If we judge the military operation in the Gaza Strip by the measure of the objectives that the government presented to the Israeli public, it is clearly an absolute failure.

After six months of combat, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have not accomplished their primary mission: eliminating Hamas rule in Gaza. The IDF has put out of action an estimated one-third of Hamas’s fighting force and has detonated approximately 20 percent of its tunnels. That is a hard blow but not a fatal one. Hamas is not just still functioning but managing to take over new swaths of territory upon the IDF’s departure, using them to launch rockets into Israel.

Moreover, the additional objective set for the operation, returning the hostages, has not been accomplished. The vast majority of hostages were released thanks to a deal that exchanged them for Palestinian prisoners. Only three of the hostages were freed as a result of the military operation.