The Post-War According to "HAARETZ”

By Anshel Pfeffer

What Is Israel’s Endgame in Gaza? These Are the Three Key Dilemmas

Assuming Israel isn’t actually planning to transfer the Palestinians, annex Gaza or permanently reoccupy it, there are three key questions about, and various solutions for, 'the day after' the war with Hamas. All of them, say experts, are highly complex and require nearly unfathomable regional coordination

Anshel Pfeffer

After nearly three weeks of what often looked like dithering – amid reports of deep disagreements and distrust both within the war cabinet and between some of its members (mainly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and the Israel Defense Forces General Staff – the IDF finally began its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on Friday night.

But as this stage of the offensive slowly enfolded, senior political and security sources admit that, so far, there has been next to no discussion on the endgame – the preferred solution for Israel in Gaza the day after the war, assuming the operational objectives of destroying Hamas’ military capabilities and ending its control in Gaza are achieved.

Hamas has ruled Gaza for over 16 years, since the bloody coup it carried out against the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in June 2007. Officially, the PA’s civilian bureaucracy remained intact in Gaza all this time and $100 million was transferred each month for its employees’ salaries. On the ground, though, most matters were managed by a parallel Hamas apparatus.

On the day after Hamas, there will be an immediate need for a new framework, one that will ensure Israel is not attacked again from Gaza and also meets the needs of the over 2 million Palestinians living there.

Speaking before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after the war had started, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that after the fighting ends, there will be a stage of “creating a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, removing Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Strip and creating a new security reality for Israeli citizens and residents of the border communities.”

Who exactly is supposed to supply both the security and civilian needs in Gaza? Gallant had no details for the committee.

It seems that the cabinet – there are now two of them – and other elements of the Netanyahu government are not prepared to deal right now with the day after, for fear of the far-right members in the governing coalition and the shrinking, increasingly extremist base of supporters Netanyahu still has.

A week and a half ago, when there were reports in the Israeli media of plans to transfer control of Gaza to the PA, the Prime Minister’s Office issued an immediate denial: “Netanyahu defined the objective: destroying Hamas. Any talk of a decision to transfer the Gaza Strip to the PA or anyone else is a lie.”

A senior security official complained over the weekend that the situation Israel wants to see in Gaza after the fighting ends has major implications for planning the ground maneuvers. The government’s reluctance to deal with this leaves the IDF and Defense Ministry to try to define these objectives, even though it should be the cabinet’s decision. With the ground offensive now underway, the generals have little choice but to guess what Israel’s endgame in Gaza will be.

One part of the government where there is plenty of talk about “the day after” is among the religious far right, which is dreaming aloud of returning and rebuilding the Gush Katif settlement bloc that was abandoned by Israel in 2005 as part of its Disengagement plan.

In recent days, pro-Netanyahu mouthpieces in the media have been pushing the line that the Disengagement – an event that took place over 18 years ago – is the root cause of Hamas’ murderous attack on October 7. This is both part of their campaign to exculpate Netanyahu, who was not prime minister at the time, but it also the start of a public campaign by the far right. (As finance minister in the Sharon government that carried out the Disengagement, Netanyahu voted in favor, but then resigned eight days before the first evictions of settlers began.)

Religious far-right ministers are not yet speaking of this openly but seven months ago, when the coalition passed the abolition of the Disengagement Law (largely a symbolic move) in the Knesset, National Missions Minister Orit Strock said in an interview that “there is no doubt that [the Gaza Strip] is part of the land of Israel and there will be a day when we return to it.”

The far right understands that talking about this now will cause public anger. However, in one of the expanded security cabinet meetings, extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir stated: “We need to hold on to the territory.”

A lawmaker from the religious Zionist wing of the coalition recently used the term “ir ha’nidachat,” or the beguiled city – an Old Testament injunction to destroy a city where most of the inhabitants have began worshipping idols and who must therefore be killed and the city flattened: “And it shall be a heap for ever; it shall not be built again” (Deuteronomy 13:17). The lawmaker expressed the wish privately that this be done to at least some of the Gaza Strip.

