Margherita Stancati | Dion Nissenbaum
Israel is preparing a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip with one clear goal: to destroy the ability of Hamas to rule there. But Israel hasn’t offered any indication of what could happen next, and there are no good options.
Israel has signaled that a major offensive is imminent. It has sent tanks, snipers, artillery units and tens of thousands of troops to the Gaza Strip border, and told civilians who live in the northern part of the enclave—an area with a population of 1.1 million—to leave for their own safety.
“We will destroy the rule of Hamas,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday after meeting U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Tel Aviv. “We will eliminate the military capabilities of Hamas. We will make sure this threat does not exist on our borders. It will be lengthy. It will be lethal. It will be powerful. And it will be for forever.”
But Israeli leaders have yet to answer another important question: What comes after Hamas?
For Israel, there are no good alternatives, say current and former Israeli officials. Possibilities range from a direct Israeli military re-occupation of Gaza, to pulling out completely after the war and allowing Palestinians to figure it out for themselves.
As Israel grapples with the aftermath of a Hamas assault that killed some 1,300 Israelis over the weekend, punishing those responsible for the violence is seen by many across Israel as much more important than working out what happens after Hamas.
“I don’t give a damn,” said Jacob Nagel, who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser and is in touch with government officials. “It’s much more important to act and finish the problem. And then we can decide what to do.”
“I used to say: think then act. What happened this weekend changed all the rules of play,” added Nagel. His view is echoed by Israeli military and political leaders across the political spectrum.
One U.S. official said there is little discussion so far with Israeli officials about the day after. It’s a conundrum that faced U.S. leaders after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the attack by al Qaeda in Afghanistan paved the way for America to invade Iraq, which became a costly, 10-year occupation. Israel should think through the consequences and not rush into a war with no exit strategy, the official said.
“There is no plan,” the U.S. official said. “If you destroy Hamas, what’s going to fill the vacuum? You destroy al Qaeda and you get ISIS. You destroy Hamas, you get Hamas 2.0.”
Israel has fought four wars in the Gaza Strip with Hamas since the militant group seized control of the isolated Mediterranean enclave in 2007. This time is going to be different.
In the past, Israel didn’t push for a decisive victory in Gaza. Israel effectively treated Hamas as a necessary evil on its southern border, a dangerous enemy it couldn’t eradicate for fear that something worse could take its place.
During the 16 years of Hamas rule in Gaza, Israeli leaders established an uneasy detente with Hamas militants and embraced the idea that the group’s goal of destroying Israel would be tempered as it gained political power and the responsibilities of governing Gaza. Israel allowed Qatar and other countries in the region to pump billions of dollars into Gaza to ensure that its residents had food, energy and clean water.
Israel responded to the major attacks with punishing military campaigns designed to deter Hamas and weaken the militant group’s ability to carry out future strikes. It was a strategy Israeli officials widely referred to as “mowing the grass,” a way to cut back the problem that didn’t address the underlying issues. Israeli leaders from all political viewpoints embraced this approach, largely because there are few good alternatives.
The mass killing of Israelis last weekend has changed that paradigm. Now, Israel is gearing up for its biggest ever military campaign in Gaza—one designed to bring Hamas rule to a decisive end.
Should Hamas be effectively ousted, one option is for Israel to send its forces in to reoccupy the Gaza Strip, as it did until 2005.
Israel controlled the Gaza Strip for decades after it seized it from Egypt during the Six-Day War of 1967. It ceded political control of the enclave to the Palestinians in the 1990s and Israel pulled out all its military forces and thousands of settlers in 2005.
But Israel is loath to send military troops back in to impose a military rule of the Gaza Strip.
“We don’t want to rule Gaza—this is for sure,” said Nagel, the former national security adviser.
Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian affairs and a former Israeli intelligence officer in the Israeli army now at Tel Aviv University, said the idea is problematic.
“It means Israel should be responsible for 2.2 million people, mostly very poor,” he said. “And of course there would be a lot of resistance. It would be very similar to the situation in Iraq after 2003, when America took over the state. I don’t think Israel wants to recreate that situation.”
Another idea gaining traction is for Israel to crush Hamas, get out of Gaza and let Palestinians, and their backers, figure out what happens next. This option comes with its own set of challenges, potentially paving the way for even more extremist forces filling the power vacuum.
Under this scenario “Israel will disconnect itself from the Gaza Strip, it’s not our responsibility. Unlike in the past, we will not provide anything to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they will have to take care of themselves,” said Yaakov Amidror, another former national security adviser to Netanyahu. “Israel will have only one connection with the Gaza Strip: to prevent anyone from building any military capability there.”
But Israel is still responsible for taking care of the Gaza Strip under international law, and it could face widespread criticism if it tried to wash its hands of its duties to ensure that Palestinians in Gaza have food, water and other necessities to live.
A third possibility would be for Israel to clear the way for a return to power for the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank.
“That would be in Israel’s interest,” said Kobi Marom, a retired colonel and national security expert. “The option of the Palestinian Authority taking control of Gaza is much better than having our soldiers control 2.2 million people. We are not interested in holding on to that territory. All we want is a quiet situation for our people.”
But the weak Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah 50 miles away, hasn’t returned since being ousted from Gaza by Hamas fighters in 2007.
It’s doubtful whether the group, led by its 87-year-old president, Mahmoud Abbas, could shore up power in the Gaza Strip. Political efforts to allow it to return to rule in Gaza have repeatedly failed. The Palestinian Authority isn’t popular among Palestinians in the West Bank, where it has a reputation for being corrupt and ineffective.
Yair Lapid, the former Israeli prime minister who is now opposition leader, suggested Saturday that the “international community” might need to help the Palestinian Authority govern in the short-term.
“One of the things we have learned is that you don’t go into a military operation without having a clear exit strategy,” he said on CNN. “The exit strategy, to my mind, but still this is going to be debated, is to find a way to bring back the Palestinian Authority to Gaza.”
Another possibility would be for an international peacekeeping force to take control of Gaza, at least temporarily. But it is far from clear which countries, if any, would be ready to commit a significant number of troops to help stabilize a war-ravaged Gaza.
There’s also a fifth scenario, one in which the humanitarian situation in Gaza becomes so dire that civilians flee in large numbers to neighboring Egypt.
Around 1,900 Palestinians have died in Gaza since Israel began retaliatory strikes over the weekend. The Israeli Air Force has so far dropped some 6,000 bombs in Gaza, and over 420,000 people have already left their homes for shelters and schools within the enclave.
Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to Abbas, said that Israel appears intent on trying to create a sprawling crisis that forces Palestinians to empty the Gaza Strip.
“There is no such thing as the destruction of Hamas,” she said. “Hamas has become code for Gaza. They want to control Gaza.”
Neither Egypt nor Hamas want Palestinians to flee across the border. And many Gazans fear that if they leave, they will never be able to return.
Amidror, the former Israeli national security adviser, said Israel doesn’t want to kick the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip.
“We can’t force them to leave. If they want to, we will help them,” he said. “I’m sure no one will cry in Israel if they do.”
