence to the containment doctrine, which blinded the security establishment to the shift in Hamas’s strategic calculus.
2.2 The Formulation of "Total Victory"
In the immediate aftermath, the Netanyahu government articulated a new strategic objective: "Total Victory" (Nitzahon Mukhlat). This objective was defined by three core pillars: the total destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities; the return of all hostages; and the assurance that Gaza would never again pose a threat to Israel.10 This marked a departure from previous rounds of conflict, which were characterized by limited objectives often described as "mowing the grass."
To achieve these maximalist aims, the Israeli government mobilized over 350,000 reservists and declared a formal state of war.7 On October 9, 2023, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant ordered a "complete siege" of the Gaza Strip, cutting off the supply of electricity, food, water, and fuel.11 This decision effectively merged the civilian and military spheres of the conflict, setting the stage for a humanitarian crisis that would define the war's trajectory. The government framed the conflict not merely as a counter-terrorism operation but as an existential struggle for the survival of the state, utilizing language that prepared the Israeli public for a prolonged and costly engagement.
3. The Kinetic Campaign: Destruction, Displacement, and Attrition (2023–2024)
3.1 The Air Campaign and Northern Invasion (Oct–Dec 2023)
The initial phase of the war was characterized by an overwhelming aerial bombardment campaign unprecedented in its intensity. Between October and November 2023, the Israeli Air Force targeted Hamas’s underground tunnel network ("the Metro") and command centers embedded within the dense urban fabric of Gaza City and the northern camps.7 This phase resulted in the widespread destruction of residential infrastructure, with entire neighborhoods in Jabalia and Beit Hanoun reduced to rubble.
In late October 2023, the IDF launched its ground invasion. Operations focused on severing northern Gaza from the south, aiming to encircle Gaza City. The military logic was to compress Hamas fighters into a shrinking perimeter while forcing the civilian population to evacuate south of Wadi Gaza. By October 13, evacuation orders affected over 1 million Palestinians and 23 hospitals, displacing hundreds of thousands into an increasingly congested southern zone.11
3.2 The Shift to the South: Khan Younis and the Rafah Dilemma (2024)
As 2024 commenced, the center of gravity of the war shifted southward. Having declared operational control over northern Gaza—a claim that would be repeatedly tested by Hamas re-infiltration—the IDF pushed into Khan Younis. This city, the hometown of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, was viewed as a center of gravity for the organization’s leadership.1 The fighting in Khan Younis was characterized by intense urban combat and the systematic destruction of tunnel shafts.
However, the strategic dilemma of Rafah loomed large. By early 2024, Rafah had become the last refuge for over 1.5 million displaced Palestinians. The Israeli government insisted that Rafah was the final bastion of Hamas’s organized battalions and essential for cutting off smuggling routes from Egypt. The international community, led by the Biden administration, warned against a full-scale invasion due to the potential for catastrophic civilian casualties. Despite these warnings, the IDF launched the Rafah offensive in May 2024.12 The operation was framed as a necessity to dismantle the remaining Hamas battalions and secure the Philadelphi Corridor, the border zone with Egypt.
