Israel Has No Post-War Gaza Strategy.

More than seven months have passed since Hamas militants launched a terrorist attack on Israeli border areas. The Israel Defense Forces quickly drove the enemy from its territory and launched a large-scale retaliatory operation. These have now lasted more than 200 days, with massive bombardments, ground and special operations, after which the Gaza Strip has been reduced to dust. Meanwhile, one of the last enclaves, the southern town of Rafah, where more than a million people have taken refuge, has become the next military target of Jerusalem, which claims it is one of the last bastions of Hamas. This has angered almost the entire international community, meaning Israel risks further alienation in the region and the world. What is the state of Israel's war with Hamas after seven months of revanchist campaign, and are there any prospects for an end to it? What is the plan for a post-war Gaza?

Rafah Offensive

In the early hours of Monday, 6 May, the Israeli Defence Forces ordered the 100,000 residents of parts of Rafah city in southern Gaza to evacuate immediately to the Al-Mawasi 'humanitarian zone' to the north-west of the city. Israel has vowed to use 'brute force' in the area, which it describes as Hamas's last bastion in the Strip. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the town originally had a population of around 275,000, but more than 1.4 million people have now sought refuge in Rafah.

Following overnight air strikes, an Israeli armoured column moved in to seize the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing. Rafah, which borders Egypt, was the only crossing into Gaza that Israel did not directly control. This provided an indirect motive for the offensive, as Jerusalem said Hamas was receiving constant reinforcements through the Rafah crossing.

“This is the beginning of our mission to eliminate the last four Hamas brigades in Rafah. You should have no doubt about that” - said an Israeli government spokesman. These are four of the last six brigades Hamas is believed to have deployed in the Strip. Israeli officials list the locations of their deployment as: Yabna, Shaboura, Tel Sultan and East Rafah. The other two are said to be operating in the central part - in Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah.

The media circulated footage of Israeli Merkava tanks entering the crossing area and, in the next step, Israeli flags flying over the post. Israel's 401 Brigade took 'operational control' of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza side of the border on Tuesday morning.

The Israeli military said it had intelligence that the crossing was 'being used for terrorist purposes', although it did not provide evidence. Hamas militants near the crossing are believed to have carried out a mortar attack that killed four Israeli soldiers near Kerem Shalom on Sunday, and more mortar shells and rockets were fired from the area on Tuesday.

Israel's takeover of the Rafah crossing gave it full control over the entry and exit of people and goods for the first time since it withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005, although it has long maintained a blockade of the coastal enclave in cooperation with Egypt.

Experts believe the IDF will face a determined opponent in the area, one that is well dug in and orchestrated for defence through an extensive network of tunnels in the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow 14-kilometre stretch along the Gaza-Egypt border.

“Rafah is going to fundamentally look a bit different” said Jonathan Lord, who works for the Center for a New American Security.

Kenneth McKenzie, a retired Marine general and head of US Central Command until 2022, says: 'It’s going to be another tough, bloody, ugly fight, which Israel will have lessons learned from their fights [in northern Gaza]. Hamas will have lessons learned from the fights up north. Both sides will apply them.”

What’s important is that the news of Israel's renewed offensive came at a time when it might have seemed that the possibility of a ceasefire was on the horizon.

Negotiations without hope

In recent months, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, among others, have tried to find ways to stop the bloodshed in Gaza by negotiating a ceasefire agreement that would include an exchange of prisoners of war and the remains of victims. But there was no sign of a positive solution.

Until 27 April, that is, when Jerusalem sent a new document to Egyptian and Qatari mediators delivering hope for progress in the negotiations.

‘We were all surprised,' said an anonymous Arab diplomat. The offer was very positive. Suddenly the Israelis accepted what they had refused to do. The proposal included a timetable for de-escalation, divided into three phases of 42 days each.

According to Al Jazeera, the first phase would include, among other things, a temporary cessation of fighting, a withdrawal of Israeli forces to the east and a prisoner exchange in which Jerusalem would reclaim its compatriots in return for, among other things, the exchange of each captured female soldier for 50 Palestinian prisoners.

In the second phase, military operations would cease completely, prisoner exchanges would continue, there would be a 'sustained, long period of calm', and the Gaza blockade would be completely lifted.

The third phase would be the end of the siege of Gaza and the beginning of the reconstruction of the territory.

As Israel launched air strikes on Rafah, Hamas officials said they had accepted the proposal, which had been negotiated in Egypt with Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators - including CIA chief William Burns. The Islamist group's agreement was confirmed by its leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

A senior Palestinian official familiar with the proposal told the BBC that Hamas had even agreed to end its 'hostile activities forever' if the conditions were met.

The ball is in Israel's court, Hamas officials proclaimed, and there was jubilation in the streets of Gaza after the news of progress in the peace talks.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly dampened the jubilation by stating that the proposal 'falls far short of Israel's basic demands', but that 'the Israeli delegation will continue the talks, seeking conditions that are acceptable to Israel'. The kinetic side of the rejection of the offer was the continuation and intensification of the Israeli operation in Rafah.

