Ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas are repeatedly breaking down, due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing the war after a brief pause. However, there is little focus on what Tel Aviv has planned for the Gaza Strip in a post war setting. This is because it reveals Israel’s true intentions from the beginning.
Despite two recent attempts by the US Biden administration to reach a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel, the first of which was killed by an Israeli invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah and the second by Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s announced intension to violate the second phase of the deal, hope was triggered again after Hamas conceded on one of their demands, heralded as a “breakthrough” proposal, although appearing no different than any of the many times before this was announced. Yet missing in the media’s analysis of the various ceasefire proposal negotiations are the actual plans that Israel seeks to act upon in a post-war Gaza.
In fact, we have not heard of any tangible solutions presented in the corporate media or from Western politicians, instead there has been a hyper-fixation on the issue of simply securing a ceasefire. It appears that the glaring lack of questions regarding Israel’s plan for a post-war Gaza boils down to two factors; the first being that it is incriminating to the Israelis, and the second is the fact that for so long the US government would not even entertain calling for a ceasefire, preferring instead to use the term “pause”.
However, if you look at the way Israeli leaders speak about the latest ceasefire proposals, it is very clear that they only seek a temporary pause, during which they will be able to extract their captives who are currently being held in Gaza and give a break to their soldiers. This is why Netanyahu can say, with a straight face, that he seeks to reach a ceasefire and wants to continue the war in the same sentence, despite those being obviously contradictory . It is simply down to the fact that US President Joe Biden began using the term ceasefire, to describe a temporary cessation of violence. Hamas knows this well and while it has repeatedly presented proposals that it could agree to, it refuses to back down on the necessity of guarantees that Israel withdraw its forces from Gaza and permanently end the war.
Israel’s Real Agenda For Gaza
While the Israeli government does not actually possess the ability to immediately implement any of its strategies, it is clear where both the society and Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition stand on the question of a post war Gaza. It isn’t good for the Palestinian people to say the least.
The initial Israeli response to the situation that faced them after the October 7 Hamas-led offensive was to seek the ethnic cleansing of the entire population of the Gaza Strip into the Egyptian Sinai desert. We know this, not only because of comments from former Israeli government representatives that immediately advocated it, but because in late October the Israeli media outlet, Local Call, uncovered and published a leaked document produced by Israel’s intelligence ministry laying out its proposal to expel the some 2.3 million Palestinians. However, this scenario, besides representing a humanitarian crisis of historic proportions, would be too much for the Egyptian government to tolerate, which is why Egypt’s President, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, has repeatedly rejected the idea of absorbing the population of Gaza into the Sinai.
On top of this, the nature of the Israeli military’s operations inside the besieged coastal enclave doesn’t allow for such a plan to be properly implemented, the soldiers are too unhinged and the bombardments were, from the start, so indiscriminate that there was no real chance of them proving capable of organizing such a mass expulsion — without potentially mass murdering hundreds of thousands at one time while doing so.
Once the idea of ethnic cleansing became less and less likely, it then started to become apparent that the Israeli Hebrew media were floating two ideas about what a post-war Gaza could look like. The first was a re-occupation of the besieged territory and the second was the Palestinian Authority (PA) — which operates out of the occupied West Bank — taking control of the coastal enclave. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition stood against PA taking control of Gaza from the start, a prospect that the Israeli PM had reportedly been part of, involving secret discussions to consider it.
Despite the fact that the PA has condemned Hamas repeatedly, with its self-appoint President Mahmoud Abbas blaming his Palestinian rivals for bringing the war on themselves, this has not at all changed the perspective of most Israelis on the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, especially the members of the settler movement. To the likes of Israeli Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, the PA represents an existential threat to their West Bank settlement expansion endeavors, which have recently skyrocketed since October 7. It does not matter that the PA’s security forces serve Israel and help keep the settlers safe, while actively hunting down resistance fighters; to them, the PA is still a Palestinian entity that is represented at the United Nations and calls for establishing a State on the majority of the West Bank. For most Israelis, the West Bank is referred to as “Judea and Samaria”, making it the “biblical heartland of Israel”, which is firmly wedged in their minds.
Knowing this, Benjamin Netanyahu began making plans of his own to please his coalition partners and even members of his own ruling Likud Party, outright rejecting the idea that the PA could take over Gaza after the war. As early as December the Israeli PM publicly rejected the idea of the PA controlling Gaza. In January, Israeli Finance Minister Smotrich told Israel’s Channel 12 that he supported the idea of establishing settlements in Gaza, while stating that “we want to encourage willful emigration [of the Palestinians], and we need to find countries willing to take them in”. While Itamar Ben Gvir said that “we cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing”. Later that month, the Israeli Prime Minister weighed in on the conversation and stressed the need for continued Israeli “security control” inside both the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while the Israeli settler movement held a conference discussing the issue of building settlement there.
In February, the Israeli Knesset (parliament) voted through a bill that rejected the notion of Palestinian Statehood and that seeks to prevent any future recognition of a State of Palestine. Even more concerning is that Benjamin Netanyahu’s first ever “day after plan” set out for the Israeli military to remain inside the Gaza Strip, setting up positions there and then conditioning reconstruction of the territory on complete Palestinian demilitarization. Although the term “re-occupy” is not used, the Israelis are already the occupying power over Gaza and the positioning of their forces inside the territory would certainly constitute a form of re-occupation.
What would happen if Hamas laid down its weapons? @falasteen47 explains.
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Meanwhile, if we look at the Israeli public, they seem to largely be in agreement with the rhetoric of their government on the issue of a post-war Gaza. Polling data suggests that roughly half of the Israeli public support fully re-occupying the Gaza Strip militarily after the war, a statistic that rises to 70% amongst Israelis who describe themselves as “right-wing”. This, as 4 in 10 Israelis back establishing illegal settlements inside the territory and, according to Pew research data, only 9% of Israeli Jews believe that the people of Gaza should decide who governs them. On the issue of illegal settlements, it is not yet supported by the majority of Israelis, yet it is supported by a greater number than those who openly oppose it. However, it is clear that the majority of the Israeli public does not support any form of Palestinian self-determination.
While Itamar Ben Gvir has declared that after the war he would be “very happy to live in Gaza” inside a settlement guarded by the Israeli military, Netanyahu has been desperately attempting to put together a coalition of Arab regime that have normalized ties with Israel, which he hopes will be able to help rule the territory along with a local force of collaborators. Yet this plan has failed so far, as the Israeli army are unable to find enough Palestinians living in Gaza who would be willing to collaborate with them against Hamas and because Arab regimes, like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), only seem interested in providing funding to Gaza and not to help run a governing force there.
Any real discussion about the future of the Gaza Strip, or at least any ceasefire proposals, have to take into consideration the fact that the Israeli government has nothing beyond occupation and misery for the people of the coastal enclave. Tel Aviv will not even entertain the idea of granting the Palestinian people their basic rights, while the ruling coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu is so radical, backed by a voter base that are just as extreme, to the point where the PM himself would not be able to agree to a reasonable deal without his government falling apart. The only thing that could potentially change this volatile situation is a war between Israel and Hezbollah, but beyond a dramatic escalation on another front, there will be no change to the Israeli agenda to completely conquer and subjugate the Gaza Strip in one way or another.
