Joshua Keating
Even as Israel’s war in Gaza continues to rage, there is increasing talk among world leaders about how it might end, and what will come after. There is no shortage of scenarios–but Israel and its most important international backers don’t appear to be on the same page about the aftermath of war.
Israeli leaders have kept their public statements focused mostly on the fight to destroy Hamas, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his clearest statement yet on post-war plans in a Monday interview with ABC News, saying that Israel, “for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility [for Gaza] because we've seen what happens when we don't have it.”
This would suggest some future Israel military presence in the Gaza Strip, from which it withdrew in 2005.
But on Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Tokyo, said a post-war settlement should include “no reoccupation of Gaza.”
Blinken also said Palestinians should be in charge in “post-crisis” Gaza, and that there must be “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza,” which may have been intended to push back on an idea floated by some Israeli officials to transfer Gaza’s civilian population to Egypt.
It’s far too soon to know exactly what the war's end will look like, but the recent statements suggest several competing scenarios, and the disputes that will likely arise with each of them.
It’s possible, though unlikely, that Israel will accomplish its goals and withdraw its troops quickly. The question is at what point Israeli leaders will decide those goals have been met.
Israel has vowed that Hamas will be, in the words of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, “wiped from the face of the earth.” But its assault on Gaza won’t eliminate support for the group or take out all its leaders, many of whom aren’t even in Gaza. As IDF forces move into northern Gaza and surround Gaza City, the goal is to destroy Hamas’s tunnel network and military equipment, but Netanyahu and his commanders haven’t made clear what would lead them to declare that the job is done.
In a photo taken during a controlled media tour conducted by the Israeli military, Israeli troops are pictured during operations in northern Gaza on November 8, 2023.DAPHNE LEMELIN/AFP via Getty ImagesMichael Koplow, chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum, told The Messenger that Israeli leaders probably “don't know that. They're going to assess it based on how the military operation in northern Gaza goes.”
Factors that could determine the length of the operation include the number of Israeli military casualties as well as how much leeway they get from the United States. For now, the U.S. is calling only for humanitarian pauses and more efforts to reduce civilian casualties rather than a full cease-fire, and Netanyahu may feel free to brush off even these statements as long as the U.S. keeps the supply of weapons flowing.
Hamas, meanwhile, is clearly digging in for an extended war. The group’s leaders have said they believe they have enough weapons to continue fighting for several months without additional supplies.
All of which suggests a short war isn't likely.
A new Israeli occupation
In Israel itself, there’s little public support for another long-term occupation of Gaza; the previous one, as well as Israel’s years-long occupation of a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, ended in frustration and withdrawal. But if the war turns into a prolonged counterinsurgency operation against the remnants of Hamas, an Israeli presence in Gaza may be inevitable.
Koplow noted that Netanyahu left himself some wiggle room in his statement about “overall security responsibility.”
“It could mean a number of things, ranging from a maximal Israeli military presence to a situation where Israel just retains the right to go in when it wants,” he said.
The latter scenario could resemble the current state of affairs in the parts of the West Bank known as “Area A.” These are areas that are formally under the control of the Palestinian Authority, but where Israel still frequently conducts military raids.
International peacekeeping force
Netanyahu adviser Mark Regev told CNN on Tuesday that rather than assuming responsibility for governing Gaza, “We are interested in establishing new frameworks where the Gazans can rule themselves, where there can be international support for the reconstruction of Gaza. Hopefully, we can bring in countries–Arab countries as well-–for a reconstruction of a demilitarized, post-Hamas Gaza.”
According to a recent Bloomberg report, the U.S. and Israel have been discussing several proposals for an international peacekeeping force for post-war Gaza.
One plan would give temporary oversight of the strip to countries in the region, backed by troops from the U.S. and Europe. But it’s unclear whether Arab governments, even those that enjoy relatively good relations with Israel, would want to participate in a plan where they would be widely seen as policing other Arabs on Israel’s behalf. Meanwhile, White House spokesperson John Kirby has said that there are “no plans or intention to put U.S. military troops on the ground in Gaza, now or in the future.”
Other options include an international force based on the one that currently operates in the Sinai Peninsula, monitoring the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. For more than four decades, there have been almost no challenges to that treaty — though the peacekeepers have occasionally come under attack from militant groups, including ISIS — and the U.S. has even considered removing some of its troops from the force in favor of remote surveillance technology.
But compared to Gaza, Sinai is a thinly populated place and a calm assignment for peacekeepers. Patrolling Gaza would be a far more active and dangerous mission.
A third possibility would involve placing Gaza under a temporary U.N. mandate, meaning U.N. peacekeepers would assume security responsibility. But the Israeli government is highly skeptical of the U.N., which it views as implacably hostile to its views.
More fundamentally, it’s not clear that Israel would view any of these three options as satisfying its security requirements.
Palestinians in charge
One increasingly popular idea among both Israeli and U.S. policymakers is for the Palestinian Authority, the current government in the West Bank, to assume responsibility for Gaza.
Fatah, the party that dominates the PA, is a bitter rival of Hamas and was forced out of the Gaza Strip after a brief civil war in 2007. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas indicated some openness to the idea in a meeting with Blinken last weekend, saying, “We will fully assume our responsibilities within the framework of a comprehensive political solution that includes all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”
But this idea presents its own complications. The PA is deeply unpopular and it’s currently having trouble maintaining order in the areas it already controls. Assuming control of Gaza under these circumstances would only reinforce the view of many Palestinians that it is merely a tool of the Israeli occupation.
“They got kicked out of Gaza the first time around, and now, the optics would be that they are returning on the back of Israeli tanks,” Raphael Cohen, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation, told The Messenger. “That doesn’t bode well for their long-term success.”
Still, the PA may want the opportunity to take over from its vanquished rival, and Abbas’s statement, with its reference to a “comprehensive political solution,” indicates he may feel he can use the Gaza crisis to extract political concessions from the Israelis when it comes to Palestinian independence.
Wider war
As devastating as the Hamas attacks against Israel and the subsequent bombardment of Gaza have been, there have been widespread fears since the beginning that the conflict could spread. These fears have only grown as Hezbollah has repeatedly traded fire with the IDF across the Israel-Lebanon border, and Iran-backed Houthi rebels have fired missiles at Israel.
Some of those fears may have eased after a speech last Friday by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Rather than declaring a full-scale war on Israel, as many had feared, Nasrallah limited his remarks to fiery rhetoric and said that Hezbollah was already in the fight.
But the rocket attacks on Northern Israel continue, as do attacks by other Iran-backed groups on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. Koplow said that a wider escalation is still possible, and that Israeli leaders are unlikely to be reassured by Nasrallah’s words or remove their troops from the Northern border.
“I don’t think they want to be caught unprepared a second time, after Oct. 7,” Koplow said.
Greater involvement in the war by Hezbollah or other states or militant groups in the Middle East could mean a much longer, more complicated, and more devastating war.
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