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Israeli and American policymakers began crafting detailed plans for postwar Gaza immediately after Hamas’s October 7 massacres. These plans shared the flawed assumption that following an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation Hamas would no longer control Gaza’s territory. However, Washington is currently pressuring Israel to wrap up its ground offensive by early January. Since the IDF cannot even fully dislodge Hamas from northern Gaza before that deadline, Jerusalem’s best-case scenario now entails confining Hamas’s remit to southern Gaza while designating its north a closed military zone.
Already on October 8, Chuck Freilich, an Israeli former deputy national security adviser, published an article addressing “what happens on the day after we topple Hamas.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant outlined Israel’s war objectives before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on October 20. Destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure constituted his strategy’s “first phase.” White House spokesperson John Kirby soon thereafter raised the possibility of multinational peacekeepers policing a post-Hamas Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken articulated the Biden administration’s postwar goals during a November 8 press conference. They include: “No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza.”
Yet, alarmed by mounting Palestinian civilian casualties, Washington started pressing Israel in December to transition from its high-intensity ground offensive to surgical strikes targeting Hamas leaders. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned Prime Minister Netanyahu during a December 14 meeting that the transition must occur “in a matter of weeks, not months.” Thanks to Hamas’s well-provisioned tunnel network, the IDF cannot even clear northern Gaza by then, thereby rendering every Biden administration goal unfeasible.
Wadi Gaza separates the Gaza Strip’s now mostly depopulated northern third from its south. Since Wadi Gaza’s topography precludes tunnel construction and urbanization, the IDF easily secured it during the ground invasion’s early days, effectively besieging northern Gaza. Anticipating this strategy, Hamas launched delaying operations in northern Gaza while moving most of its fighters and leaders south.
The heavy bombing necessary to destroy southern Gaza’s tunnels would take months and cause far more civilian casualties than Washington could stomach. Because the IDF relies almost exclusively on American equipment, Jerusalem must heed US demands to wind down its ground offensive. Consequently, Israel cannot fulfill the Biden administration’s goal of preventing Gaza from remaining a platform for terrorism. Accordingly, despite administration misgivings, impeding Hamas’s rearmament requires blockading southern Gaza.
Israel’s best-case scenario, therefore, involves declaring northern Gaza a closed military zone and transforming Wadi Gaza into an impenetrable armistice line. This would enable Israel to starve out Hamas’s residual subterranean fighters in northern Gaza, preventing at least that territory from remaining a platform for terrorism. It would likewise forestall a largely intact Hamas from reestablishing a presence there under the guise of civilian resettlement. Thus, Hamas’s continued governance of southern Gaza compels Israel to reoccupy its north, reducing the Strip’s territory.
Defense Minister Gallant inexplicably stated during a December 18 joint press conference with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, “In every area where we achieve our mission, we will be able to transition gradually to the next phase and start working on bringing back [the] local population. That means that it can be achieved, maybe, sooner in the north, rather than in the south.” Fighting has destroyed over two-thirds of northern Gaza’s buildings. That makes it uninhabitable for civilians, but an ideal terrorist haven. Authorizing civilian resettlement would merely facilitate Hamas recolonizing the rubble.
One cannot call Gaza’s partition an Israeli victory, but it still confers some benefits. Israel avoids responsibility for governing 2.3 million insurgent-prone Palestinians along with shouldering reconstruction costs. It averts Gaza’s political unification with the West Bank, a prerequisite for implementing the suicidal two-state solution. Lastly, Hamas’s post-October 7 popularity boost might evaporate once Palestinians internalize the massacres’ long-term cost.
Micah Levinson is a professor of political science and senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org.
No, it is not a best-case scenario, but a total defeat scenario. If Hamas survives and continues to govern the southern Gaza, it will be perceived as a victory of the Stone Age barbarians over the IDF, supposedly the ‘best army in the Middle East’. It will encourage all state and non-state actors to attack Israel. So Hamas survival is not an option.
