It’s been nearly a year and a half since the first Israeli bombs dropped on Gaza following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, onslaught against Israel. But we still don’t really know what Israel’s end-game strategy is for the Palestinian enclave.
Does Israel plan on re-occupying the territory, as it did from 1967 to 2005? Is the goal merely to force Hamas to release the rest of the hostages—59 are still outstanding, including 24 who are believed to remain alive—and to disarm? Or is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thinking bigger, perhaps by operationalizing President Donald Trump’s fantasy-land concept of turning the war-scarred Gaza into a Middle East vacation spot?
Israeli officials remain adamant about several points. First, Hamas can no longer govern Gaza as it has done over the last seventeen years. Second, the terrorist group must demobilize its fighters, hand over its weapons, and leave Gaza permanently. This is a demand Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar reiterated in an interview only this week. Third, according to Netanyahu’s government, military pressure is the only way Hamas will even consider freeing the remaining hostages. Finally, after the war, Gaza needs to be de-radicalized and fully de-militarized, ideally under international supervision with the participation of moderate Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The Trump administration—or at least Tammy Bruce, the State Department’s chief spokeswoman—appears to sympathize with all of this.
Nobody, however, seems to be particularly bothered by the question of whether the goals outlined by Israeli officials are realistic—and even if they are, whether the costs and consequences to the state’s international reputation, not to mention the cost in actual lives, are worth it. The truth is that Israel has placed itself in the strange position of justifying the sacrifices of its own troops as well as the Palestinian population in Gaza as worth it in the end, even as the end remains hard to envision.
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