Benjamin Netanyahu has more than once said that, if given another term as prime minister, he would apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley—raising a predictable hue and cry. Responding to those among Netanyahu’s critics who argue that this area must inevitably be part of a future Palestinian state, Amir Avivi writes:

The Jordan River border is over 180 miles long and can be crossed at any point. The Palestinians would be able to exercise the “right of return” and bring into the heart of Israel hundreds of thousands of terrorists from all around the Middle East, with an endless number of weapons, posing an existential threat to the . . . low plains of central Israel. In Gaza the same ideas resulted in the takeover by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. . . . All the weapons in Gaza are smuggled through a seven-mile border with Egypt through tunnels. To reverse [the Gaza withdrawal alone] would mean a war with thousands of casualties.

[There are those who claim that] Israel applying sovereignty over the Jordan Valley . . . will undermine security cooperation with Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. The same threats were made when President Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, but none of these predictions came true for a very simple reason. Both Jordan and the Palestinian Authority depend on the security cooperation with Israel for their survival. They need this cooperation more than Israel does. So, it would be reasonable to assume that nothing dramatic will occur after Israel applies sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”