An anonymous Israeli official told Reuters that the Hamas proposal was unacceptable to Israel and 'looked like a ploy to make Israel look like a party that refuses to reach an agreement' - the official said. Joe Biden also indirectly sided with Jerusalem. ‘A ceasefire would take place tomorrow if only Hamas would release the remaining hostages,' Biden said.

On the other side of the barricade - an anonymous Egyptian official and a Western diplomat said the draft accepted by Hamas contained only minor changes in wording from the version previously pushed by the US with Israel's approval. The changes were made in consultation with the head of the CIA, who approved the draft before it was sent to Hamas.

Antagonisation of friends

With the failure of peace talks and a new Israeli offensive threatening the lives of thousands of civilians gathered near the area of military operations, impatience and opposition is also growing in the West.

An Israeli military offensive on the town of Rafah would violate international humanitarian law and would not lead to the removal of Hamas,' said Andrew Mitchell, Britain's deputy foreign secretary, but he stopped short of specifying what Britain would do if a full-scale invasion took place.

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs Josep Borell also expressed disapproval, saying: 'sad news is that there is not an agreement for a cease-fire. Hamas accepted, Israel rejected, and the land offensive against Rafah has started again, in spite of all the requests of the international community – the United States, the EU member states -- everybody asking (Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin) Netanyahu not to attack Rafah.”

Official communiqués against the ongoing Jerusalem offensive have also been issued by the foreign ministries of Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Norway and Denmark, among others. It is clear, however, that in Israel only the voice of the actor with real potential leverage over the Jewish state, namely the US, is being heard.

So Defence Minister Yoav Gallant rushed to assure his American counterpart, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, that Israel had no choice but to launch an offensive in southern Gaza to neutralise the terrorist threat, while thanking the Americans for their help in mediating.

But the Americans seemed not convinced. In a telephone conversation with Netanyahu, US President Joe Biden reiterated his opposition to a ground operation at Rafah, and White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that Israel had not yet presented the US with a comprehensive plan for a Rafah operation.

However, the situation between Jerusalem and Washington is dynamic, with both sides probing each other. The White House is constantly testing the approach to the IDF's next offensive operations. Indeed, Kirby said at a later conference that the operation in eastern Rafah was not a full Israeli invasion of the town, which President Joe Biden had repeatedly warned against on humanitarian grounds. Kirby therefore softened the definition of an Israeli offensive, adding that Israel described it as 'an operation of limited scope and duration aimed at cutting off Hamas from weapons smuggling'.

Despite this, the Americans concluded that a 'disciplinary signal' was necessary, resulting in a decision to halt the supply of their weapons to Israel. Specifically, the 450- and 2000-pound bombs, 3,500 of them, which Washington does not want to see used in the Rafah offensive. The decision was quite significant as it was the first time since 7 October that the US had withheld arms on the grounds of their intended use. Joe Biden stated that 'if Israel launches a major military operation at Rafah, there are certain systems that we will not be supporting and supplying for that operation'.

The decision has to do with the growing opposition to supporting Israel's military action, not only among American citizens, but also among Democratic members of Congress. Public pressure is growing as images of the deteriorating humanitarian situation reach them daily. Almost the entire population of the Gaza Strip has been forced to flee to the south, near Rafah, and now the same area is about to become the next theatre of hostilities.

“They have not yet moved the civilians out of the battlespace … (and) there are some 275,000 or so people that were living in and around Rafah before the conflict started. Now there’s 1.4 million or so people that are there. That’s a lot of people in a very small space.”- Lloyd Austin recalled.

The Americans' move, however, did not have much of an effect on the Israelis, as Netanyahu was quick to comment on the decision, saying that 'if necessary, Israel will fight without American weapons'. Moreover, the White House continues to assure that it stands by Israel despite the arms blockade.

Meanwhile, shortly after the offensive began, the UN reported that the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings had been closed.

The closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings is particularly damaging to the already dire humanitarian situation. They must be reopened immediately,' said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Although the Kerem Shalom crossing was opened after a few days, the situation remains difficult. The Erez crossing is also due to open.

All fuel for aid trucks and generators passes through Rafah,' said UN spokesman Jens Laerke. On 12 May, Georgios Petropoulos, head of the UN humanitarian agency in Gaza, warned that food supplies would run out by 13 May. Meanwhile, the UNs High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, warned that the Rafah offensive was incompatible with the letter of international law:

“I can see no way that the latest evacuation orders, much less a full assault, in an area with an extremely dense presence of civilians, can be reconciled with the binding requirements of international humanitarian law and with the two sets of binding provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice.”

The offensive on Gaza's southern border is also a headache for the state on the other side of the border - Egypt. Cairo fears and wants to avoid a mass emigration of Palestinians to its state, while the broad offensive increases the risk of such a process. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry called Israel's actions a 'dangerous escalation' and announced that it will formally join South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of violating its obligations under the Gaza Genocide Convention.

Gaza's future or lack thereof

While Israeli soldiers and tanks are operating in Rafah, the political leaders in Jerusalem are thinking about what lies ahead: the post-war situation in Gaza. How should it be managed? Who should do it? And, perhaps most importantly, how to reconcile the growing international demand for a two-state solution with domestic pressure not to do so, which even calls for the establishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza, as in the West Bank.