3.3 The Erosion of "Total Victory": Guerilla Transformation
Throughout 2024, it became evident that the metric of "total victory" was failing to account for the adaptability of the adversary. While the IDF successfully degraded Hamas’s battalion-level command structures, the group transitioned effectively into a guerrilla insurgency. Utilizing small, decentralized cells, Hamas fighters continued to ambush IDF units in areas that had been previously "cleared," such as the Zeitoun neighborhood and Jabalia refugee camp.13
This regenerative capacity forced the IDF into a "whack-a-mole" operational pattern, returning repeatedly to the same territories to conduct clearing operations. By late 2024, Israeli military intelligence estimated that while they had killed nearly 17,000 combatants, thousands remained active, hiding within the civilian population and the remaining tunnel infrastructure.14 The casualty count among Palestinians continued to mount horrifically; by November 2025, the toll stood at over 72,500 killed, including vast numbers of women and children, alongside over 120 academics and 248 journalists, leading to accusations of a targeted "scholasticide" aimed at erasing Gaza's intellectual future.14
3.4 The Netzarim Corridor: Engineering Permanent Control
A critical, often overlooked component of the kinetic campaign was the engineering of the Netzarim Corridor. Bisecting the Gaza Strip from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea, just south of Gaza City, this corridor was not merely a logistical supply route but a tool of permanent strategic control. By 2025, the corridor had been expanded to encompass over 21 square miles of territory.15
The IDF fortified this zone with bases and checkpoints, utilizing it to prevent the unauthorized return of displaced Palestinians to the north and to launch raids into central Gaza. The corridor physically shattered the territorial integrity of the Strip, creating a distinct "Northern Gaza" zone that was largely depopulated and isolated from the rest of the enclave. The battle for control of this corridor would become a major flashpoint in the negotiations and fighting of 2025.16
4. The False Dawn: The Failed Ceasefire of Early 2025
4.1 The January Agreement
The transition from 2024 to 2025 brought a temporary reprieve. Under intense pressure from the incoming Trump administration, which sought a quick diplomatic win, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that took effect on January 19, 2025.17 The agreement was structured in three phases, aiming for a durable peace, the release of all hostages, and the reconstruction of Gaza.
Table 1: The January 2025 Ceasefire Structure vs. Reality
Phase
Planned Duration
Key Objectives
Implementation Status
Phase 1
6 weeks (Jan-Feb)
Release of civilian hostages; temporary halt to fighting; humanitarian aid surge.
Partially Implemented: Some hostages released; aid increased slightly; fighting paused but tense.
Phase 2
6 weeks (Mar-Apr)
Release of military hostages; permanent cessation of hostilities; IDF withdrawal.
Failed: Negotiations collapsed over Hamas demands for total withdrawal and Israel's refusal.
Phase 3
Long-term
Reconstruction; end of blockade.
Never reached.
4.2 The Collapse and Resumption of Hostilities
The ceasefire proved fragile. While the first phase saw the release of some hostages and Palestinian prisoners, the underlying strategic disconnects remained. Hamas demanded a permanent end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal as a precondition for releasing the remaining military hostages. Prime Minister Netanyahu, bound by his "Total Victory" pledge and pressured by coalition partners who threatened to topple the government if the war ended without Hamas's destruction, refused these terms.18
On March 18, 2025, the ceasefire officially collapsed. Israel launched a surprise wave of airstrikes and a ground operation targeting the Netzarim Corridor, claiming Hamas had violated the truce terms.16 The resumption of hostilities was marked by a renewed intensity, as Israel sought to retake areas Hamas had re-infiltrated during the pause. This breakdown led to six more months of grinding warfare, during which the humanitarian situation spiraled into catastrophe.
