JERUSALEM 

Retired Israeli Major General Yitzhak Brik warned Thursday that Israel could face “collapse within a year” if its current war against Palestinian group Hamas and Lebanese movement Hezbollah continues. 

“The country really is galloping towards the edge of an abyss,” Brik said in an opinion piece published by Israeli daily Haaretz.

“If the war of attrition against Hamas and Hezbollah continues, Israel will collapse within no more than a year.”

The Israeli army has launched a brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack, killing nearly 40,300 people, mostly women and children, and injuring over 93,100 others.

The onslaught has triggered months of cross-border attacks between Hezbollah and Israel amid fears of a full-blown war between the two sides.

Brik cast doubts on claims of Israeli officials about Hamas surrender and that its leader Yahya Sinwar would be caught.

“Most of the pretentious declarations made by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant throughout the war in Gaza have proven to be groundless,” he said.

“With these pronouncements, Gallant, along with his colleagues IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been throwing dust in the eyes of the Israeli public,” he added.

The retired general said that Gallant has begun to realize that “the concept of total victory in Gaza is nonsense.”

“It seems that he has begun to realize that failing to reach a hostage deal with Hamas would lead to a regional war that would put Israel in serious danger,” Brik said.

As for a potential hostage swap deal with Hamas, he said it has “become impossible” to achieve what Israel could have gained earlier with a cease-fire deal “due to the new conditions that Netanyahu introduced into the proposed deal.”

For months, the US, Qatar and Egypt have been trying to reach an agreement between Israel and Hamas to ensure a prisoner exchange and cease-fire and allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. But mediation efforts have been stalled due to Netanyahu’s refusal to meet Hamas’s demands to stop the war.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip following an attack by Hamas last Oct. 7, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.

An Israeli blockade of Gaza has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine, leaving much of the region in ruins.

Israel faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered a halt to military operations in the southern city of Rafah, where over one million Palestinians had sought refuge before the area was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala in Istanbul