A New Strategy for The IDF

Israel now faces a critical crossroads in Gaza. Emanuel Fabian’s April 9th article “IDF advances in Gaza, expands buffer zone to pressure Hamas, but no fighting taking place” highlights both opportunity and catastrophe. The recent capture of the Morag Corridor between Rafah and Khan Younis with minimal resistance creates an opportunity for strategic change. However, Israel’s current approach to Hamas, an existential threat to the Jewish State, is catastrophically incoherent.

The reality is stark: Gaza remains a hostile Islamic enclave on Israel’s border with approximately 20,000 active Hamas fighters and ongoing recruitment. Hamas continues holding 59 Israeli hostages while seeking a return to the pre-conflict status quo ante. Defense Minister Israel Katz’s dual strategy of increased military pressure alongside negotiation, while tactically pragmatic, lacks strategic coherence.

Israel needs a clear endgame: permanently eliminating the existential threat posed by a hostile Islamist Gaza. That future, by Israeli invitation only, must be clear and inevitable. Following its military defeat, Gaza has forfeited sovereign legitimacy. All governance structures established by Hamas must be considered invalid. Their future in Gaza is untenable. Without external support, confined to a shrinking portion of Gaza, and under IDF assault, Hamas deadenders will die, their subjects will rebel, and internecine warfare will break out.

The first practical step should begin with the newly secured Morag corridor. This 15-kilometer stretch from Gaza’s eastern border to the Mediterranean presents an opportunity for permanent transformation without further combat. Building a new Gazan future requires a permanent break from its past. By bulldozing the Morag corridor, then completely redeveloping it with new infrastructure, roads, and civic facilities, Israel can erase all physical remnants of pre-October 7th Gaza, fundamentally altering perceptions of what’s possible.

Lasting success requires more than just punishment. It requires offering a new future. Recent trade discussions between Prime Minister Netanyahu and U.S. President Trump could potentially connect Gaza to global capital markets, transforming a charity-dependent region into one attractive to legitimate investment—provided stability can be established.

An outward looking future only belongs to those who aggressively and affirmative take it. There can be no ‘live and let live’, no modus vivendi. If Gaza’s current population rejects this new reality, Israel should consider repopulating areas with groups willing to build peaceful communities. This could include persecuted minorities from across the Middle East who could establish sectoral communities beginning in the Morag corridor.

Strategic coherence demands a framework that makes any return to the status quo ante impossible. While short-term pressure and negotiations with Hamas may continue, Israel’s strategy must clearly demonstrate that Hamas has no place in Gaza’s future.