5. The Humanitarian War: Privatization, Starvation, and the GHF
5.1 The Strategic Logic of Deprivation
Parallel to the military campaign, the Israeli government waged a "war on aid." The initial siege evolved into a complex bureaucratic system that severely restricted the flow of food, medicine, and fuel. By mid-2025, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other monitoring bodies confirmed that famine conditions were present in parts of Gaza. Between May and August 2025 alone, confirmed starvation-related deaths in hospitals reached 361, with the actual number likely far higher due to the collapse of the health reporting system.21
The deprivation was not incidental but strategic. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other hardliners argued that humanitarian aid was a lifeline for Hamas. Consequently, Israel systematically dismantled the operations of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency), the primary aid provider, by lobbying donors to defund the agency based on allegations of staff involvement in the October 7 attacks.14
5.2 The Rise of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)
To fill the vacuum left by UNRWA and maintain a veneer of humanitarian compliance, Israel, with U.S. backing, established the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in February 2025. This initiative represented a radical privatization of the occupation's humanitarian responsibilities. The GHF was conceptualized following a feasibility study by the U.S. national security consulting firm Orbis in November 2024.22
The GHF operated not through international aid workers, but through private military contractors (PMCs). Two U.S.-based firms, Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) and UG Solutions, were contracted to manage security and logistics for aid distribution. SRS, registered in Wyoming by former military officer and ex-CIA agent Philip Reilly, posted job advertisements seeking U.S. citizens with combat experience, capable of lifting 50 pounds unassisted, to work in the conflict zone.23
5.3 The "Death Traps" and the $30 Million Grant
The operational reality of the GHF was disastrous. The distribution sites, secured by armed contractors and overseen by IDF positions, became flashpoints for violence. Desperate civilians gathering for food were frequently fired upon. Between May and August 2025, over 2,000 Palestinians were killed near these militarized distribution hubs.24 UN experts and human rights organizations labeled these sites "death traps" and accused the mechanism of weaponizing aid.26
Despite these atrocities and internal objections from USAID staff regarding the GHF's lack of experience and oversight, the U.S. State Department rushed through a $30 million grant to the foundation in June 2025.28 This funding effectively made the U.S. government a direct financier of a privatized, militarized aid system that circumvented international humanitarian law frameworks. The GHF experiment underscored a broader trend: the attempt to replace established international mandates with ad-hoc, private mechanisms that prioritized security control over human needs.
6. The West Bank Front: Economic Strangulation and "Silent Annexation"
6.1 Smotrich's Economic Warfare
While Gaza was being decimated by kinetic force, the West Bank was being dismantled through economic warfare. Finance Minister Smotrich, wielding dual authority over the treasury and the Civil Administration in the West Bank, executed a strategy designed to collapse the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The primary weapon was the withholding of clearance revenues—taxes collected by Israel on behalf of the PA, constituting nearly 70% of its budget. Furthermore, Smotrich refused to renew indemnity waivers that protected Israeli banks (Discount and Hapoalim) from lawsuits when conducting transactions with Palestinian banks. By allowing these waivers to lapse or threatening their revocation, he effectively severed the Palestinian banking system from the Israeli shekel, which serves as the primary currency of the West Bank.30
This financial strangulation drove the West Bank economy into a deep recession, with unemployment soaring to 33% by 2025.32 The objective was explicit: to render the PA insolvent and dysfunctional, thereby removing the institutional foundation for a future Palestinian state.
6.2 Settlement Expansion and Legislative Sovereignty
The economic assault was accompanied by an unprecedented acceleration of the settlement enterprise. In 2024 alone, the Israeli government declared 24,258 dunams of West Bank territory as "state land"—a prelude to settlement construction—marking a historic high roughly equal to half of all such declarations in the preceding decades.33 Additionally, nearly 60 new illegal outposts were established, many of them "farming outposts" designed to seize maximum territory with minimum personnel.33
In October 2025, the "silent annexation" became vocal. The Knesset advanced two pivotal bills: one to apply formal Israeli sovereignty over the Ma'ale Adumim settlement bloc, and another to apply sovereignty over the entire West Bank.3 Although facing international condemnation, the advancement of these bills signaled the formal death of the Oslo paradigm. Simultaneously, settler violence reached record levels, with entire communities, such as the Bedouin village of Maghayer ad Deir, forcibly displaced due to unchecked harassment and the establishment of new outposts.35
7. The Northern Front: The Third Lebanon War (2024–2025)
7.1 From Attrition to Invasion
