THE NEW YORK TIMES As Israeli soldiers prepare for a ground offensive Gaza Stripthe defense minister of Israel promised them: “Now we see Gaza in the distance; Soon you will see it from the inside.” But despite the talk of it Yoav Gallant, It is unclear when Israel will organize its ground invasion of Palestinian territory. And if the government seems hesitant to invade Gaza, more than two weeks have passed since then Hamas that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel there are good reasons for that.
What lies ahead is a type of sustained urban warfare that the country’s armed forces have not faced in nearly a decade, and the search for a political end that remains uncertain, barring the defeat of Hamas, which controls Gaza and Never doing this again could threaten citizens of Israel. In itself, this is a difficult task that will require the Israelis to take control of Gaza and will cost significant amounts of blood and international outrage over the deaths of civilians.
Hovering over everything is the political mystery of what will happen to Gaza after the war ends. Once Israel is in, how does it get out? If you can, who will you hand over the keys to after Hamas is dismantled? If Hamas doesn’t rule Gaza, who will?
The picture from Thursday 26th shows Palestinians amid the rubble of buildings bombed by Israel in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli invasion of the territory is aimed at destroying Hamas. Photo: Mohammed Dahman / AP
Israeli officials say these issues are not the immediate concern for now. But they will be inevitable even if Gaza falls under Israel’s jurisdiction.
“In reality, there are no good options for an Israeli ground offensive in Gaza,” wrote Tom Beckett, a retired British Army lieutenant general and executive director of the International Institute for Middle East Strategic Studies, in a brief analysis. “No matter how successful the operation is in defeating Hamas as a military organization, Hamas’ political imperative and popular support for the resistance will remain,” he wrote. “Either Israel reoccupies Gaza to control it, or by withdrawing after an offensive, it cedes ground to the people for whom there is still resistance.”
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israeli army spokesman, said the military was focused on the war goals set by the political level: the defeat of Hamas and the elimination of its leaders after the massacre it carried out on Oct. 7, the Shabbat (holy day). , had committed a resting place for Jews, which is always celebrated on the seventh day of the week). “This organization will not govern Gaza militarily or politically,” he said.
But someone has to rule. This is a weakness in Israel’s strategy, because Hamas represents a political and religious idea that cannot be dismantled, and it is an organization that, thanks to its reputation among Palestinians, promotes armed struggle and “martyrdom” against Israel operate is successful.
“Even if Hamas is defeated militarily, it cannot be neutralized,” said Lina Khatib, director of the Middle East Institute at the University of London’s Faculty of Oriental and African Studies. “It is false that the existence or legitimacy of Hamas is linked to its military success. It can be defeated militarily and remains politically relevant. He can portray any defense as heroic martyrdom for the liberation of the Palestinian people.”
IsraelPalestine conflict
For Lawrence Freedman, professor emeritus of war studies at King’s College London, the challenge for Israel is “to balance its military means with its political objectives.” No matter how competent the military is, he said in an interview, an overly ambitious political goal will lead to frustration or failure.
Examples abound, including U.S. military victories in Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of broad, ambitious political goals such as democratization and gender equality that ended in failure. The easy conquests resulted in long and brutal counterinsurgency campaigns against local militias and radical Islamic fighters who knew the area, lived among the population, and did not abide by the Geneva Conventions or the rules of war.
United States President Joe Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a picture dated September 18. The invasion of Gaza has been compared to the US “war on terror” after 9/11. Photo: Evelyn Hockstein/Portal
And the governments established by the Americans required enormous and continuous amounts of Western money and military support to survive.
Freedman wrote about some of his concerns in the Financial Times. The Israelis, he said in an interview, face a similar fate. “They have set themselves a goal that is extremely difficult to achieve, because even if they deal a serious blow to Hamas, they will not be able to prevent its revival,” he said.
Israel cannot and does not want to occupy Gaza indefinitely, he says, adding. “And you can’t push the population into Egypt, which doesn’t want anything to do with Gaza.” Without a clear political strategy, Freedman says it’s “hard to see if this will lead anywhere.”
Conflict without immediate resolution
In August 2014, after a serious conflict between Israel and Hamas, ideas about what should happen to Gaza surfaced in a confidential document provided to the NYT. The text says that “a return to the status quo will provoke a new war” and that the Palestinian Authority (ANP), which administers parts of the West Bank, is “too weak and divided to govern.”
The best solution, according to the document, would be to allow United Nations forces to control Gaza’s borders while disbanding and disarming Palestinian militias and gradually lifting the Israeli and Egyptian blockade of Gaza. In 2014, the newspaper assumed that Hamas would continue to control Gaza but might agree to moderate its behavior in return.
Nine years later, the article can serve as a starting point. If Hamas and similar groups in Gaza are destroyed, as Israel promises, the United Nations may be able to serve as a kind of additional police force to help maintain peace in Gaza while restoring the status and credibility of the Palestinian Authority.
In the current conflict, Israel must control what remains of the Gaza Strip and station Israeli forces there until a political solution allows them to withdraw, which will overwhelm the army, especially if Hezbollah opens a second front from southern Lebanon when there is one in the occupied West Bank Wave of violence between settlers and Palestinians is coming.
Of course, if Gaza’s urban centers were destroyed and ground operations led to the displacement of large parts of the population, it would be easier for the Israeli military to control Gaza without completely occupying it, Khatib said. “It is a war tactic used by other regimes in the Middle East,” she said, referring to Syrian President Bashar alAssad.
While the world is appalled by Hamas’ killings and is likely to give Israel more time than in the past to defeat the group, there are already calls for Israel to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the rules of war, including from US President Joe Biden US Secretary of State Antônio Blinken.
The inevitable civilian deaths and injuries will, as always, put considerable pressure on Israel to negotiate a ceasefire, particularly from Washington. Meanwhile, Israel is trying to prepare its supporters around the world, particularly in the United States, to resist this pressure and end its operations before Hamas is crushed.