Israel’s Many Victories

By Philip Klein

Thursday, October 09, 2025

 

Barring some last-minute surprise, all indications are that the war that Hamas launched against Israel will be coming to an end within days. The two parties have agreed to a deal brokered by President Trump with the help of Arab countries in the region that will see the return of all hostages and the cessation of offensive Israeli military operations in Gaza.

 

It would be far too premature to declare this a total victory for Israel. After all, Hamas still exists, in some capacity. Despite the talk about its potential disarmament and plan for a transitional international authority in Gaza, there is a very real possibility that the terrorist group will slowly and methodically rebuild its ranks and weapons arsenal in expectation that international monitors will be tempted to look the other way to avoid the resumption of hostilities. Furthermore, as part of the deal, Israel has agreed to release hundreds of hardened terrorists who would immediately help fill the ranks of the fallen Hamas fighters. Hamas also achieved a huge PR victory, with nations including France and the U.K. having recognized a Palestinian state while Israel’s support among Democrats here in the U.S. has collapsed over the course of the protracted war — and prominent influencers are working tirelessly to turn Republicans against it too.  While there is reason for confidence that Hamas won’t reemerge as a threat while Trump is president, its future under a future Democratic administration that is under the influence of its Mamdani wing or a Republican administration dominated by the Tucker Carlson wing is a lot less certain.

 

But while Israelis may not be able to claim a single and final victory over the terrorists, they can speak of a number of separate and very significant victories.

 

To start, neither Hamas nor any other Palestinian terrorist group is in a position to carry out an attack on Israel anywhere near the scale of what happened on October 7. The senior leadership of Hamas that existed at the start of the war has been almost completely wiped out. All 24 of its military battalions were defeated. Per the Times of Israel, “Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.” Rocket attacks have slowed to a trickle of a few small-scale devices at a time; Gazan terrorists are no longer capable of firing off thousands of more sophisticated missiles at Israel. Furthermore, Hamas was forced to agree to release the hostages without Israel’s full withdrawal, and Israel will maintain a security perimeter inside Gaza along the border for an indefinite period.

 

Taking a bit of a broader view, to the north, Hezbollah has been decapitated and severely weakened, its rocket supply depleted to an estimated 20 percent of what it was at the start of the war. 

 

The benefactor of both groups, Iran, was embarrassed as the Israeli Air Force spent almost two weeks over the summer operating with near impunity over the skies of Iran, and with the help of Trump was able to deal a severe setback to its nuclear program. The Iranian response was severely blunted by Israel’s success in its multi-front war. For decades, when Israel was gaming out the potential Iranian response to an attack on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, the assumption was always that Iran would call on its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, to simultaneously launch rockets from the north and the south so as to overwhelm Israeli missile defenses, allowing Iran’s more sophisticated ballistic missiles to sneak through and cause serious damage. Instead, Iran had to fire its best missiles without any cover.

 

The success or failure of Israel’s war effort won’t truly be measured for decades. Hamas wasn’t completely annihilated, and there is no shortage of Palestinians who want to dedicate their lives toward the goal of destroying Israel. But Israel is a lot safer today than it was on October 7, 2023, and there are plenty of achievements to make Israelis proud.