Ask any average Israeli who is exposed to the media what was decided in the stormy security cabinet meeting the night between last Thursday and Friday, and he or she will answer that the decision was to conquer the whole of the Gaza Strip, as proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and rejected by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir.
That is also what the headlines of most Friday morning newspapers declared or insinuated, even though they went to print before the meeting had ended.
The word 'conquest'
In fact, the word “conquest” doesn’t appear in the final decisions of the security cabinet, and deliberately so.
Instead, the decisions speak of “taking control of Gaza City.” Netanyahu did not insist on the immediate conquest of the entire Gaza Strip with the goal of inflicting a final defeat on Hamas.
On the other side, Zamir was off the hook, not having to prepare and immediately implement such a conquest, which he had warned Netanyahu would lead to the exhaustion of the IDF fighting force (250,000 was mentioned as the number of reservists required to conquer the entire Strip) - and risk the lives of the surviving hostages.
An official announcement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on Friday morning included a list of five principles for ending the war:
• The disarming of Hamas
• The demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.
• Israeli security control of Gaza.
• The creation of an alternative administration for the Strip that will involve neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.
Conquest not mentioned
Again, the word "conquest" is not mentioned – but neither is it ruled out. One of the explanations given is legal: Conquest has legal ramifications concerning the civilian population of the territory.
Others have suggested that the announcement was designed to please US President Donald Trump, who has appeared more concerned these days with bringing a peaceful solution to the territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh – and a planning meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next Friday in an attempt to resolve the Russo-Ukrainian War – than with all the enervating details of the conflict between Israel and Hamas over the Gaza Strip.
No to attrition?
The announcement by the Prime Minister’s Office also stated that an overwhelming majority of the cabinet members felt that the chief of staff’s current plan for the Gaza Strip, involving besiegement and attrition rather than conquest, would attain neither the defeat of Hamas nor the return of the hostages.
Nevertheless, both Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi chose to support Zamir.
By October 7, 2025
In fact, the cabinet’s decision does not say very much about what we are to expect in the next two months, except that by October 7, 2025, all Gazan civilians will have to leave Gaza City and thus be removed from direct Hamas control. The number of Palestinians is estimated to be between 800,000 to one million.
On one of the previous occasions since October 2023, in which Gaza City was declared to have been totally destroyed by the IDF, only 100,000 to 200,000 persons were believed to still be lingering among the city’s ruins. So, from where did the figures of 800,000 to one million emerge?
Does anyone in Israel know the real figures? Do we know how many Gazans are residing in the Gaza Strip and where? Do we know the volume of collateral victims and of collateral damage to residential and public buildings?
We keep being told that Israel has destroyed most of the Gaza Strip’s hospitals, yet we are constantly informed of wounded, sick, and emaciated Gazans being brought to their hospitals for treatment.
Respite and data
We need accurate data if we are seriously considering a major military operation in the Gaza Strip that will lead to the total and final destruction of Hamas as a military or terrorist force, or to an administrative body with concrete administrative capabilities – beyond the ability to rob humanitarian aid from those delivering it.
It is said that, despite the cabinet’s decision, such plans do exist. However, this assumes that no one is seriously considering simply putting an end to the war in order to free the 50 remaining hostages, whether they are alive or dead.
There are also those who argue that the IDF needs a respite in order to pull itself together, before more serious cracks appear, and that the overload of reserve duty required to continue the fighting is causing too many broken marriages, bankrupt businesses, and post-traumatic fighters.
Though the United States is still paying most of the bill for the ongoing military operations (while our own finance minister is spending billions on all sorts of controversial sectarian purposes), the economy must be allowed to return to a more normal state.
Furthermore, Israel cannot start to repair its international image and return to playing a normal role in the international community unless the war is brought to a satisfactory end.
Normalcy required
Even the attempt to integrate over a million members of the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community into the mainstream Israeli society on a more egalitarian basis requires some sort of normalcy, based on peace – not just arguments about who does and who does not pay for our continued existence as a Jewish state with their lives.
No, talking about the many reasons why the war ought to end as rapidly as possible – of which saving as many of the 20 presumably still living hostages is but one – is not left-wing defeatism, as Channel 14 keeps preaching in mocking terms, which are becoming intolerable, even to the most tolerant among us.
It is time for a change, and the conquest of the Gaza Strip now is not part of this required change.
The writer has written journalistic and academic articles, as well as several books, on international relations, Zionism, Israeli politics, and parliamentarism. From 1994-2010, she worked at the Knesset Library and the Knesset Research and Information Center.