“Since October 7, 2023,” writes Galia Lavi, “China has adopted a clearly pro-Palestinian stance, largely ignoring Hamas’s attack in Israel’s western Negev and additional attacks on Israel from other fronts, while condemning Israel’s retaliatory actions.” This stance, as detailed by Lavi, could fairly be called pro-Hamas and pro-Hizballah. But last month something changed:

In October 2024, it appeared that China was slightly softening its tone toward Israel, with its statements becoming somewhat less adversarial. For instance, on October 8, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson responded to a journalist’s question by stating that “the reasonable security concerns of Israel need to be paid attention to.” On October 14, Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke with [his Israeli counterpart] Israel Katz, then Israel’s foreign minister, calling, among other things, “to release all hostages,” using a term that had so far been absent from previous Chinese official statements; . . . the use of the correct Chinese term for “hostages” for the first time—instead of “detainees”—is indeed a significant and welcome change.

While there has been a lot of speculation about the motives of the Chinese Communist party, which certainly chose its words deliberately, Lavi cautions against reading too much into this small shift:

As of the time of writing, the change in Chinese rhetoric is purely cosmetic and holds no substantial policy implications for Israel. In general, the main issue is not what China says, but what it does not say. As long as Beijing ignores the actions of the other side—Hamas, Hizballah, Iran—there is no reason to celebrate, even if it does not directly condemn Israel.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”