Israel doesn’t intend to allow the population back into northern Gaza ; they intend to annex it, maybe as a fist step towards annexing the whole of Gaza and deporting the population into the Sinai as ”war refugees”
The Gazan and West Bank rabble need to be removed and while that may seem very unlikely , but when seen in the context of a broader apocalyptic war against both Lebanon and Iran these kinds of ”population transfers ” can get lost in the mix, so to speak … in a somewhat similar way the mass deportations of Germans from East Prussia, Pomerania and Sudetenlands were at the end of WW2
Considering just how much firepower has been built up in Lebanon by Hezbollah and how Iran has developed so many missiles there is a real danger of Israel being overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and having to resort to atomic bombs to save themselves ..This to me seems like a likely scenario for 2024
And exactly why The United States should be fighting with and for Israel instead of Joe Biden’s bully tactic ultimatums for a very self serving purpose. Biden and this newer Jew hating Democrat Party give no limits to Ukraine but a s___t load for Israel
Send them packing and no more land give aways.
Iran has to be obliterated.
The only solution is to resettle all Gazans in The Sanai. Something should have been done during 1978 Camp David accord. Sadly Begin was hoodwinked by Sadat and anti Israel President Carter. Now is the time to rectify the error.
Dear world, you never defended Jews when we were persecuted and murdered. Today, don’t stand in our way when we defend ourselves, and must finish and complete the defeat of Hamas, not to raise it’s head ever again.
All of that scenario is based on the assumption that the blood thirsty islamic terrorists are given the right to rebuild and resume their genocidal agenda. Cleary a sign of detachment from reality and the facts.
The WWIII has already started and this is just one battle.
It’s not a war of nations, as islamic terrorism also known as just islam does not recognize or respect any borders, nationality, cultures or religion except sharia law and unconditional surrender to islam.
It’s the war between entire civilized world and the low IQ barbarians who are hell bent on destroying all of the civilized world and freedoms.
It might be fought on national level and alliances, or in smaller groups or even individual levels.
But one thing is for sure, it will not end until islam is wiped off. There will be peace and progress in the world for hundreds of years after that. That is the big picture very few people can see.
Don’t assume the war is going to end, and don’t assume avoiding the war is a good policy, that’s exactly what the islamists want the free world to think, so they can continue their invasion of the west.
You are basically right. This is a religious war, hence a civilizational war. But as for Hamas being given the “right” to regroup and fight again, alas, things are headed in that direction because of the delusions and stupidity of political and even military leaders. They don’t have the guts to stick with a kill or be killed understanding and so retreat to a “safe” ground of haggling over property and babbling about civilians who they decree as innocent while ignoring their fervid support of Jew killing.
Would that be a solution for Gaza, also a first step towards a possible
2-state solution?
Gaza is taken over by Israel. Gaza residents who want to live under the PA government can move to the Palestinian part of the West Bank.
Those who want to live under Israeli rule will then be treated as accepted refugees, housed, educated, employed and later naturalized. They will be contributing members of a prosperous, peaceful state of Israel in a generation or two.
A redevelopment plan for this northwestern corner of Israel, perhaps as a special economic zone for trade and tourism, could be implemented, creating jobs and income for the residents.
according to an article in AMERICAN THINKER…
The Palestinians of Gaza should be dispersed to Egypt, Jordan, the west bank, and other Arab countries; the more dispersed, the better. Israel should take all of Gaza as a warning to the Palestinians of the west bank – if they cannot make peace with Israel, the alternative is not to sit in their hovels planning and committing acts of terrorism. Instead what will happen is complete military defeat and the loss of even the west bank territories. Similarly, Israel will have to recognize and forbid the funding of Palestinian society by the United Nations, as this sort of welfare only seems to brew extremism.
The only option is for everyone in that area will have to leave, then it is put back under U.N. jurisdiction and no one is allowed to live there, except a few people to maintain the religious sites for all religions.
Too bad there aren’t more rivers running through Gaza, to disrupt tunnel building. Maybe Israel could dig some. Or dig canals starting from the sea.
Israel to BlinkinBiden: Drop Dead
Israel to Hamas: Reday or not here we come.
Giveret Micah Levison,
This is possibly the clearest piece on the situation I have read, as the situation stands now. From the Israeli ,gov point of view it might be exactly what they will attempt to do.
I think most comments here don’t understand that is that this is not anyone’s favored scenario, nor is anything set in stone. As you point out Israel would still need to defeat Hamas in Northern Gaza, and then there is the Northern front which can still widen.