The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is advancing with his plan to take total gaza control, expanding his war efforts in the midst of an increasingly deep hunger crisis in the strip and intensifying the international sentence.
In the plan, the Netanyahu government also announced that it would only end the war once five “principles.” These included the demilitarization of the strip, the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas and the disarmament of the group.
This new phase of the war follows a family pattern of elaboration of poorly designed strategies by Netanyahu, without sufficient reasoning or apparent future planning. Given its new declared objective of taking total control of the city of Gaza, the end of the war does not seem likely or imminent.
There are five questions about whether the plan makes sense.
1. Is it necessary or wise militarily?
Significantly, the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (FDI), Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, has opposed the decision to expand operations in Gaza. He has warned that any plan to occupy Gaza’s strip “would drag Israel to a black hole.”
On the one hand, Zamir believes that it is not necessary to expand the military campaign: he says that the IDF have “met and even exceed the objectives of the operation” in Gaza.
Hamas has degraded substantially as a military force and their senior leaders have been killed. It is no longer an organized force in Gaza, it is now adopting guerrilla style tactics.
This makes an expanded campaign in an urban environment like the city of Gaza is risky. Hamas can use its vast network of tunnels to mount surprise attacks against Israeli soldiers and place explosive traps in buildings.
As such, the Netanyahu plan will inevitably lead to the lowest of the IDF. Almost 900 FDI staff members have died so far in the war.
In addition, taking total control of the strip would take months to complete and cause innumerable deaths of Palestinian civilians.
Zamir also warned that he could endanger the life of the remaining lively Israeli hostages, which are believed to add about 20.
The release of Israeli hostages has only occurred during the high fire, not as a result of military action. Hamas murdered six hostages at the end of 2024 when Israeli forces seemed to be approaching. Why wouldn’t I do it if I were cornered?
2. Does Israel have enough military personnel for such operation?
Israel has a relatively small army that totals around 169,000. It depends on more than 400,000 reservists, which have completed their military service, to increase IDF during emergencies.
But taking out the reservists from their normal works for long periods has adverse effects on the economy and harms Israel in the long term.
The objective of Netanyahu to degrade Gaza’s control by Hamas follows a basic strategy to “clear, sustain and build.” First, the FDI cleans an area of Hamas combatants, then maintain the area with sufficient military personnel to avoid their return and, finally, build an environment in which Hamas cannot work, for example, destroying their tunnels and encouraging the return of the civil government.
Israel does not have enough FDI personnel and reserved to display this strategy throughout the strip. It also needs soldiers in the West Bank, where clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinian residents have become increasingly violent in recent years.
Netanyahu says he does not want to occupy Gaza permanently, but the members of the extreme right of his cabinet do. They have made it clear that they want Israeli settlements to be restored in Gaza and also annexed most, if not all, the West Bank.
The contradictory messages of the Netanyahu government make it very difficult to know what its real long -term plan for Gaza is, if you have one.
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3. What kind of “Arab Force” would eventually enter?
In an interview this week, Netanyahu said that he foresees that the future safety control of the strip would eventually go to the “Arab forces.” But what Arab states would contribute to military personnel to such force?
The Arab states have long maintained the position that they will not solve the Palestinian problem of Israel for it, nor will they accept any results in Gaza or the West Bank to which the Palestinians oppose. In short, while opposing Hamas, they refuse to do Israel’s dirty work in his name.
A Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, also warned this week that his group would treat any force formed to govern Gaza as a “occupation” force linked to Israel. Any staff watched in the name of Israel would have back objectives.
4. What is the plan for the civilian population of Gaza?
In July, Defense Minister Israel Katz announced a plan to force the entire Gaza population of two million people to live in a “humanitarian city” in the southern part of the strip. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert compared it to a “concentration camp.”
Little has been said about the plan in recent weeks, but its implementation would undoubtedly exacerbate even more the humanitarian crisis in the strip and cause even more international condemnation of Israel.
Earlier this year, the Israel Security Cabinet also approved a plan to facilitate the “voluntary transfer” of inhabitants of Gaza de la Strip to third countries. This plan was also denounced as an attempt to clean the enclave.
Certainly, no state of the Arab League would be willing to receive more than two million Palestinian refugees.
5. Are Netanyahu willing to deepen Israel’s isolation?
In an article for The Conversation on Friday, the expert in the Middle East Amina Saikal pointed out how much has been the coup that has received the international credibility of Israel since the beginning of the war, even among the Americans.
The Israelis are realizing that traveling outside their country could involve risks. Two Israelis were arrested and questioned recently in Belgium after attending a music festival and allegedly waves the flag of their army brigade. A human rights group accused the couple of being accomplices of war crimes in Gaza.
In addition, the international community has immediately responded to Netanyahu’s decision to expand war. Germany, in an important step, announced that it would stop all weapons exports to Israel. The country is the second largest arms supplier to the Jewish state.
Netanyahu has responded to international criticism and the measures of Israel’s allies to recognize a Palestinian state accusing them of enviving anti -Semitism and rewarding Hamas.
However, the Israeli leader seems to be varying his strategy to deal with events as they occur. He and others in his government probably feel that the international storm can continue to fall for their actions in Gaza until after the war and then work on the rehabilitation of relations.
The final and most important question, however, is: When will war end?
*Ian Parmeter is a study researcher at the Middle East at the National University of Australia.
This article was originally published in The Conversation/Reuters
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