As the tide of a two-months war in Gaza begins to turn, President Biden is reportedly demanding Israel winds down the fighting by New Year’s Eve. Yet, for now Washington is vetoing a United Nations’ demand for an immediate end to the war.

“We begin to see signs of a breakdown in Gaza,” Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, told Israel Defense Force troops Friday. In the Strip, criticism is growing over Hamas’s abuse of foreign aid, and hundreds of terrorists are giving up the fight after years of boasting that they prefer glorious martyrdom to surrender. 

America vetoed Friday, and Britain abstained, on a proposed UN Security Council resolution demanding “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire” after Secretary General Guterres, in a rare assertion of his authority, convened the body in a call to end the war. 

Despite the October 7 attack, “the brutality perpetrated by Hamas can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” Mr. Guterres told the council. Yet, countered the American deputy UN ambassador, Robert Wood, unless Hamas is dismantled “any cease-fire is temporary, and it certainly is not peace.” 

Despite the veto, Washington is indicating that time is getting short for Israel. Mr. Biden has “given Israel until the end of the year to wrap up its war on Hamas,” Politico reports, based on Israeli sources. Secretary Blinken reportedly told Prime Minister Netanyahu last week that “you have weeks, not months,” to complete the task.

On the other hand, deputy national security advisor Jon Finer “told a security forum on Thursday that the administration is not imposing a hard deadline on Israel,” according to Politico. Regardless, Israelis fear that a hard American deadline for ending the war could weaken the war efforts. 

While it marks successes, the Israel Defense Force says it needs more time for tasks like hostage releases, dismantling an elaborate tunnel system, and hunting of some 25,000 combatants and Hamas leaders like Gaza chief Yehya Sinwar and military commander Mohammed Deif. It also vows to disarm Gaza to assure that attacks like October 7 can never be launched from there.

A former army general, Dan Harel, told Channel 12 television Friday that in a closed-door briefing, the current commander of the IDF’s southern command, Major General Yaron Finkelman, “told us that we need four months.” It is possible, however, that major fighting would end in weeks, while “mop-up operations” continue afterward.

As Gaza battles are getting ever bloodier, the Friday funeral of Gal Meir Eisenkot, who was killed in battle a day earlier, has shaken Israel. A former IDF chief of staff and current member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s five-member war cabinet, Gadi Eizenkot, tearfully mourned his son in the televised funeral attended by top Israeli politicians and artists. 

Meanwhile the son of the Qatar-based Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, is becoming the focus of anger in poverty-stricken Gaza. On Thursday the IDF published receipts adding up to $25,000 worth of jewelry that Moaz Haniyeh has spent in high end stores in Gaza and Doha. 

“Sure, he comes here all the time,” a Doha store owner confirmed to Israel’s Channel 11 in a phone call, saying the younger Mr. Haniyeh regularly buys jewelry for his numerous girlfriends. 

The lavish lifestyles of billionaire Hamas leaders abroad stands in sharp contrast to the poverty of Gaza. Meanwhile, as Hamas top leaders inside the Strip hide in tunnels, they confiscate much of the foreign aid that gets in. “Hamas takes all the aid to their tunnels and their houses,” a tearful elderly Gazan told Al Jazeera Thursday. 

The fact that the influential Qatari channel’s reporter failed to cut the woman off, as others on the channel have previously done, may indicate that she reflects wide-held feelings in Gaza. “They can shoot me, I am not afraid of them,” the woman said in a clip that went viral on social networks in Gaza and across the Arab world. 

Allowing increased aid to Gaza is America’s top demand of Israel. Mostly Jerusalem is wary of supplying fuel to the Strip. Fuel allows Hamas to maintain generators that keep air flow, communication systems, and lights operating inside the tunnels that are the lifeblood of the organization. In addition to fighters, the IDF believes that most of the hostages are held in that underground maze known as the “Gaza Metro.” 

The tunnels also help Hamas maintain and revive its rocket arsenal. On Friday numerous rockets were launched at Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel, as the IDF fought Hamas at Sujaiya and Jabalia in northern Gaza, and in the center of Khan Yunis in the south. In the last 48 hours, 200 Hamas terrorists have surrendered, and were transferred to Israel for interrogation, the IDF spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Friday.    

Israel may well be able to do what it needs to emerge victorious from the battle that started in the catastrophic October 7 attack — unless it is forced to stop.