One scenario that is not being publicly discussed, but which former top Israeli officials are aware of, is the possibility that at some point Israel may request a global alliance to finish destroying Hamas’s tunnel in Gaza, the Jerusalem Post has learned.
The reason for such a scenario, though ideally, Israel would prefer to destroy all of the tunnels itself, is simply that it may run out of time to do so before a point at which it can no longer operate standing forces deep within Gazan cities and towns.
Getting a global alliance to sign on to the idea of finishing the job, top sources say, could delegate achieving the goal beyond the point at which Israel can work on the issue itself, and potentially justify targeted Israeli returns into Gaza to handle the issue if such a global alliance failed to follow through.
A scenario that is under the wraps
Such a scenario is not being publicly discussed because delegating an Israeli security issue to a global third party could be politically unpopular, and in any event, the government is currently avoiding discussing any concrete plans related to how Gaza will be managed once the IDF withdraws.
Two weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that only 20-40% of all of Hamas’s tunnel network had been destroyed or neutralized in the three months of the Gaza invasion.
On December 3, the Post reported that while the IDF had taken control of 80% or more of northern Gaza by mid-November, it still may only have destroyed 20% or less of northern tunnels to date, without even having done much against southern Gaza tunnels.
On December 21, the Post reported that IDF sources had said that it would take “years” to destroy the entire tunnel network.
Later and despite an entire additional month of fighting, including taking over most of Khan Yunis, multiple additional defense officials confirmed this estimate was unchanged – as recently as January 29.
On Wednesday, the IDF announced that it had found yet another humongous “strategic tunnel” of Hamas in Khan Yunis where 12 hostages had been kept in cages.
While an additional success in taking apart Hamas’s underground infrastructure, the fact that such a large tunnel was only discovered in February also showed how far away the IDF is from fully eliminating the tunnel threat, especially since that would include destroying the immense number of yet untraversed smaller tunnels.
There are even tunnel areas that the IDF has not touched on at all, especially in Rafah.
If a ceasefire is signed before the IDF invades Rafah, the IDF may not even start destroying the whole additional underground network there.
Within the Rafah problem, the IDF is also stuck on destroying tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, a major source of Hamas’s rearming and financial capabilities.
Cairo has refused Jerusalem’s numerous requests to take over the Gaza side of the Philadelphi Corridor in order to destroy the tunnels, such that the IDF has started to discuss with Egypt the possibility of trusting it to destroy the tunnels.
The timing problem itself has multiple scenarios.
Many possible scenarios that can occur
In one scenario, the IDF signs a ceasefire deal soon with Hamas which could lead to a complete halt in IDF destroying tunnels or at least an extended pause in various areas.
In another scenario, the IDF can continue destroying tunnels for some extended period of months in 2024, but at some point will still need to make arrangements with a global alliance to take control of Gaza – still far short of the estimated years needed to finish the mission.
Top Israeli officials have discussed some kind of hybrid of handing running Gaza over to a mix of local groups disconnected from Hamas, a reformed Palestinian Authority, Arab allies like Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Western allies like the US and portions of the EU.
It is possible that this process may be mandated by the UN or may be a separate multilateral effort, but either way, most or all of these authorities would insist, as a condition of their participation, on IDF withdrawal to points outside of Gaza’s cities and towns at some point.
The IDF and the government have made it clear that Israel plans on maintaining some kind of larger security zone running along its border with Gaza to make it much harder for any potential future invasion, such as what took place on October 7.
In addition, the IDF and the government have made it clear that they would demand the right of hot pursuit and to, on a targeted and temporary basis, preemptively raid Gaza territory to prevent an imminent terror attack.
But without a physical presence in Gaza’s cities, as it has now, sources say it could become difficult or impossible to continue the years-long process of destroying the tunnels.
If the new alliance running Gaza would not accept a years-long IDF presence deep inside Gaza cities, the idea would be to negotiate with this alliance to take on the job of finishing destroying the tunnels, say sources.
As a matter of principle, most or all of the members of the global alliance would see eye to eye with Israel that the tunnels have no civilian value and are a negative influence and military asset of Hamas which only continue the terror group’s power.
In addition, Israel might be able to convince the alliance to sign on to a timeframe, and if the time frame was not complied with, sources say that Israel could regain legitimacy for entering Gazan cities temporarily to destroy tunnels.
IDF sources have repeatedly said that unlike the 2014 Gaza conflict when the IDF merely sought to neutralize portions of tunnels, this time the IDF seeks to destroy all aspects of Hamas’s tunnel network.
After the IDF neutralized portions of Hamas’s tunnel network in 2014, the terror group responded by simply digging around the cave-ins to reconnect the largely intact disparate tunnels at other spots.