A dispute has erupted over the future of Israel’s military operations and its postwar strategy for the Gaza Strip, with the country’s top defense chief pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to renounce hard-right calls to annex the region.
“The ‘day after Hamas’ will only be achieved with Palestinian entities taking control of Gaza, accompanied by international actors, establishing a governing alternative to Hamas’s rule,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday. “I must reiterate: I will not agree to the establishment of Israeli military rule in Gaza. Israel must not establish civilian rule in Gaza.”
Gallant drew that line as a challenge to Netanyahu amid a swirl of controversy around the prime minister’s strategy — or lack thereof, as U.S. policymakers and senior Israeli military officials have implied in recent days. That controversy has festered due to an apparent tension between Netanyahu’s pledge to achieve “total victory” over Hamas and a ceasefire deal to secure the release of the hostages still held by the terrorists.
“I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision and declare that Israel will not establish civilian control over the Gaza Strip, that Israel will not establish military governance in the Gaza Strip, and that a governing alternative to Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be raised immediately,” Gallant said.
Netanyahu, for his part, rebuffed the idea of a “two-state solution” in the shadow of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
“What I’d like to see is a non-Hamas civilian administration there with an Israeli military responsibility, overall military responsibility,” Netanyahu told CNBC earlier Wednesday. “Look, the two-state solution that people talk about is basically, would be the greatest reward for the terrorist that you can imagine.”
“One, it would be a tremendous reward, historic precedent of giving those people who committed the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust on a single day, giving them a prize,” he added. “And secondly, it would be a state that would be immediately taken over by Hamas and Iran.”
Gallant’s broadside expanded on a critique offered last week in private, though it was promptly leaked, by Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Herzi Halevi, as well as top members of the Biden administration.
“Hamas no longer functions as a military organization — most of its battalions have been dismantled, and it has turned to terrorist warfare, conducted by individuals and small squads,” Gallant said. “The IDF is operating in Rafah in order to dismantle Hamas’s remaining battalions, to locate the hostages, eliminate terrorists, and block [Hamas] smuggling routes. However, as long as Hamas retains control over civilian life in Gaza, it may rebuild and strengthen, thus requiring the IDF to return and fight in areas where it has already operated.”
Those salvos portend a larger political clash over Israel’s long-term plans for Gaza. Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, an ultranationalist politician who secured a place in the coalition government by delivering parliamentary votes that Netanyahu required to form a governing majority, called Tuesday for Israel to conquer the Gaza Strip and claim it as part of “the Holy Land” of the state of Israel, while other Israeli politicians offered more artful condemnations of Gallant’s posture.
“The people of Israel are not ready to be humiliated. The people of Israel are not ready to be led into an Oslo 2.0 process that will lead Israel to another disaster,” Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin said, referring to the 1993 deal between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization that led to the formation of the Palestinian Authority. “The people of Israel will not agree to hand Gaza over to the control of the terrorist Palestinian Authority.”
Levin’s rebuke hewed to Netanyahu’s line, as the prime minister rebuffed Gallant in an effort to keep the focus of the strategic debate on Palestinian entities he deems unacceptable.
“After the terrible massacre, I ordered the destruction of Hamas,” Netanyahu said in response to Gallant’s public address, according to Haaretz. “IDF fighters and the security forces are fighting for this. As long as Hamas remains, no other actor will run Gaza — and certainly not the Palestinian Authority.”
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Gallant, for his part, suggested the military victory is all but achieved, a battlefield assessment that would seem to imply that Netanyahu could strike a deal to release the hostages if he had a postwar plan that Gallant considers realistic.
“We must dismantle Hamas’s governing capabilities in Gaza,” Gallant said. “The key to this goal is military action and the establishment of a governing alternative in Gaza. In the absence of such an alternative, only two negative options remain: Hamas’s rule in Gaza or Israeli military rule in Gaza. The meaning of indecision is choosing one of the negative options. It would erode our military achievements, lessen the pressure on Hamas, and sabotage the chances of achieving a framework for the release of hostages.”