Throughout 2024, the conflict on the northern border escalated from tit-for-tat exchanges to full-scale war. Hezbollah, acting in support of Hamas, maintained a steady barrage of rocket and anti-tank fire, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from northern communities. In October 2024, Israel launched "Operation Northern Arrows," a ground invasion of Southern Lebanon aimed at pushing Hezbollah forces north of the Litani River.36
The campaign was brutal and destructive. Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah’s leadership infrastructure, culminating in the killing of high-ranking commanders such as Hitham Ali Tabatabai, the commander of the Radwan Force, in November 2025.37 On the ground, the IDF established a de facto buffer zone, maintaining indefinite control over five strategic outposts inside Lebanese territory and ordering the evacuation of residents from dozens of border villages, including Shehour and Deir Kifa.5
7.2 The "Trump Economic Zone" and Buffer Strategy
By 2025, the occupation of Southern Lebanon began to take on a permanent character, cloaked in the language of economic development. Proposals emerged, supported by figures like U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, for the creation of a "Trump Economic Zone" in the occupied borderlands. This plan envisioned replacing Hezbollah's influence with international investment and industrial zones.6
However, critics and locals viewed this as a neoliberal guise for demographic engineering. The plan required the displacement of the indigenous Shiite population from 27 villages to create a sanitized buffer zone, secured by international or private forces.40 The continued presence of IDF troops and the systematic destruction of agricultural land—olive groves were burned with white phosphorus to deny cover to militants—suggested that the true goal was the creation of a sterile security belt rather than economic prosperity.41
8. Domestic Israel: A Society at War with Itself
8.1 The Haredi Conscription Crisis
As the war dragged into its second year, the strain on Israel's reserve forces exposed deep fissures in the social contract. The exemption of Ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men from military service, long a point of contention, became politically unsustainable as the secular and national-religious populations bore the burden of prolonged combat tours.
Following a High Court of Justice ruling in 2025 that mandated the conscription of Haredi yeshiva students, the government attempted to issue draft orders. This sparked a massive backlash. In October 2025, over 200,000 Haredi men paralyzed Jerusalem in a "Million Man March," clashing with police and declaring their refusal to serve.42 The protests turned violent, with incidents of rioters attacking journalists and a tragic death of a teenager who fell from a building during the demonstrations.43 The crisis threatened the stability of Netanyahu’s coalition, as his Haredi partners viewed the draft as an existential threat to their way of life.
8.2 Economic Fallout and the High-Tech Stagnation
The "total war" exacted a severe toll on the Israeli economy. Credit rating agencies Moody's and S&P downgraded Israel's credit rating multiple times, citing the long-term fiscal impact of the war and the geopolitical risks.44 The construction and agriculture sectors, heavily reliant on Palestinian labor that was now banned, collapsed.
The high-tech sector, the engine of Israel's economy, presented a complex picture. While investment capital showed signs of rebounding in the first half of 2025 with $9.3 billion raised, employment in the sector remained stagnant.46 The "Start-Up Nation" faced a crisis of confidence, with a sharp decline in the formation of new startups—dropping to around 500 in 2025, half the number of a decade prior.48 This stagnation signaled a potential long-term erosion of Israel's competitive edge as talent and capital sought stability elsewhere.
9. International Legal Warfare: The ICC and ICJ
9.1 The ICC Arrest Warrants
In a watershed moment for international law, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.49 The warrants charged them with war crimes and crimes against humanity, specifically citing the use of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing attacks against civilians.
This move shattered the shield of impunity Israeli leaders had historically enjoyed. While the U.S. rejected the court's jurisdiction, the warrants legally obligated 124 member states of the Rome Statute to arrest the Israeli leaders if they entered their territory. This turned Netanyahu and Gallant into international pariahs in Europe and much of the Global South, severely complicating Israel's diplomatic maneuvering.50
9.2 The ICJ Genocide Case
Simultaneously, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) proceedings initiated by South Africa continued to loom over the state. By late 2025, the court had rejected Israel's jurisdictional challenges and extended the deadlines for the submission of counter-memorials into 2026.52 While a final ruling on the genocide charge remained years away, the ongoing legal process served as a persistent source of delegitimization, keeping the focus on the scale of civilian destruction in Gaza.
10. The Trump Peace Plan and the End of Kinetic Operations (October–November 2025)
10.1 The October Deal
The kinetic phase of the war concluded not with a military parade but with a diplomatic imposition. In October 2025, the "Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity" was announced.54 This deal, brokered by the U.S. administration, forced a ceasefire that solidified the new status quo on the ground.
