Its military leaders insist they are ready and Benjamin Netanyahu has his finger on the trigger, but he has not pulled it.
The Israeli prime minister gave a speech this week that sounded like a rallying cry for a ground assault, but it was carefully drafted, committing to nothing specific and saying the place and manner of any attack would be "determined unanimously" by the war cabinet and the army commanders.
Whatever happens, Netanyahu -down in the polls and widely blamed for allowing the 7 October attack by Hamas to happen - is making sure he does not take sole responsibility for whatever comes next. He knows there is no unanimity in the Israeli leadership.
"It's not just the military versus Netanyahu. The division is within the war cabinet and within the military," said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli diplomat.
There has been no shortage of reasons to delay the assault. Many in the security establishment, supported by the US, want to give more time to efforts to extricate more than 200 hostages from Gaza.
The US also reportedly needed breathing space to bring in more munitions to defend its bases in the region in anticipation of a response from its enemies and their Tehran backers. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), meanwhile, are using the time to train reservists in urban warfare and top up their arsenal.
The pause has given Israel time to reconsider its war aims and its ability to achieve them. The initial impetus to charge into Gaza was based on a desire for quick retribution and the generals' quest for redemption after such an appalling lapse on 7 October.
US military leaders have been reportedly shocked at the vagueness of Israeli planning, the blithe optimism about the urban warfare it faced, and the wishful thinking about Gaza's future post Hamas. "The Americans have their doubts," Pinkas said. "And what they are questioning is the quality of Israeli decision-making.
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