The fact is that Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to play the issue as skilfully as possible, trying to reconcile the interests of all parties involved, but still - most obviously - protecting his own, in the form of staying in power, which depends, among other things, on his radical coalition partners like Itamar Ben Gvir and Becalel Smotrich.

This breakneck process resulted in the first plan for post-war Gaza, which saw the light of day at the end of February this year. It provided for indefinite Israeli control of the enclave, with civil administration in the hands of Gazans with no links to Hamas. The plan also called for the dismantling of UNRWA, the UN agency responsible for delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the establishment of more Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

‘Disappointing' was how US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken briefly described the plan in his reaction to it. Representatives of the Arab world from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi reacted similarly. While the Americans as well as the Saudis and Emiratis have been pressing Israel to pursue a two-state solution, the proposed plan made it even less likely.

Although, for the sake of formality, it should be noted that in the last UN Security Council vote on 18 April on UN recognition of the state of Palestine, the Americans voted against, and are de facto the last obstacle to the recognition of Palestine. ‘The United States continues to strongly support a two-state solution. This vote does not reflect opposition to Palestinian statehood, but instead is an acknowledgment that it will only come from direct negotiations between the parties,' was the explanation of US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood.

In contrast, more than two months later, on 3 May, as the Israeli Defence Forces prepared for the Rafah offensive, another consideration of a post-war plan for Gaza emerged - this time slightly modified.

The plan, which we can only learn about from cabinet discussions by journalists including Patrick Kingsley for the New York Times, would see control of Gaza evolve. Israel would no longer have de facto control, but Jerusalem would share it with a number of Arab states, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates, as well as the United States. This exotic US-Israeli-Arab coalition would appoint Gazan leaders to take charge of the Strip's reconstruction, law and order, education and administration. After 10 years, Gazans would vote on whether to become part of a Palestinian administration that would also run the West Bank. In the meantime, however, the Israeli military would continue to operate in the enclave.

In return, Israel would expect to normalise relations with these states, notably Saudi Arabia.

The problem is that, unofficially, no one likes this plan. Against it are the radical allies in Netanyahu's government, who do not want to see Arab states interfering in what they see as Israel's internal affairs.

Also against it are the Arab states themselves, who again do not see how this plan would lead in the long term to the creation of the state of Palestine. And this, in their view, is a precondition for any of their participation in resolving the Palestinian 'Gordian knot'.

Asked about the plan, the UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Emirati government 'will not participate in any reconstruction efforts in Gaza until there is agreement on a roadmap for a political solution to the conflict that includes a clear, timely and binding path for all parties and leads to the establishment of a two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state'.

Netanyahu is thus backed into a corner and the issue of a Palestinian state, remains as distant as it was. What’s more, opinion polls in Israel show a gradual shift against a two-state solution.

According to a poll conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute in January 2024, 51% of Israelis said that 'as part of an agreement to end the war - which will include a long-term ceasefire, guarantees from the United States and an agreement with Arab states such as Saudi Arabia - Israel should not accept the creation of a Palestinian state'; 36% supported such a solution.

Many Israelis believe that it is unacceptable to 'reward' the Palestinians with the creation of a state after the Hamas-launched attack.

Increasingly, however, political observers are reading the signals coming from the Netanyahu camp not as a plan but as evidence of a lack of one.

Israeli radicals are becoming more radical and raising their demands. Israel's close allies - especially in the US, but also in Europe - are increasingly distancing themselves from Israel's actions. The Arabs, with whom Israel sought to build bridges to balance the Iranian threat in accordance with the Abraham Accords, are siding with Palestine and perhaps this time will not budge until Jerusalem actually offers the prospect of a two-state solution. And all this is being watched with an open smile, and certainly not passively, by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is gaining strength with every Israeli mistake - especially in light of the recent exchange of kinetic blows - and lurking to the north, the Lebanese Hezbollah, with incomparably greater potential than Hamas.

Finally, and above all, the lack of a feasible solution affects more than 2 million Palestinians, who live in conditions unworthy of human beings and whose survival remains under threat. Not only because of the military offensive, but also because of the interruption of humanitarian aid and the threat to the operation of local relief agencies. The war clock is still ticking. 35,000 dead, 78,000 wounded. More than 80 percent of Gaza's population has been displaced.

As a collective evacuation continues in Rafah, the IDF has intensified combat operations in central Gaza. At the last update of this script, on Monday morning 13 May, news agencies reported that 300,000 people had already been evacuated from the town, as Israel's offensive operations in Rafah continued.

Israel declares killing between 10,000 and 12,000 Hamas fighters and to continue operations until the Islamists are completely wiped out. Even if that happens, which is highly doubtful, what then? Scorched earth in Gaza, a tarnished international image, anger and suspicion from Arab states, glee from the enemy in Tehran and deep internal divisions. It may well be that the phrase 'Pyrrhic victory' will need an update to 'Netanyahu victory'.

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