After 100 days of war in Gaza, where Israel continued its massive bombardment on Monday, January 15, the Israeli army sees no reason for hesitation, reflection or a change of course. "We are continuing the war until the end – until total victory, until we achieve all of our goals: Eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on January 13, the eve of the 100^th day of the conflict that began on October 7, 2023.

On this date, the inaugural act of the war was marked by the unprecedentedly violent assault carried out by Hamas militants from Gaza, resulting in the deaths of 1,200 people and the capture of hostages, 136 of whom remain in the hands of the Islamist group. This unprecedented attack led to an Israeli military campaign that is proving so deadly for civilians that it has caused a worldwide reaction, and alarmed even Israel's closest allies, including the United States, whose warnings about the scale of the destruction and death inflicted on Gazans have gone unheeded.

But the scale of this conflict is by no means the result of chance. In entering Gaza, the Israeli army was well aware of the traps it was walking into. From a purely military point of view, Hamas and its 20,000 or so fighters can count on a network of tunnels offering mobility and protection. They had prepared for asymmetric warfare, waged in a favorable urban environment, thanks to the fighters' ability to conceal their positions within the population and civilian infrastructures. Regular Israeli troops risk heavy losses in this context (188 soldiers have been killed since the start of the offensive in Gaza, a toll unprecedented in recent history), but risk inflicting even heavier ones on civilians.

This was the second jaw of the same trap. The chosen solution was to minimize the losses of Israeli soldiers by engaging in an aerial bombardment campaign to destroy entire areas of Gaza. This resulted in civilian casualties on a historic scale: 24,000 dead in 100 days, the majority of them women and children.

1.9 million displaced persons

At the start of the war, an Israeli security source among the hawks said confidently: "We could crush everything with bombs without worrying about loss of life. But we're not Russia, we don't do that." Since then, 1% of Gaza's population has been killed. According to the Geneva-based human rights organization Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, the casualty figure rises to 90,000 if the wounded and missing are added, or 4% of the population.

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