The heavy fighting in Gaza between Israeli soldiers and Hamas gunmen is continuing well into the third month of the war. What began with an unprecedented Hamas assault on dozens of Israeli communities, which left some 1,200 Israelis dead and 240 taken captive, has morphed into a full-scale war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that has already transformed the Middle East.
Analysts say that the fighting in Gaza, which the Hamas-affiliated Health Ministry says has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, 70 percent of them civilians, as well as more than 150 Israeli soldiers, is proceeding as Israel had expected.
“The fighting in Gaza so far is going quite according to plan,” Eitan Shamir, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Report. “There were a lot of concerns before the operation in terms of the level of (Hamas) resistance, the level of (Israeli) casualties, and the overall ability to crack those Hamas strongholds, but it seems to be going as planned.”
At the same time, Israel has so far failed to kill any of the top Hamas commanders as it has vowed to do, and rockets continue to land in Tel Aviv and even Jerusalem, though at a slower pace than in the early days of the war.
The heavy Palestinian casualty toll has sparked widespread international condemnation of Israel, as well as a UN General Assembly Resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
There was also a parade of visits of US officials to Israel, such as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, during the week of December 18, who reiterated American support for Israel in its war against Hamas and denied reports that the US wants Israel to speed up its operation.
“Regarding timetable, this is Israel’s operation, and I’m not here to dictate timelines or terms,” Austin said at a news conference with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “It’s critical that Hamas not be able to threaten Israel from Gaza, or even threaten Gaza anymore.”
But there is a growing sense that the US wants Israel to switch its tactics in Gaza in order to limit civilian casualties and to allow more humanitarian aid into the densely populated Gaza Strip.
Austin said they had “great discussions about the status of the campaign,” including on goals and objectives, on reducing “harm to civilians in the battle space” and on “the need to maintain a sustained flow of humanitarian assistance.”
Then came the kicker that made Israeli officials sit up and take notice.
“We also have some great thoughts about how to transition from high-intensity operations to low-intensity and more surgical operations,” he said.
It’s the same message that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan brought earlier in the week, and that President Joe Biden reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in one of their frequent phone calls. Time is running out in Gaza, and Israeli press reports say that the US wants to see the war in its current format over by early January.
“There was a disagreement from the start on how to conduct the operation in terms of the humanitarian issue and the destruction of Gaza,” Shamir said. “But what will happen the day after may even be a bigger point of contention between the US and Israel.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he has no intention of stopping the war until the two goals of destroying Hamas as a military power and freeing the remaining hostages are achieved.
In a statement to the media on December 20, he said: “We’re continuing the war to the end. It will continue until Hamas is destroyed — until victory… until all the goals we set are met: destroying Hamas, releasing our hostages, and removing the threat from Gaza.
“Anyone who thinks we’ll stop is unmoored from reality…. We’re raining fire on Hamas, hellfire,” he added. “All Hamas terrorists, from first to last, face death. They have two options only: surrender or die.”
It is not clear if Israel will be able to achieve these goals or how long it will take. But at some point, the war will end and someone will have to be in charge of the 2.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.
Who will rule Gaza when the war is over?
The US has said that it would like to see a revamped Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, to take control in Gaza as well, perhaps with some kind of UN or international backing. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is currently in the 17th year of a four-year-term, and at 87 is seen as a representative of the corrupt Palestinian Authority.
He has repeatedly refused to hold elections in the West Bank and Gaza, apparently fearing that Hamas could win. Many Palestinians say there must be a new Palestinian leadership.
“Even before October 7, we saw Palestinians completely disenchanted with their own leadership,” Tahani Mustafa, a senior Palestinian analyst with the International Crisis Group, told a webinar sponsored by Chatham House in mid-December. “Palestinians don’t have a recognized unified leadership. They are more divided than they have ever been in history, and that division pushed Hamas to want to break that stalemate.”
Some Palestinians have mentioned Marwan Barghouti as a possible new leader to replace Abbas. Barghouti has been in jail in Israel since 2004, serving five life sentences. He is seen as having good relations with both Hamas and Fatah. But it would, of course, require Israel to release him as part of a Palestinian prisoner exchange for the hostages.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said he does not want to see the Palestinian Authority involved in running Gaza after the war ends, and that it must be demilitarized. But he has not offered any ideas of what he does believe should happen in Gaza or who should run local affairs there.
“The current Israeli government is utterly opposed to a two-state solution; and since Netanyahu is dependent on the most right-wing elements of the Israeli political system, he is unlikely to make moves in that direction,” Jonathan Rynhold, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Report. “That is no doubt why the president [Joe Biden] said he felt Netanyahu should have a different coalition.”
The Israeli public seems to agree with Biden’s sentiment. A new poll published by Channel 12 News on December 18 revealed a significant drop in support for Netanyahu’s coalition, and a corresponding jump in support for National Unity Party chairman Benny Gantz. If the election were held today, the poll found, the current coalition of 64 seats would receive only 44 seats, while the opposition led by Gantz would win 71 seats. Gantz’s National Unity party has joined the government because of the war, and Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff, is very popular with the public.
Another poll, by the Israel Democracy Institute, found that an overwhelming majority of Israelis not on the Right want to see new elections as soon as the war in Gaza ends. Even among those who define themselves as right-wing, more than half want to see new elections in Israel.
More than 80 percent of the population in Gaza have been internally displaced, and the UN has not been able to handle the flood of refugees from the north of Gaza to the south. Israel has floated the idea of some of the displaced Gazans moving to Egypt’s Sinai desert, an idea Egypt has roundly rejected. Whatever happens, any rebuilding of Gaza is going to take years and hundreds of millions of dollars.
“The destruction which has been inflicted on Gaza by the Israeli army is just so immense, that it’s beyond imagination,” Mkeimar Abu Sada, a professor of political science at Al Azhar University in Gaza, told The Report. “Complete neighborhoods have been erased. The level and magnitude of the destruction is unbelievable and is going to take years and years to rebuild.” ■