As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boarded a plane to Washington this week, seeking political resuscitation, a symbolic missile struck near Ben Gurion Airport. Launched by Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, the missile was timed to Netanyahu’s departure—one of several such strikes conducted when Israel’s leader attempts to present strength abroad. This time, Israel responded not with retaliation but with silence. The government issued no official statement. The media mentioned sirens but confirmed no impact. Flights were delayed. Bunkers were entered. Yet the official story was: “Nothing happened.”
But something did happen. And the silence speaks volumes.
This moment of evasion reflects the deeper crisis at the heart of the Israeli state: a regime built on illusion, a military paralyzed by propaganda, and a public fed an endless stream of lies. As the war in Gaza grinds into its second year, internal fissures have become too wide to conceal. Netanyahu’s political survival strategy has collided with Israel’s military reality—and the result is not victory, but collapse. The collapse of credibility. The collapse of morale. The collapse of strategy.
What’s left is a culture of lies—systemic, sustained, and now, exposed.
The Tunnel War Israel Can’t Win
From the outset, Israel declared its war aims clearly: destroy Hamas, rescue hostages, and dismantle the infrastructure of resistance, particularly Gaza’s underground tunnel network. After flattening entire neighborhoods and killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, Israeli officials began claiming progress. Hamas, they insisted, was decimated. The tunnels were being destroyed. Victory was near.
But according to retired IDF Major General Yitzhak Brick, this narrative is fiction.
Brick, a respected insider and former military ombudsman, now says the IDF has destroyed less than 20% of the tunnel network in Gaza. That’s after nearly two years of war, billions in military spending, and the most intensive bombing campaign in Israel’s history. The remaining tunnels—stretching hundreds of kilometers beneath Gaza’s rubble—remain intact, operational, and controlled by the Palestinian resistance.
“These tunnels are not just escape routes,” Brick wrote. “They are the military infrastructure, command centers, weapons storage, and mobility corridors. Hamas still moves underground, plans underground, and attacks from underground.”
While Israel floods social media and mainstream outlets with images of collapsed buildings, Brick reveals the inconvenient truth: the destruction above ground is superficial. Beneath the ruins, Hamas continues to operate with discipline and determination.
Soldiers Speak the Truth Netanyahu Won’t
Brick’s testimony is supported by soldiers on the ground—many of whom have begun quietly confessing to a war that doesn’t match the official story. One engineer from a battalion in Jabalia said:
“We were told we’d killed 300 Hamas fighters in the operation. But we didn’t see a single one. No direct combat. Just explosions and rubble.”
Another IDF infantryman echoed the same disbelief: “We didn’t encounter the enemy. We just cleared buildings that were empty or booby-trapped.”
These accounts shatter the illusion of Israeli dominance. In reality, Hamas fighters avoid direct engagements, using guerrilla tactics—ambushes, IEDs, anti-tank missiles—and then disappearing into the tunnel networks. They inflict steady casualties without ever being seen.
Brick warns that these inflated kill counts—often repeated by military spokespeople—are simply lies. The IDF claims to have killed thousands of Hamas fighters. But according to those on the battlefield, they’ve encountered only a few dozen, at most. “The successes the IDF spokesman talks about in Gaza,” Brick said, “do not match the grim reality I receive from commanders and fighters.”
And while Israeli officials insist Hamas is on the verge of collapse, Brick argues the opposite: Hamas has returned to its pre-war strength of around 40,000 fighters. The resistance is entrenched, decentralized, and dug in.
An Army Hollowed by Propaganda
Behind the military failure lies an even deeper crisis—one of morale, readiness, and deception within the IDF itself.
Brick describes an army crippled by exhaustion and abandonment. Tens of thousands of soldiers are suffering from post-traumatic stress. Suicides are rising. Entire battalions face chronic understaffing. Equipment is broken. Spare parts are lacking. Training has atrophied.
“The army is worn out to the bone,” he writes. “We don’t have the manpower to defend all our borders, let alone continue in Gaza.”
Soldiers are refusing to serve in growing numbers. Some brigades report 60 to 70% refusal rates. Others are disobeying quietly—showing up late, refusing orders, or abandoning duties mid-operation.
Yet while morale collapses, the IDF Spokesperson Unit continues to manufacture success. Brick calls it “the biggest scam ever.” This vast media operation, tasked with shaping public opinion, has abandoned truth in favor of illusion. Its goal is not transparency but “creating a virtual reality” to maintain public trust in the war effort.
“The IDF’s public briefings are detached from the field,” Brick warns. “The force structure they report is dozens of times larger than what actually exists on the ground.”
And because the media recycles these lies uncritically, the Israeli public remains trapped in a fantasy—a belief that the army is advancing, the enemy is defeated, and victory is at hand. It is not.
Netanyahu’s Last War
At the center of this deception stands Benjamin Netanyahu—a man whose political career has become indistinguishable from the war itself. Indicted for corruption, rejected by large swaths of the Israeli public, and facing potential arrest by the International Criminal Court, Netanyahu is clinging to power through perpetual conflict.
According to multiple reports from within his cabinet, Netanyahu’s only “red line” is semantic: he refuses to declare the war officially “over.” That single word, “end,” would be a personal and political admission of failure. Everything else—the release of hostages, negotiations with Hamas, even allowing aid into Gaza—can be compromised on. But not his image.
Netanyahu has made stunning concessions in recent weeks. Despite promising to eliminate Hamas, he now faces the reality that Hamas will remain a political actor in post-war Gaza. Israeli and American officials have acknowledged that there is no viable alternative. Attempts to install collaborators—such as Yaser Abu Shab, a figure reportedly looting aid in Rafah under IDF protection—have failed.
The Palestinian Authority, widely discredited and tied to failed peace processes, has no legitimacy in Gaza. And so, despite all the bloodshed, Hamas—a democratically elected government—will remain.
Netanyahu knows this. He simply refuses to say it.
The Culture of Lies Comes Home
The implications of Brick’s testimony are profound: Israel’s war is no longer just a military failure—it is a civilizational one. A society that cannot confront the truth cannot correct its course. A military that believes its own lies cannot win. A government that manipulates reality to survive cannot govern.
Brick’s solution is radical: dismantle the IDF Spokesperson Unit. Rebuild it from scratch. Strip it of its propaganda mission and replace it with a commitment to truth. “Only the truth is reported here,” he suggests writing above its doorway. It’s a symbolic gesture—but also an indictment. The truth has been missing for far too long.
Meanwhile, Gaza remains in ruins. Over 55,000 Palestinians are dead. Hospitals are gone. Families erased. And yet, the resistance persists—underground, under siege, and unbroken.
War Without End, Lies Without Shame
Israel’s war on Gaza was never just a battle for territory. It was a battle over narrative—over who controls the story, who defines victory, who gets to be heard. For a time, Israel’s leaders believed they could win that war through force and fiction. But reality has caught up with them.
Hamas is still standing. The tunnels are still active. The hostages are still missing. The army is exhausted. The soldiers are angry. And the public is beginning to realize it has been lied to from the start.
The war will end—not because Netanyahu wants it to, but because the army can no longer continue, the public can no longer stomach it, and the resistance cannot be defeated. The only question is how much more devastation must unfold before the lies stop.