Even among more moderate right-wing lawmakers, there is talk of the need for Israel to “punish the Gazans” after the war by making a change to the Strip’s borders. One area being mentioned for possible Israeli annexation is the enclave’s northernmost strip, just south of the border with Israel, where there are very few Palestinians and where the settlements of Elai Sinai, Nisanit and Dugit stood before the Disengagement. These were secular communities that were not part of the largely religious Gush Katif bloc.

Another plan that seems to have emanated from part of the government is a 10-page policy paper prepared by the Intelligence Ministry, which was first revealed on the Local Call website. This paper recommends transferring the entire civilian population of Gaza to Sinai. While it has the appearance of a serious document, no one who has even a fleeting acquaintance with this government is taking it seriously.

Despite its grand-sounding name, the Intelligence Ministry has zero influence over any of Israel’s intelligence services (which are run either from the Prime Minister’s Office or the Defense Ministry) and its sole purpose is to provide disgruntled Likud politicians with a ministerial title. The incumbent, Gila Gamliel, is not in any decision-making circle and has only observer status in the broader security cabinet (and no standing whatsoever in the war cabinet). It is almost certainly something that was prepared for Likud members rather than for any serious policy purposes.

We’ve learned the hard way that nothing is out of question for the most extreme government in Israel’s history. But it’s hard to see how any of these proposals can become policy in an era where Israel has become more dependent than ever on the United States. None of these ideas are in any way being considered or taken seriously in the defense establishment. Any move toward long-term occupation of parts of the Gaza Strip, let alone rebuilding some of the settlements there, would lead to Israel’s diplomatic isolation and the cessation of U.S. support. Just talking about these ideas is damaging enough to Israel.

Three key dilemmas

So, assuming Israel isn’t planning to remove the Palestinian population or reestablish a permanent presence in Gaza, there are three key dilemmas with regard to “the day after”:

1. How will Israel maintain temporary control of the territory after most of Hamas’ military infrastructure is destroyed?

2. To whom does Israel transfer control of Gaza when its forces leave?

3. Is there a realistic plan for Gaza’s future that could prevent it becoming once again a base for attacks on Israel?

In the first interim stage, the IDF and defense establishment will have to bear responsibility for Gaza and its population. There have been some suggestions of similar mechanisms to those that existed in southern Lebanon during the IDF’s presence there between 1984 and 2000 – such as the establishment of a “security zone” within Gaza’s borders, and even a local militia that will help maintain security like the South Lebanon Army sought to do in the 1980s and ’90s.

However, few experts believe either of these are realistic. The Gaza Strip is too small for there to be a security zone that can serve as a buffer area preventing even short-range mortar launches by the remaining pockets of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters against Israeli communities while not remaining inside the Palestinian cities. As for a compliant militia, it is extremely unlikely that recruits can be found for this within the Palestinian population.

IDF generals are fully aware that in the interim stage, once the ground offensive has achieved its objectives, they will have to be in charge both of security and civilian matters in Gaza. The Defense Ministry is already starting to plan how to transfer some of the personnel of the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, which deals with civilian affairs in the West Bank, to temporary roles in Gaza.

Responsibility for Gaza will place a major burden on the IDF, which in the not-too-distant future may also find itself in another war in the north against Hezbollah, and there will be the need to try to shorten this interim period.

The only solution the defense establishment can see is the return of the PA to Gaza. But this will be a complex task and in no way an automatic process. The PA does not have the resources to take control of Gaza, and its political will to do so is also questionable.

“There’s no doubt the PA is the only address for taking control of and rehabilitating the Gaza Strip,” says Maj. Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman, director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and a former commander of Military Intelligence.

“It is already the address for transferring most of the funds to Gaza and, despite the weakness and corruption of the PA, it remains the only practical channel. And there is a will there. From the perspective of [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas, losing Gaza to Hamas in 2007 was his biggest personal failure. He will have an historic opportunity to preside over the great reconciliation of the Palestinian people.”

But before that can happen, there will have to be yet another stage. It is highly unlikely that the handover can take place directly from the IDF to the PA. Abbas will not be prepared to be seen as returning to Gaza on Israel’s bayonets. In addition, the PA’s security apparatus will not be able to take over the entire Gaza Strip in one go and will need time to gradually deploy, as well as recruiting and training more men. There will have to be another force in Gaza, providing security in the interim and helping the PA build up.

One of the key questions that is already being asked quietly is whether, among the Arab governments with which Israel has relations, any will be prepared to contribute to a “peacekeeping force” that will manage the transition.

