A Gaza takeover would be Bibi’s ultimate gamble
Benjamin Netanyahu would be taking the biggest gamble of the Gaza conflict so far if he is serious about his reported plan for full Israeli military occupation of the Strip.
Netanyahu has not publicly confirmed reports in the Jerusalem Post that he intends to conquer Gaza completely or that he told Israel Defence Force chief of staff Lieutenant-General Eyal Zamir that if the plan does not suit him, he should resign.
It is always possible that this is a deliberate leak aimed at maximising negotiating pressure on Hamas, and that Netanyahu has no intention of taking such a dramatic military step.
But if the Israeli Prime Minister is determined to order such a takeover, then the Gaza war will enter a new, bloody and highly controversial phase.
The Israeli military currently occupies around 75 per cent of Gaza but much of the remaining 25 per cent includes the large urban centres where the remnants of Hamas are hiding. The problem is that this is also where the 20 or so remaining live hostages are believed to be held. Any Israeli major military action to flush out Hamas would almost certainly place the surviving hostages at direct risk.
There are many other downsides to a full Israeli military takeover of Gaza, but Netanyahu’s options of achieving his dual aim of destroying Hamas and ensuring his own political survival are narrowing by the day.
There are growing calls from within Israel to end the war now by making a deal with Hamas to release all hostages and end the fighting.
Some 70 per cent of Israelis want Netanyahu to make this deal even though it would be an imperfect peace, in that Hamas – although a shadow of its former self – would still exist as a political and military entity in Gaza.
Such a peace deal would almost certainly ensure Netanyahu’s political demise because it would be a clear failure of his central war aim of removing Hamas from power and destroying it as a military force. As such, it would be unacceptable to the right-wing nationalists he needs to prop up his government coalition and who have demanded that Israel occupy all of the Gaza Strip and stay there indefinitely.
Yet Netanyahu faces major obstacles – social, political, military and diplomatic – to the sort of military campaign needed to totally take over the Gaza Strip.
Socially, he is losing the argument inside Israel for a prolonged war as calls to prioritise the release of hostages over ongoing conflict get louder.
Politically, Netanyahu is increasingly isolated from mainstream Israeli opinion, with a group of former security chiefs – including two former army chiefs of staff, three former heads of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, and three former directors of Mossad, the foreign intelligence agency – this week calling on him to end the war.
The military obstacles to a campaign of total conquest of Gaza begin at home with Israel’s military leaders reportedly opposing the idea, believing it will achieve too little at too high a cost. Israel’s soldiers are exhausted and the ability to replenish the ranks is dwindling. There are also serious doubts about whether the sort of urban warfare required would succeed in destroying the remnants of Hamas, while the casualty rate for Israeli soldiers would be high.
One in three Israelis now believes Hamas cannot be completely defeated militarily.
Diplomatically, such a campaign in urban zones would inevitably lead to yet more civilian casualties, at a time when Israel is fast losing its remaining friends on the international stage because of revulsion over the death and suffering of Gazans, both through war and through Israeli-inflicted hunger. A major military campaign by Netanyahu may well trigger a rift with its last major ally, the Trump administration, at a time when Donald Trump appears to be losing patience with Netanyahu, and with the war itself.
Hamas is taking advantage of all of these factors by avoiding any serious peace negotiations, including by adding absurd new demands such as the need for an independent state of Palestine to be established before it agrees to any ceasefire. As things now stand, Hamas shows no signs of surrendering power in Gaza or disarming. Netanyahu either has to accept an imperfect peace – which would see the hostages released but him likely losing office – or continue to fight an increasingly unpopular war. If the reports are correct, he seems to have made his choice.
More Coverage
China defies Trump tariffs to post record $1.6 trillion surplus
