On Tuesday, the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken came to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and emphasized, inter alia, the importance of establishing a Palestinian state. Such an outcome would presumably involve delivering Gaza into the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose president, Mahmoud Abbas, received a visit from Blinken the following day. But could such an outcome be compatible with Israel’s goal of preventing further attacks by Hamas? Michael Mandelbaum looks at this question:
An observation by Aviv Kochavi, a former Israeli chief of staff, provides a clue to the main requirement for Israeli military success in Gaza. He noted that Hamas had morphed over the years from a terrorist organization, engaging in guerrilla tactics against Israel, into a full-fledged army. It is organized like an army, with platoons, battalions, and brigades. . . . What is distinctive, and crucial, about this army is that it is based underground, in the hundreds of miles of tunnels that Hamas dug and reinforced after seizing power in Gaza in 2007.
The most important task of the IDF operation in Gaza is to destroy [Hamas’s] tunnels. This is a protracted, arduous, perilous activity. . . . An above-ground Hamas, even greatly reduced in strength as a consequence of the Israeli military campaign, will continue to launch isolated attacks on Israeli targets; but it will be transformed from an army back into a terrorist organization. Exposed to Israel’s airpower and to attacks from Israeli ground forces, it will not be able to mount assaults on the scale of those of October 7.
Of course, the best possible outcome of the war in Gaza would be the cessation of all attacks on Israel from its south. That, unfortunately, is unlikely: whatever postwar political arrangements are put in place will almost certainly not end them.
The PA is unlikely . . . to be either willing or able to stop attacks on Israel.
Read more on Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security: https://jstribune.com/mandelbaum-in-gaza-israel-can-win-the-war-but-not-the-peace/