Analysis | What is Israel’s endgame? No sign of post-war plan for Gaza
- Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, but there is no clear exit strategy beyond a Gaza invasion, sources say
- The fear across the region is that the war will blow up, with Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran opening new fronts
Israel is vowing to wipe out Hamas in a relentless onslaught on the Gaza Strip but has no obvious endgame in sight, with no clear plan for how to govern the ravaged Palestinian enclave even if it triumphs on the battlefield.
Code-named “Operation Swords of Iron”, the military campaign will be unmatched in its ferocity and unlike anything Israel has carried out in Gaza in the past, according to eight regional and Western officials with knowledge of the conflict who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Israel has called up a record 360,000 reservists and has been bombarding the tiny enclave non-stop following Hamas’ assault on southern Israel on October 7, which killed about 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
The immediate Israeli strategy, said three regional officials familiar with discussions between the US and Middle Eastern leaders, is to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure, even at the cost of high civilian casualties, push the enclave’s people towards the Egyptian border and go after Hamas by blowing up the labyrinth of underground tunnels the group has built to conduct its operations.
Israeli officials have said that they don’t have a clear idea for what a post-war future might look like, though.
Some of US President Joe Biden’s aides are concerned that while Israel may craft an effective plan to inflict lasting damage to Hamas, it has yet to formulate an exit strategy, a source in Washington familiar with the matter said.