With Israeli troops returning to eliminate Hamas for a second or third time from parts of northern Gaza, and fighting further south in Rafah as well, the Israeli government found itself facing more virulent discontent from of an important group: its own military leaders.
Current and former senior army officers have begun to assert more openly that because the government has failed to implement a plan for what follows the fighting in Gaza, Israeli troops are being forced – in the eighth month of war – to fight again for certain areas. of the territory where Hamas fighters reappeared.
Two Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions, said some generals and members of the war cabinet were particularly frustrated that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had failed to elaborate and to announce a process aimed at building an alternative to Hamas to govern Gaza. .
Officials and experts had little expectation that a new government would be formed as the fighting raged. But “clear, hold, and build” is the widely accepted practice for fighting an insurgency. And to a growing number of critics, Israel appears simply stuck in a clean-up phase, increasing risks for Israeli soldiers and civilians in Gaza as ceasefire talks remain deadlocked.
Both officials said Mr Netanyahu’s reluctance to have a serious conversation about the final stages of the Gaza campaign – the “aftermath” of the fighting – made it easier for Hamas to reconstitute itself in places like Jabaliya, northern Gaza. .
Israel first attacked Hamas’ ranks in October – and returned this week with another air and ground attack.
Much of the global criticism of Israel over the war has focused on the ever-increasing number of civilian deaths. But Eran Lerman, Israel’s deputy national security adviser from 2006 to 2015, said it also stemmed in part from “the lack of a coherent vision for the future.”
Israeli generals should have asked tougher questions months ago, some analysts say.
“Hamas or a similar organization is going to survive – unless you started much earlier to align the sun, moon and stars to create a counter-power,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior research fellow at Carnegie. Foundation for International Peace. “There is no counter. This is the problem.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has resisted calls to end the fighting, arguing that there can be no civilian government in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed. Monday, in a podcast interviewhe said the territory first needed “Israeli-backed demilitarization”, because “no one will enter until they know that you have destroyed Hamas, or that you are about to to destroy Hamas.
But as a growing number of analysts and officials question whether Israel can achieve such a sweeping goal, harsher criticism from parts of the military reflects a gradually widening divide with Netanyahu’s government.
Military officials, as well as the White House and other countries, have been complaining privately for months about the lack of a postwar strategy, but the volume of discord is now rising at home and abroad as as the scale of the counterinsurgency campaign becomes more visible.
While Israeli strategists have always said they expected troops to return to some areas of Gaza in later phases of the war to stamp out pockets of resistance, there is a growing sense that this is harder today than it should be.
The two Israeli officials said that without an alternative to Hamas to meet the basic needs of the population or to offer hope of a return to normal life, it is easier for Hamas to fall back into its old haunts or to create new ones, which makes the fight stronger for Israeli troops.
Military leaders “are frustrated at being given a military mission that ends up repeating itself like Groundhog Day, because the government has failed to address the larger strategic and policy questions,” said Michael Koplow, an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum. “If military frustrations and the anxiety of military families become greater, it will worsen the government’s problems and put even more pressure on the coalition. »
For Mr Netanyahu, political considerations involve trying to maintain a government with right-wing parties who have demanded an all-out attack on Gaza despite US objections, and who are unwilling to support what Arab countries have demanded as prerequisite for their assistance. in Gaza: a path to a Palestinian state.
If Mr. Netanyahu sees too far from his coalition partners’ demands, they have threatened to overthrow the government, which could leave Mr. Netanyahu facing a series of corruption allegations without the powers he has as Prime minister.
Dr. Lerman, former deputy national security advisor, recently published a plan proposed with other Wilson Center researchers that calls for a multinational authority to administer and control Gaza, led by the United States, Egypt and other countries. It was shared with Israeli authorities.
Other proposals include efforts to strengthen the Palestinian Authority which now governs part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but the Israeli government has also rejected this ideaarguing that the authority is not a competent and credible partner.
U.S. officials reiterated this weekend and Monday their argument that without a diplomatic solution, Israel would face what the United States faced in Iraq and Afghanistan: a bloody war of attrition that drags on for years. years.
“They will have to pay the price of a lasting insurgency because there will be many armed Hamas members left no matter what they do in Rafah, or if they leave Gaza, as we believe they should.” , declared the Secretary of State. » said Head of State Antony J. Blinken this weekend. “There will be a void then, and a void that will likely be filled by chaos, anarchy and, ultimately, by Hamas again.”
Former Israeli officials have issued warnings about the lack of post-war planning even before the ground assault in Gaza began. On October 14, a week after the devastating Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people, Israeli officials said and sparked Israel’s military offensive, Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister, called on the government to reflect on the post-war future of Gaza.
“Otherwise,” she said then, “we would be stuck there unnecessarily and with a high price.” »
In an interview Tuesday, she said that’s exactly what happened.
“Imagine if we had decided this earlier and started working sooner with the United States, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis,” she said, referring to the Emirates United Arabs. “That would be a lot easier.”
John Reiss And Gabby Sobelman reports contributed.
