The Palestinian terrorist organization has adapted quickly to changing realities, as most terror and guerrilla movements do. Over the past two weeks, the situation in Gaza has effectively produced two narrow, roughly equal strips: Hamas controls the western side, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hold the eastern side.
After the latest agreement, Israeli spokespeople even highlighted this new reality with a statistic: the IDF “precisely controls” 53% of the Gaza Strip, while Hamas controls 47%. If territory were like company shares, one could claim Israel “controls all of Gaza,” because it has a majority. Military reality is very different.
The first principle of 21st-century warfare bears repeating: exercising military control over territory that includes a hostile civilian population carries more disadvantages than advantages. Where a hostile population remains, terrorists will always be found among it. When terrorists are close and in constant contact with our forces, there will be many attempted attacks.
The Americans learned this the hard way in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; before them, the Russians in Afghanistan; and in parallel, Israel during 18 years in Lebanon. By contrast, there are advantages in holding territory from which civilians have been removed.
The “yellow line” and a critical omission
Under the war-ending agreement, Israelis are not to be west of the “yellow line” (a ceasefire demarcation line inside Gaza). The agreement did not explicitly state that Palestinians must not be east of that line. That was a mistake.
Moreover, the 72 hours between the ceasefire announcement and the return of hostages’ remains should have been used not only for an Israeli pullback east of the yellow line, but also to move all Palestinians, above ground and below, armed operatives and purported civilians alike, to the west of that line. Failure to insist on this critical point created, and still creates, numerous friction points.
Israel seeks to hold 53% of Gaza for two reasons.
Diplomatic: Arab leaders may not be moved by the killing of their own people, but they fear territorial loss. Human life often counts for very little in this calculus, while land is treated as sacred. The more Hamas feels that delaying “Stage B” of the agreement will cement the loss of Gaza’s eastern half, the better.
Military: Holding a continuous belt along Gaza’s length creates a security buffer between Israeli civilians and the enemy.
Hamas, for its part, aims to maximize mixing between the IDF and the Gazan population, because such mixing generates friction and opportunities for attacks. Ideally for Hamas, what happens along and east of the yellow line would resemble Israel’s 15-year presence in the Lebanon Security Zone.
That zone pushed Hezbollah back from Israel’s northern communities, but it cost an average of about 25 fallen IDF soldiers per year. In time, the zone came to be viewed by the Israeli government as a burden rather than an asset. We must not allow a similar reality to take root in Gaza.
Two choices for Hamas: and four steps for Israel
Hamas must grasp that it has only two choices. The first is to return all bodies of the fallen in accordance with Stage A, then proceed to Stage B, which means disarming and relinquishing its rule. The second, if it refuses, is to lose for many years, perhaps permanently, more than half of Gaza’s “sacred” land.
For Israel to benefit under either scenario, four steps are required:
1) Insist on a full evacuation east of the yellow line.
Every Palestinian presence east of the line constitutes a violation. The violation is not only opening fire at our forces. Being there at all is a breach of the deal. Civilians and militants alike must be west of the line.
2) Answer every violation with sanctions, chiefly civil, not only military.
The most painful sanctions are civilian, not military. Experience of the past two years shows the slogan “only military pressure brings results” is not always true.
3) Treat the IDF’s deployment along the yellow line as permanent, not “temporary.”
A seemingly tactical point has enormous importance. Just before October 7, to mark 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, a 1,000-page book titled Yom Pekuda (Day of Command) was published, written by some 20 authors, including me.
The chapter I wrote set out six lessons from that war that, as of summer 2023, had not yet been addressed. One concern was how to build outposts and defensive lines. I argued then, and argue now, that in this area the IDF preserves an appalling ignorance.
For example, one of the key reasons for the 2023 disaster was that outposts and bases around Gaza were built without combat positions that soldiers could occupy while under heavy rocket fire.
4) Do not withdraw from the yellow line until Stage B is fully implemented.
Here, Israel will likely face a tough clash not with Hamas, but with all the agreement’s partners, including the US. Anyone seeking to begin Gaza’s reconstruction will demand that Israel pull back from the line and allow Gazans to rebuild neighborhoods and fields in the half of the Strip Israel currently holds.
The IDF’s presence among a hostile population creates constant friction and danger for soldiers. Israel must either enforce the deal’s logic fully, strict separation by the yellow line and real civilian sanctions for violations, or accept the second alternative: Hamas forfeits the eastern half of Gaza for a very long time, perhaps forever. Either way, clarity is essential. Mixing is Hamas’s strategy. Israel cannot afford to pay that price.