Key Terms of the October 2025 Agreement:
Territorial Division: Israel retained military control over approximately 53% of the Gaza Strip, including the expanded Netzarim Corridor and the northern buffer zones.1
Hostage Resolution: The agreement facilitated the release of all remaining living hostages and the return of bodies, addressing the primary domestic pressure point in Israel.55
Hamas Status: Hamas was not eliminated. The group retained political influence and rejected disarmament, agreeing only to a vague "demilitarization" process that it interpreted differently from Israel and the U.S..56
10.2 UNSC Resolution 2803 and the Stabilization Force
On November 17, 2025, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803, endorsing the Trump plan. The resolution authorized the creation of a Board of Peace (BoP), a transitional administrative body chaired by Donald Trump himself, and an International Stabilization Force (ISF).58
The ISF was tasked with securing borders, overseeing disarmament, and protecting aid. While countries like the UAE, Egypt, Indonesia, and Turkey were solicited to contribute troops, they expressed deep hesitation about deploying forces into a hostile environment without a clear path to Palestinian statehood.60 Hamas explicitly rejected the ISF's mandate to disarm the resistance, setting the stage for potential future conflict between international peacekeepers and Palestinian insurgents.57
10.3 The Saudi Rejection
A critical component of the U.S. strategy was to pair the ceasefire with a historic Saudi-Israel normalization deal. However, during a high-profile meeting between Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and President Trump in November 2025, the Saudis held firm. While agreeing to bilateral U.S.-Saudi defense pacts, MBS publicly refused to normalize relations with Israel without a "clear path" to a Palestinian state.62 This refusal underscored the limits of the Trump administration's transactional diplomacy and left Israel strategically isolated in the region despite the cessation of major combat.
11. Conclusion: The Legacy of the "Total War"
The war of 2023–2025 fundamentally reshaped the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, transforming it from a cycle of managed violence into a condition of permanent, totalizing warfare. The doctrine of "Total Victory" proved to be a pyrrhic ambition. While the IDF succeeded in physically pulverizing the Gaza Strip and degrading Hamas’s conventional capabilities, it failed to achieve the political elimination of the group or the strategic submission of the Palestinian population.
Instead, the war birthed a new reality defined by fragmentation and privatization. Gaza has been carved into zones of control, policed by private contractors and international forces, its population dependent on a weaponized aid system. The West Bank has been effectively annexed in all but name, its economy shattered and its governance hollowed out. Israel itself emerged from the conflict deeply scarred, its society fractured by internal dissent, its economy burdened by debt and stagnation, and its leadership wanted by international tribunals.
The "peace" of late 2025 is not a resolution but a freeze—a suspension of kinetic operations within a structure of permanent occupation. The imposition of the Trump plan and the Board of Peace offers a facade of stability, but it rests on a foundation of unresolved grievances and devastated human capital. As the dust settles on the ruins of Gaza and the villages of Southern Lebanon, the region remains trapped in a volatile interregnum, waiting for the inevitable collapse of this fragile, imposed order.
Appendix: Statistical Overview of the Conflict (As of Nov 2025)
Table 2: Casualties and Displacement
Metric
Count/Estimate
Notes
Palestinians Killed (Gaza)
~72,500
Includes civilians & combatants 14
Israelis Killed (Oct 7)
~1,200
~800 civilians 7
Lebanese Killed
~4,000+
During invasion & airstrikes 5
Displaced Gazans
~1.9 million
90% of total population 8
West Bank Deaths
~1,000+
Since Oct 2023 64
Starvation Deaths
~361+
Confirmed hospital deaths only 21
Table 3: West Bank Settlement Expansion (2024–2025)
Category
Statistic
Source
Settler Population
~503,700
Excludes East Jerusalem 65
New Outposts
59+
Including "farming outposts" 33
State Land Seizure
24,258 Dunams
Historic record high 33
Demolitions
1,700+
Targeting Area C/Bedouins 66
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