EIt doesn’t look good in a war when a country’s defense minister gives his head of government an ultimatum. “I call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a decision,” Israeli Defense Minister Joav Gallant said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Netanyahu must “declare that Israel will not take civilian control of the Gaza Strip, that Israel will not establish a military government in the Gaza Strip, and that an alternative administration to that of Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be immediately established,” said Gallant, the Netanyahu Belongs to the Likud party.
The “day after Hamas” can only be achieved if Palestinian bodies take control of Gaza, accompanied by international actors, said Gallant, referring to the Palestinian Authority and moderate Arab states.
According to the Defense Minister, he has been urging the Prime Minister for months to present a scenario for the period after the military operation in Gaza. But because he hesitates, Israel’s military successes are at stake again: “Indecision ultimately means a decision.”
Seven months after the mass murder of Israelis by the terrorist militia Hamas and the start of the subsequent Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, the tone between the country’s military leadership and the Netanyahu government is noticeably rougher. Gallant’s ultimatum was the strongest expression yet of growing opposition among the generals to a lack of leadership in the Jewish state’s political leadership.
North of the Gaza Strip not under control
The previous weekend, the military leadership had already played its grudge against Netanyahu to the media – with the same tenor: If the prime minister does not soon present a sensible scenario for Israel’s war goals, what Israel has achieved so far is in danger of being lost.
Evidence of the officers’ concerns can be found in the daily reports from the front. Although Israel declared months ago that it had gained military control over the north of the Gaza Strip, new clashes with Hamas continue to break out there.
Is this perhaps because, a reporter asked military spokesman Daniel Hagari earlier this week, Israel has not created a post-war order in the north? Hagari’s response: “There is no doubt that an alternative administration to that of Hamas would increase pressure on Hamas. But this is a question that is aimed at the political leadership.”
Source: OpenStreetMap; Infographic WORLD
In fact, the solution that Gallant outlined in his press conference has been around since at least November of last year. At that time, American, Arab and European representatives, as well as members of Israeli security circles, told WELT AM SONNTAG that a takeover of the administration in the Gaza Strip by the Palestinian Authority and an international protection force with the participation of Western-oriented Arab states was in preparation.
But Netanyahu still doesn’t want to make a commitment. The Prime Minister continues to just say what he doesn’t want. Shortly after Gallant’s press conference, Netanyahu released a video on the short message service X. “I am not ready,” Netanyahu says, visibly upset, “to replace Hamastan with Fatahstan.”
He is referring to the secular Palestinian organization Fatah, the leading force of the Palestinian Authority, which lost power in Gaza to Hamas but still has responsibilities in the West Bank.
Israeli soldiers in Gaza in mid-May
Source: AFP
The authority was created when Israel concluded the Oslo Peace Accords with Fatah leader Yasser Arafat in the early 1990s. Since then, she has been considered a legitimate representative of the Palestinians. “The Palestinian Authority supports terror, educates terror, finances terror,” Netanyahu counters Gallant in the video, even though the authority generally cooperates with Israel on security issues.
“The fundamental condition for handing over Gaza to another actor is the destruction of Hamas, no ifs and buts.” This is how Netanyahu’s video ends after just 48 seconds, without the prime minister explaining who the “other actor” could be.
The fact that Netanyahu avoids making a decision is due to his coalition partners. The majority of his government is extremely narrow and the prime minister is dependent on the parties of the settler movement and their leaders Bezalel Smotrych and Itamar Ben Gvir.
But they are increasingly openly calling for Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and an allegedly voluntary emigration of Palestinians from there. Ben Gvir, who holds the position of Minister of Public Security, confirmed this on Wednesday evening. “Tell them: Go home, go to your countries! This is ours, now and forever!”
But neither Israel’s allies nor the Israeli population, which in polls show a clear majority against re-occupying the Gaza Strip, support such a plan. And Israel’s army had tried unsuccessfully to control the coastal strip for decades until it withdrew in 2005. The military will not want to take on this bloody task again.