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Israel is apparently preparing a ground offensive against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. But politically there is no plan for the period after the war. What could happen next in the Gaza Strip – four scenarios.
The militant Islamist Hamas killed around 1,400 people in its terrorist attack on Israel on October 7th. Since then, the world has been looking towards the Middle East again. Israel responded to the attack with air strikes on Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip – and is preparing a ground offensive. The goal: to render Hamas harmless and to dismantle its structures.
But the ground offensive has not yet begun. On the one hand, because Israel still hopes to free more hostages held by Hamas through negotiations. On the other hand, it may also be because there is no clear plan for the Gaza Strip after the war. More than two million people live here, under extremely difficult conditions and with no real prospects. A breeding ground for hatred and terror.
Will Israel reoccupy the Gaza Strip? Or will other states then take responsibility for Gaza? Four possible scenarios at a glance:
1. Israel occupies the Gaza Strip
Israel wants to destroy Hamas and its military capabilities and thereby make terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip impossible. If this succeeds, there must be a plan for what happens to Gaza afterwards. Experts are already warning of an impending power vacuum. “Other warlords could take control, perhaps even worse than Hamas, if that is even possible,” said Professor Jonathan Rynhold, head of the politics department at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv.
To prevent this, Israel could occupy the Gaza Strip as it did between 1967 and 2005. But that doesn’t seem likely. The previous occupation was difficult to maintain and the withdrawal in 2005 was difficult to organize.
At a security briefing in the Israeli parliament, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant recently said that the goal was to “end Israel’s responsibility for the fate of the Gaza Strip.” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, also told the US broadcaster CNN: “We have no interest in occupying Gaza or staying in Gaza.”
German military expert Carlo Masala also considers the scenario to be unlikely. “That would also be the worst of all solutions because it would only fuel terrorism again,” he said tagesschau.de.
2. Israel surrenders to the Autonomous authority the responsibility
When Israel left the Gaza Strip in 2005, political control was handed over to the Palestinian Authority (PA). It is the quasi-government in the autonomous areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israeli opposition leader Jair Lapid also favors a scenario in which Israel once again hands control over to the Palestinian Authority after a successful ground offensive.
The PA was created in 1994 by an agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to assume government functions in the Palestinian territories. The PLO is the umbrella organization of various Palestinian factions. The authority based in Ramallah is still closely linked to the PLO, but politically the latter has become increasingly weaker.
The authority had already lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas in 2007. This was preceded by a Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election. This was followed by a brief civil war between Hamas supporters and the rival Fatah movement. Fatah still controls the West Bank and is led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He also leads the PLO.
Abbas will soon be 88 years old, his power is limited, and critics accuse him of corruption. It is more than questionable that the Palestinian Authority could take control of the Gaza Strip under Abbas. “His autonomous authority is weak – and after many years without elections, it lacks any kind of democratic legitimacy,” reported ARD correspondent Jan-Christoph Kitzler from Tel Aviv.
The experts at the Crisis Group think tank also see it that way. In their assessment, there is little hope that the already extremely unpopular authority could return to the Gaza Strip after an Israeli invasion “without being treated like an enemy.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas: Too weak for the Gaza Strip?
3. Israel gives control to Egypt
The AFP news agency, citing a source in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, reports that Israel would like to hand over responsibility for the Gaza Strip to a third party. For example, Egypt, which borders the Gaza Strip and administered the area from 1948 until the Six-Day War in 1967. However, Israel cannot estimate whether Cairo would even agree to such a scenario, reports AFP. To date, no other Arab country has offered such an option.
Lebanese researcher Hussein Ibish, a member of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, does not believe in a solution with Egypt. This has been Israel’s goal for decades, Ibish said, according to the portal “L’Orient Today”: “But under no circumstances will Cairo allow itself to be involved in direct involvement in the Gaza Strip.”
This can also be seen in the fact that Egypt is currently keeping the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip closed. Refugees from Gaza should not enter Egypt. People there fear that Hamas terrorists could also come into the country and that they could be drawn into the conflict.
4. Gaza is controlled by one international Group of States managed
But it would also be possible to transfer responsibility for the Gaza Strip not just to one country, but to an international one Group of States. This is currently the scenario preferred by Israel and the USA for the Gaza Strip. This is how the head of the Israeli think tank Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Eitan Shamir, assesses it. The Palestinian Authority and, in terms of administration, the USA and Europe could be involved in this international cooperation, and Saudi Arabia could also contribute money.
According to the Frankfurter Rundschau, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak favors an alliance of Arab states. Israeli security expert Michael Milshtein, head of the “Forum for Palestinian Studies” at Tel Aviv University, sees it similarly, according to “FAZ”. Accordingly, countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia could restore order in the Gaza Strip and then hand over control to a civilian Palestinian administration.
Expert Robert Blecher from the “International Crisis Group” think tank, however, is critical of international administration: After all, Israel has never relied on foreign help in security matters. However, Israel has already brought a buffer zone between the Gaza Strip and Israel into play; for this to happen, the Gaza Strip must shrink. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said that after the fighting the Gaza Strip would be smaller than before.
Course of war uncertain
Each of the scenarios involves uncertainties. There is no fixed master plan for the Gaza Strip. Especially since it is not even clear whether and when Israel’s ground offensive will begin – and how long it could last. Israel’s Defense Minister Gallant expects months of fighting until there will be “no more Hamas.”
But then there is also the risk that the situation will escalate further. Iran repeatedly threatens Israel, and the terrorist militia Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is controlled from Tehran, could intervene more strongly in the conflict. Europe and the USA also fear that the war in the Middle East will expand. And then a political solution for the Gaza Strip would hardly be possible.