With Israeli troops returning to expel Hamas for the second or third time from parts of northern Gaza, and also fighting further south in Rafah, Israel’s government has found itself facing more vocal discontent from an important constituency: its own military leaders.
Current and former senior military officials have begun to argue more openly that because the government has not implemented a plan for what follows the fighting in Gaza, Israeli troops are being forced – in the eighth month of the war – to fight again for areas of the territory where Hamas fighters have reappeared.
Two Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions, said some generals and members of the war cabinet were especially frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to develop and announce a process to build an alternative to Hamas to govern. Loop. .
There was little expectation, among officials and experts, that a new government would be formed as fighting raged. But “clear, hold and build” is the widely accepted practice for combating an insurgency. And to a growing number of critics, Israel appears to simply be stuck in cleanup mode, increasing the risks for Israeli soldiers and Gaza civilians as ceasefire talks remain stalled.
The two officials said Netanyahu’s unwillingness to have a serious conversation about the final phases of the Gaza campaign – the “day after” of the fighting – has made it easier for Hamas to reconstitute itself in places like Jabaliya in northern Gaza. .
Israel first attacked Hamas ranks there 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 rising number of civilian deaths. But Eran Lerman, Israel’s deputy national security adviser from 2006 to 2015, said it was also partly due to “the lack of a coherent vision for the day after.”
According to some analysts, Israel’s generals should have asked tougher questions months ago.
“Hamas or some similar organization is going to survive unless you have started much earlier to align the sun, the moon and the stars into something that creates a counterattack,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “There is no accountant. That’s 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. In a podcast interview on Monday, he said the territory first needed “sustained demilitarization by Israel,” because “no one will come in until they know that you either destroyed Hamas or that you are about to destroy Hamas.”
But with a growing number of analysts and officials questioning whether Israel can achieve such a broad goal, more vocal criticism from parts of the military reflects a gradually widening gap with Netanyahu’s government.
Military officials, along with the White House and other countries, have privately complained for months about the lack of a postwar strategy, but the volume of discord is now increasing internally and externally as the scale of the counterinsurgency 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 now more difficult than necessary.
The two Israeli officials said that without an alternative to Hamas to manage the people’s basic needs, or to offer hope of a return to normal life, it is easier for Hamas to return to its old havens or create new ones, making fighting harder by Israeli troops.
Military leaders “are frustrated because they have been given a military mission that ends up repeating itself like Groundhog Day because the government has not responded to the most important strategic and political questions,” said Michael Koplow, an analyst at the US Policy Forum. Israel. “If military frustrations and military family anguish escalate, they will compound the government’s problems and put even more pressure on the coalition.”
For Netanyahu, political considerations involve trying to hold together a government with right-wing parties that have demanded an all-out attack on Gaza despite American objections, and are unwilling to support what Arab countries have demanded as a prerequisite for their aid. in Gaza: a path towards a Palestinian state.
If Netanyahu deviates too much from the demands of his coalition partners, they have threatened to overthrow the government, which could leave Netanyahu facing a series of corruption accusations without the powers he has as prime minister.
Dr. Lerman, a former deputy national security adviser, recently published a proposed plan with other Wilson Center scholars that calls for a multinational authority to manage and police Gaza, led by the United States, Egypt and other nations. It has been shared with Israeli authorities.
Other proposals have included efforts to strengthen the Palestinian Authority that now governs part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but the Israeli government has also rejected that idea, arguing that the authority is not a competent and credible partner.
U.S. officials repeated over the weekend and on 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 has dragged on for years.
“They will be left with the burden of a lasting insurgency because there will be many armed Hamas left, no matter what they do in Rafah, or whether they leave and leave Gaza, as we believe they must do,” the Secretary said. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said over the weekend. “Then there will be a void, and a void that will likely be filled by chaos, anarchy and ultimately Hamas again.”
Former Israeli officials warned of a lack of post-war planning even before the ground attack on Gaza began. On October 14, a week after the devastating Hamas-led attack that killed some 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, and sparked the Israeli military offensive, Tzipi Livni, former foreign minister, called on the government to consider the future of Gaza. in the postwar.
“Otherwise,” he said then, “we would be stuck there unnecessarily and at a high price.”
In an interview on Tuesday, he said this was exactly what had happened.
“Imagine if we had decided this earlier and started working earlier with the United States, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis,” he said, referring to the United Arab Emirates. “It would be much easier.”
Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed with reports.