Israel’s Gaza strategy is doomed to fail

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s multi-pronged strategy to crush the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation by destroying Hamas is doomed to failure with or without the potential expulsion or departure of Gazans.

Eighteen months into the Gaza war, Israel has failed to dislodge Hamas, militarily free hostages held by the group, stop it from firing rockets at Israeli towns and cities, and halt Hamas’ smuggling of arms into the territory.

“Hamas still maintains sovereignty in the Strip,” said reserve Major General Tamir Hayman, the executive director of Israel’s prestigious Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and a former head of the Israeli military’s Intelligence Directorate.

This weekend, Hamas fired ten rockets at the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod, its largest barrage in months, signalling that the group may be down but not out.

Hamas fired the rockets as Mr. Netanyahu landed in Washington for talks with Donald J. Trump, the prime minister’s second visit since the president started his second term in January.

Earlier, Israeli television reported that Hamas was paying top dollar to Israeli Bedouins to smuggle dirt cheap off-the-shelf drones into the Strip, where Hamas refits them to carry up to 70 kilograms of explosives.

Channel 12 said Hamas had so far imported ten US$40 drones for one million dollars a drone each. Hamas has yet to launch one of the newly acquired weaponised drones towards Israel.

Meanwhile, Arab media reports said a Hamas delegation would travel to Cairo to discuss Egypt’s latest proposal to revive the ceasefire that Israel abandoned on March 18 when it resumed its assault on Gaza.

Israel resumed its attack on the Strip to avoid negotiating an end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal in accordance with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt in January that halted hostilities for six weeks.

The latest Egyptian proposal would restore the ceasefire for 40 to 70 days, during which Hamas would swap 8 of the 59 hostages it still holds in exchange for an unspecified number of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel.

Hamas abducted its captives during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

The Hamas delegation was preceded by representatives of Al-Fatah, Hamas’s archrival that forms the backbone of President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank-based, internationally recognised Palestine Authority.

The Al-Fatah delegation sought to persuade Egypt that Hamas needed to disarm and leave Gaza in a move that would strengthen the Authority’s bid to take control of post-war Gaza, well-placed Palestinian sources said.

In parallel, US envoy Morgan Ortagus demanded in talks with Lebanese leaders in recent days that Lebanon expel Beirut-based Hamas officials.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu said they were working on a renewed ceasefire deal.

“We’re working now on another deal that we hope will succeed,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu did not provide details, but Steve Witkoff, the president’s Middle East envoy, will reportedly be in Oman on Saturday for talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Mr. Trump did not identify Mr. Witkoff by name. The president said the US and Iranian officials would hold face-to-face talks, while Iran insists they will be indirect.

Whether Mr. Witkoff would travel to Israel, Egypt, and/or Qatar while in the Middle East was unclear. Egypt and Qatar, alongside the United States, are mediating the ceasefire negotiations.

Challenging Mr. Netanyahu’s goal of completely destroying Hamas irrespective of the cost in Palestinian lives and Gazan infrastructure, Mr. Hayman, the INSS executive director, noted that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ ideological home, has demonstrated that it “cannot be eliminated through military means alone.”

Mr. Hayman went on to say that the “Brotherhood itself has survived in the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and even within Israel itself, despite military pressure. Thus, it was clear from the outset that…elements of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood would continue to exist in the Strip.”

In the absence of the political will to equitably resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the creation of an independent Palestinian state, Mr. Hayman advocated the creation of a Palestinian administration in Gaza made up of figures who are not associated with either Hamas or the Palestine Authority.

“An alternative civil government is the least bad option” as opposed to a long-term military occupation or continued siege of Gaza,” Mr. Hayman said.

In Mr. Hayman’s scenario, Hamas would maintain an underground presence in the Strip, and Israel would retain a “security regime” that would allow it “to continue operating against Hamas’s capabilities.”

Speaking to reporters in the White House alongside Mr. Trump, discussing his resettlement plan that would involve the United States taking over Gaza, suggested that he was willing to send a peacekeeping force to Gaza.

“It’s an incredible piece of important real estate. It’s something that we would be involved in. Having a peace force like the United States there controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing cause right now for years and years all I hear about is killing, Hamas, and problems,” Mr. Trump said.

The creation of a Palestinian administration populated by Gazan notables and businessmen likely topped the agenda in talks in Abu Dhabi this weekend between Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and his Emirati counterpart, Abdullah bin Zayed.

With Israeli officials unwelcome in Arab capitals because of the Gaza war, Mr. Saar’s presence testified to the close ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, despite the UAE’s public condemnation of Israel’s war conduct and calls for a Palestinian state.

WAM, the state-run Emirati news agency, reported that the two men had discussed Gaza’s humanitarian crisis and efforts to revive the Gaza ceasefire and free the Hamas-held hostages.

The UAE is quietly promoting 64-year-old Abu Dhabi-based Palestinian politician and businessman Mohammed Dahlan as the potential head of a Palestinian administration of Gaza.

Well-regarded in Washington and Jerusalem, Mr. Dahlan has close ties to UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed.

Mr. Dahlan was forced into exile after Hamas ousted Al-Fatah, the backbone of 89-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Authority, from Gaza in 2007.

Al-Fatah subsequently expelled Mr. Dahlan. A Ramallah court convicted him on corruption charges in 2014 in absentia.

Last month, Mr. Abbas paved the way for Mr. Dahlan’s return by announcing an amnesty for expelled members of his Al-Fatah party.

Mr. Abbas announced the amnesty at an Arab summit in Cairo that adopted an Egyptian proposal countering Mr Trump’s plan to move Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians out of Gaza and turn the territory into a high-end beachfront real estate development.

The gesture was partly directed at President Bin Zayed, who was conspicuously absent. A deputy prime minister represented the UAE at the summit.

Last year, Israel sought to persuade Mr. Dahlan and Palestinian-American billionaire businessman Bashar al-Masri to participate in a post-war administration of Gaza, despite Mr. Netanyahu’s misgivings about Mr. Dahlan because of his involvement with Al-Fatah.

A one-time business associate of Adam Boehler, Mr. Al-Masri reportedly advised the US hostage negotiator, who met Hamas officials in March, the first US official to meet face-to-face with the group designated a terrorist organisation by the United States.

This week, American families of victims of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel filed a lawsuit against Mr. Al-Masri, charging that he assisted the group in constructing infrastructure that allowed it to launch the cross-border rampage. Mr. Al-Masri has denied the allegation

Meanwhile, the UAE, alone among Arab states, has called for engaging with Mr. Trump on his Gaza resettlement plan.

Instead of rejecting the plan outright, the UAE has suggested that the Arabs focus on their rejection of the resettlement aspect of the plan while reiterating that the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel is the only way of achieving sustainable Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Somaliland, the UAE-backed breakaway Somali republic, last month denied assertions that the United States asked it to resettle Gazan Palestinians.

Touting Mr. Trump’s resettlement plan, Mr. Netanyahu and the president said they had discussed some countries they believed would be willing to accept Palestinians.

Mr. Trump, describing Gaza as a “death trap,” “the most dangerous place in the world,” and “a place that nobody wants to live in,” asserted that “if you take the Palestinians and move them around to different countries, you have plenty of countries that will do that… You’ll have a freedom zone.”

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.