Jordan is out of the question due to the large proportion of Palestinians in its population and their anger toward Israel. Egypt would have to be part of any such force, but could be expected to supply at most the necessary logistical facilities in its territory across the border from Gaza. The Egyptian army harbors deep suspicion, even hatred, of the Palestinians in Gaza, whom it regards as supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is therefore unlikely to supply soldiers on the ground.

The two candidates being mentioned are the United Arab Emirates and Morocco, which both have stable diplomatic relations with Israel since the Abraham Accords were signed in 2020. They also have professional armed forces that could provide the main components of an Arab peacekeeping force.

And then there are the Saudis, who would be expected to foot the bill – both for such a force and also for the long-term civilian rehabilitation and development programs in Gaza, to be administered by the returning PA.

But there is another obstacle to this stage. The return of the PA to Gaza after over 16 years of Hamas rule would almost certainly be possible only in the context of a wider agreement in which the Palestinian leadership would receive some kind of assurance of a “diplomatic horizon.” Abbas will demand an Israeli commitment to return to the moribund peace process. Israel will have to choose between continuing to spend its resources – and the blood of its soldiers – in controlling Gaza, or accepting this demand.

No one has any utopian illusions that a diplomatic process which failed to yield a solution for over three decades will suddenly succeed after the deep trauma inflicted on Israel by Hamas’ October 7 attack and the destruction being caused in Gaza with Israel’s resulting war to destroy Hamas.

However, to bring this war to an end, there will be no choice but to at least be open to such a possibility. Simply positing the two-state solution as a distant goal will not be enough. There will have to be serious thinking on how to solve the long-standing civilian problems of the Gaza Strip – an artificial geographical construct whose borders were determined by the cease-fire lines between the IDF and the Egyptian army at the end of the War of Independence in early 1949, when the original population of Gaza had more than quadrupled due to the influx of around 200,000 Palestinian refugees.

“If history teaches us anything, it’s that without a just diplomatic solution, we will continue this conflict,” says Dr. Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat of Tel Aviv University. She has spent years researching the urban development plans of Gaza that were put in place after Israel’s occupation following the Six-Day War in 1967.

“But in the interim period, before such a solution is reached, we can work on developing Gaza’s economy. Not like Israel did in the past when it was mostly a source of cheap labor, but by building shared economic areas with international investment: joint agricultural projects, a seaport and industrial zones that will create local economic value.”

But is there physical space for such economic projects in the crowded area between Gaza and Israel? Especially in the coming years, when it can hardly be assumed that the communities on either side can work together?

In the long-term, there has to be more thought given to the possibility of expanding Gaza’s territory. One plan proposed in the past by Energy Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) was to build artificial islands off Gaza’s shore, which would house seaports and airports, electricity and water desalination plants.

Another way to expand the territory, previously outlined by former IDF colonel Yitzhak Ini Abadi (who served as Israel’s military governor of Gaza in the early ’70s), is international pressure on the Egyptian government to cede territory in Sinai. This could allow for the expansion of the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean coast and inland in the peninsula.

Abadi insists that without a wider “vision” for developing Gaza, Hamas will return and only major civilian development can create an environment where “Hamas is dried-up from within.”

Most experts are very skeptical about this prospect, but Abadi insists that, historically, the Egyptians have not regarded Sinai as part of their sovereign territory. In the right circumstances, he believes such a proposal could work. “Egypt lost its prestigious position as the premier Arab nation during the Arab Spring revolutions,” he says. “It could have an opportunity here for regaining some of that status by becoming the great rehabilitator of the Palestinians in Gaza.”

Just about every conversation on “the day after” in Gaza, with security and political officials and experts, returns to the same point: That this Israeli government is incapable of making any of the long-term decisions that will be required. It is too dysfunctional, with Netanyahu focused on his own short-term battle for political survival, and with its far-right elements opposing any concessions to the Palestinians.

They are already trying to prevent such an outcome. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Monday that he is blocking the transfer of tax revenues that Israel collects on behalf of the PA because, he claims, senior figures in the PA praised the Hamas attack.

For Israel to have any prospect of achieving long-term change in Gaza that will both reduce the threat to its security and not make Israel responsible for Gaza’s population, its own government must change first.