Gaza: It is time to break the strategic deadlock

Since October 7, Israel has spoken extensively about what must no longer exist in Gaza: Hamas in power, rockets, tunnels, terrorist infrastructure, and the ability to repeat the October 7 massacre.

Yet nearly three years later, the central question still has no convincing answer: What exactly should replace all of this in Gaza, and who can ensure it not merely on paper, but on the ground?

We can talk about disarming Hamas, but who will actually force it to disarm, and who will make sure that tunnels and weapons-production facilities do not reappear a few years from now? We can discuss a “moderate” Palestinian Authority or an international force. But where is the force that is both capable of controlling Gaza and genuinely willing to fight terrorist organizations? And who exactly would make up such an international force—Turkey? Qatar? Other states whose interests do not always align with Israel’s?

That is why I propose considering a solution that, until recently, might have seemed too bold: the establishment of a major permanent U.S. military base in Gaza.

Not observers. Not another international commission. Not guarantees on paper.

American technology, American intelligence capabilities, and American military personnel on the ground.

Such a base could provide continuous oversight of Gaza’s demilitarization: intelligence and surveillance, tunnel detection, counter-drone capabilities, and monitoring of attempts to manufacture or smuggle weapons. The integration of American and Israeli systems would create an entirely different level of control and situational awareness over what is happening inside the Strip.

At the same time, such a move would serve America’s own strategic interests. The United States would gain an additional military and intelligence foothold in the Eastern Mediterranean, strengthen its deterrence capabilities against Iran and its proxies, and deepen cooperation with Israel—from intelligence and missile defense to the development of new military technologies.

The most recent war once again demonstrated the depth of the strategic partnership between our two countries. The United States has no more reliable and battle-tested ally in the Middle East than Israel, just as Israel has no more important strategic partner than the United States.

American military deployments in other countries across the region inevitably depend on domestic political developments in those states and on the extent to which their interests align with Washington’s at any given moment. This creates long-term strategic risks for the United States. Israel is fundamentally different: cooperation between our countries rests on decades of military, intelligence, technological, and political partnership.

Equally important, establishing such a base would not necessarily require an entirely new financial mechanism. The United States already has long-term budgetary commitments related to Israel’s security, and some of the necessary costs could potentially be incorporated into existing or future U.S. military assistance programs and joint defense initiatives.

But there is another dimension to this proposal that, in my view, could have historic significance.

A permanent American base would create an additional institutional foundation for the U.S.-Israel alliance—one capable of enduring changes of presidents and administrations in Washington. The more deeply intertwined our military, intelligence, technological, and strategic interests become, and the more joint infrastructure and capabilities we establish on the ground, the less the relationship between our countries will depend on the identity of any particular president, Republican or Democrat.

This could become one of President Donald Trump’s most important strategic legacies for Israel: not merely supporting Israel today, but creating a mechanism that binds the strategic interests of our two countries even more closely together for decades to come, regardless of who occupies the White House after him.

Once genuine, verifiable, and enforceable demilitarization has been achieved, reconstruction can begin gradually—a process that may take an entire generation. Safe residential areas, infrastructure, schools, hospitals, and jobs can be built for those residents of Gaza who choose a peaceful life, if there are indeed those who do. Those who voluntarily wish to begin a new life in another country should be given that opportunity and actively encouraged to do so, subject to the consent of the receiving states.

The sequence must be fundamentally different from what we have seen in the past:

First, demilitarization. Then security. Then reconstruction. Only then, prosperity.

Not reconstruction, rearmament, and another war.

After October 7, we can no longer afford to base Israel’s security on promises. We need a mechanism capable of guaranteeing it for decades to come.

Perhaps the time has come to stop searching for yet another temporary solution for Gaza, and instead change the strategic reality itself.

Adv. Eli Nacht is the Deputy Mayor of Ashdod and an expert in International Law