Gaza's future political plan uncertain as Israel keeps vague position

In what would change the fate of 1.3 million people in an enclave closed off to the rest of the world, Israel's then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004 made a dramatic decision to fully disengage from the Gaza Strip, where nearly two dozen Israeli settlements had been built. A complete Israeli blockade followed in later years, making the lives of Gaza residents extremely miserable.

For Israel, although the decision came from one of the country's most hawkish leaders, it was a practical response to a series of security challenges that had rendered the Israeli occupation of Gaza unsustainable. Such challenges might resurface as incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel will take "overall security responsibility" for the Palestinian enclave indefinitely after the ongoing war, which had been triggered by Hamas, a militant group that rules Gaza, launching a brutal attack on Israel last month.

Before 2005, when the disengagement plan was effectively implemented, Israel was mired in a state of turmoil after the outburst of a major Palestinian uprising, known as the Second Intifada, and suffered rising casualties among the troops it had sent to defend the Jewish settlements in Gaza. Today, however, Israel could face a tougher reality if it goes forward with a continued military presence following weeks or even months of war with Hamas, even though such occupation would be kept on a temporary basis as observers suggest.

"Hamas is much more deeply entrenched in Gaza today," Meir Litvalk, chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University, told CGTN. "Tens of thousands of Gazans are employed in various Hamas institutions. They will remain staunchly loyal to Hamas."

Hamas, with an armed force numbering up to 40,000 men, has built a diverse arsenal that analysts say is sufficient to endure an incursion for a long period. It has also constructed a network of underground tunnels that the group claims spans about 500 kilometers, nearly 13 times the length of Gaza.

Fully aware of the various combat use of these tunnels, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has been targeting the group's underground city as its troops have entered Gaza City, the heart of Hamas militants, following a full-scale offensive into the Palestinian enclave late last month. It claimed on Tuesday to have destroyed more than 100 tunnel shafts, through which Palestinian militants say they have carried out successful attacks.

The war, which has far surpassed the two prior invasions of Gaza in both scale and intensity, faces the uncertainty of how it will end, as Israel has yet to come up with a clear political objective for the ground incursion.

Netanyahu's proposal, the first public indication of a post-war plan, "reveals the dilemma and the problem in Israel where many Israelis, and certainly the military command, don't want to remain in Gaza and be responsible for managing Gaza," Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow for the impact of war at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told CGTN.

He said although the prime minister's statement doesn't represent official policy and was made in a bid to ramp up support among the Israeli far right – the proposal was denied by both Israeli officials and the U.S., which has poured billions of dollars of military aid into Israel – Netanyahu "does address a challenge that most Israelis don't have an answer for, and what he is saying is logically very likely to happen."

In his statement, the prime minister did not specify what he meant by assuming "overall security responsibility," but Avraham Sela, a former analyst in the Research division of the IDF intelligence and now a senior fellow at the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told CGTN that this could mean "a mobile defense in which Israel would maintain the freedom of operating in Gaza when necessary, in the same format of the present incursions into A Zone cities and towns in the West Bank," which refers to one of the three divided areas that remains largely in Israeli control.

While how precisely Netanyahu's proposal could manifest is unclear, but what is clear is that its implementation would last a long period in which Israel will try to eliminate the Hamas military structure to the extent that it would not pose a threat again, according to Litvak.

"A very difficult task," he said.

The question still remains – who will govern Gaza after Israel achieves the stated goal of eliminating Hamas' military infrastructure? While many political analysts believe Israel is not at all willing to return to its pre-2005 rule in the Strip, the prime minister, who is fighting for his political survival, has not ruled out such a scenario. In an attempt to shore up his earlier assertion, Netanyahu said on Friday that the Israeli military will remain in control of the Palestinian enclave, and will not rely on international forces to oversee security along the border.

"If the Israeli military stays in Gaza after the war, it will attract a lot of opposition even inside Israel," Ronni Shaked, a senior correspondent and commentator on Palestinian Affairs for the Hebrew daily newspaper Yedioth Aharanoth, told CGTN. Those who still wish to build Jewish settlements in the Strip are after all a minority, he added.

U.S. officials have in recent weeks floated the idea of creating an international force, which they hope will take over security responsibility in Gaza for an interim period before returning it to the Palestinian Authority (PA), a ruling body in Ramallah. As they envisioned, such a force should comprise troops from Israel's Arab allies.

The PA, which is also believed to be uninterested in ruling Gaza, has said it will only cooperate if the path to a comprehensive political solution is revived, meaning a possible return to the Oslo peace process that began in the early 1990s but was aborted years later.

The U.S. plan, though ostensibly rejected by Netanyahu, is largely embraced within Israel's political and military establishment, according to Litvak. Many officials "want very much the direct involvement of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and possibly Jordan that will run the civilian matters and pave the ground for a new Palestinian government instead of Hamas," he said.

The proposal is grounded in Israel's improving ties with its Arab neighbors in recent years. A prospective normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia had been in the works before the war, but was effectively derailed by the Hamas attack on October 7.

Arab countries' cooperation is key to the success of the U.S. approach, Shaked said, adding that a demilitarized zone in Gaza, the biggest demand of the Israelis, can then be built in order to begin other forms of collaboration.

Israel's Gaza offensive, however, has rendered such prospect uncertain. As the death toll in the Palestinian territory has skyrocketed to over 11,000 amid a worsening humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel's month-long air bombardment, Arab countries have ratcheted up their rebuke to Israel's military campaign. Bahrain, which had normalized its relations with Israel in 2020, has recalled its ambassador, while other regional states have condemned Israel in some of the strongest terms.

"It's very difficult to say what Arab countries will do in the long term," said Sayigh, who also served as an adviser and negotiator in the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks with Israel in the 1990s. He added that so far, the Egyptians and the Jordanians are particularly threatened by the Israeli government, which they believe is pushing Palestinians from the occupied territories into their countries.

The U.S.-proposed plan is only workable "if Israel's policy in Gaza allows some sort of solution that the Arabs can endorse and the Saudis can actually present themselves as a partner in that effort," Sayigh said. "But if they find the Israeli government is behaving in ways that make any reasonable humanitarian or political outcome impossible, then I think they can't cooperate with that kind of approach."

It will then depend on how much pressure Western governments are exerting on Israel, he added.

A schism has emerged among Israel's Western allies over whether a humanitarian ceasefire should take place, but analysts believe that Israel now has a tight window in which Washington will maintain ardent support, and U.S. backing determines to a large extent whether Israel will keep its military resolve.

Israel, which has rejected any move that would leave room for Hamas to regroup, has suggested establishing safe zones for civilians in southern Gaza after Israeli troops divided the enclave into two. The idea has been rejected by France and Egypt, as it reinforces the prospect of further displacement of the Palestinians.

"If we look at the public discourse in Israel, people don't have any trust in this government," Shaked said. He believes there's a real possibility that the current administration led by Netanyahu will be replaced by a new one after the war, which might clear the path for realistic solutions in Gaza.