The Israeli government is aiming for the creation of a “new security regime” in Gaza once its military goals in the enclave are complete.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described the three planned phases of its already-declared war against Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist group and de facto government of the Gaza Strip, for carrying out the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s 75-year history.
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It is in the first phase, which includes the hundreds of airstrikes and the upcoming ground maneuver “with the purpose of destroying operatives and damaging infrastructure in order to defeat and destroy Hamas,” Gallant said while speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Friday, according to the Times of Israel. The second step will be to “eliminate pockets of resistance.”
“The third step will be the creation of a new security regime in the Gaza Strip, the removal of Israel’s responsibility for day-to-day life in the Gaza Strip, and the creation of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel and the residents of the [area surrounding Gaza],” Gallant said.
He did not mention how Gaza residents will rebuild their communities following the hundreds of bombs that Israel has dropped. Israeli forces say they only target military objectives, but Hamas makes that more challenging by embedding itself within the civilian population. Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the strikes.
Hamas has been in power in the Gaza Strip since shortly after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005.
“I suspect they will go in, do what they need to do,” former U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the Washington Examiner. “They’ll be on the ground there for some amount of time until they’re reasonably confident they’ve got enough of Hamas, then they’ll pull out. And so the unknown is when they pull out, who occupies that vacuum, right? Is it that they just leave it? There’s some type of inter-Arab peacekeeping force come in or a [United Nations] peacekeeping force to keep things stable, or does the Palestinian Authority come in? And there are a lot of arguments on multiple fronts as to why none of those are good ideas.”
Israel is preparing for a ground incursion into Gaza following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,400 people, the vast majority of which were civilians. In some instances, victims were burned alive, and others were found tortured. There were reports of sexual violence, and about 200 people were taken hostage — their whereabouts and well-being remain unknown nearly two weeks later.
Going into Gaza poses several serious challenges for Israeli forces, specifically the dense population of Gaza, Hamas’s willingness for civilian casualties, and the underground tunnel system that Hamas has spent years building and expanding.
“Hamas is a terrorist organization that has integrated themselves into the populations. … They locate their command posts under their hospitals. They do all kinds of things that really mix their military activities with civilian activities, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to distinguish back and forth,” retired Gen. Joseph Votel, former commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Washington Examiner. “Hamas will have used a lot of booby traps and improvised explosive devices and other things they picked up from Iran over the years. And this will make it even more difficult.”
Esper said the battle in Gaza will likely be a “really tough, gritty, bloody affair” and added, “There will be a lot of casualties, military and civilian.”
Israel’s plans in Gaza could be in jeopardy if allies of Hamas decide to expand the war by jumping in. While Hamas has support from Iran, so does the more advanced Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah, as well as the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Either group could get involved, as could Iran, which could also bring the United States into a much wider conflict.
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Houthi forces in Yemen launched three land-attack cruise missiles and several drones that the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney was able to shoot down from the Red Sea. The Department of Defense said the missiles and drones were heading north along the Red Sea in the direction of Israel.
“Hezbollah gets its orders and directives and funding and supplies from Iran. It’s public information. They receive hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran,” IDF spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman told the Washington Examiner. “Very little happens in the Middle East that is not — cannot in some way be attributed to Iran. If we look at the munitions that we captured from Hamas, the mortar shells are made in Iran. So Iran’s fingerprint is on everything that’s happening.”
