The Israeli military is tightening its grip on northern Gaza, as its war on the Hamas militant group is showing no signs of abating. <\/p>\n
Almost six weeks into the conflict, however, Israel is yet to offer a clear post-war plan for the territory. <\/p>\n
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has effectively cut the Strip in two, and on Tuesday claimed Hamas had lost control in northern Gaza, including in Gaza City. <\/p>\n
The Israeli military\u00a0raided Gaza\u2019s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, on Wednesday after claiming that Hamas had built a command center beneath the sprawling medical complex. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Israeli army released video of what it called an \u201coperational tunnel shaft,\u201d unearthed in the grounds of the hospital. Hamas responded by accusing Israel of giving \u201cfalse scenarios, fabricated narratives, and distorted information\u201d about Al-Shifa. <\/p>\n
But what is Israel\u2019s plan for Gaza if and when it achieves its aim of eliminating Hamas? Some experts say Israel may not have a clear idea. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Israel) would argue they have time to figure that out after the military operation,\u201d Lowenstein said. <\/p>\n
Beyond those vague hints, Netanyahu has not provided a defined strategy for the territory, where more than two-thirds of its 2 million inhabitants are now internally displaced, and where more than 40% of all housing units have been either destroyed or damaged, according to United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), citing the Ministry of Housing in Gaza. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael went into this without a clear plan for the morning after,\u201d said Daniel Levy, president of the US-Middle East Project, a London and New York-based organization focusing on finding resolutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. <\/p>\n
The PA has a troubled history in Gaza, and was essentially kicked out by Hamas in 2007 after a brief civil war, leaving it with limited authority over parts of the West Bank only. Analysts fail to agree whether bringing it back to the Strip would work. <\/p>\n
Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, said the PA is \u201cnot the solution but the problem,\u201d adding it has not run the West Bank efficiently and suffers a \u201chuge deficit of legitimacy in its own constituency.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah\u00a0found last year\u00a0that more than 70% of Palestinians were dissatisfied with\u00a0Mahmoud Abbas, the PA\u2019s ageing president\u00a0\u2013 the poll found 74%\u00a0demanding he resign. <\/p>\n
Levy, of the US-Middle East Project, who is also a former Israeli peace negotiator, said that one of main reasons Abbas has lost popularity is that he has agreed to work with Israel, with Israeli settlements under his rule only expanding deeper into the West Bank. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe real question may be whether the PA would actually have the will and the capacity to play meaningful role,\u201d Lowenstein said, adding that \u201cthey have already made clear they will not take over on the back of Israeli tanks or without a path to an independent state.\u201d <\/p>\n
Both Palestinians and regional players may be reluctant to accept what Israel has so far suggested, experts say. <\/p>\n
Several key regional powers \u2013 Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates \u2013 have stressed the two-state solution as the only pathway toward peace. <\/p>\n
Arab countries are reluctant to accept the issues raised by Netanyahu, said Lina Khatib, head of the SOAS Middle East Institute in London. <\/p>\n
That way, she said, the territory would have a government that is \u201cperhaps more legitimate as far as Palestinians are concerned, both in Gaza and the West Bank.\u201d <\/p>\n
The PLO was formed in the 1960s and enjoyed a reputation for decades among Palestinians as the legitimate voice of their resistance. <\/p>\n
Michael of INSS, who previously served as the head of the Palestinian desk at Israel\u2019s Ministry for Strategic Affairs, said that the Israeli-Palestinian bilateral level of negotiations \u201chas been exhausted,\u201d adding that \u201cthe maximum that Israel can give the Palestinians doesn\u2019t meet the minimum that the Palestinians request and vice versa.\u201d <\/p>\n
The conflict, he said, must be seen as a regional issue and not just one between Palestinians and Israelis. Regional players must play more significant roles, he said. <\/p>\n
Even before the current crisis, Gaza\u2019s near-17 years of blockade has shattered its economy and left 80% of its population reliant on international aid, according to a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This war has then set the Palestinian economy in both Gaza and the West Bank back decades, said the UN Development Programme (UNDP), without producing an estimate of the costs for Gaza\u2019s reconstruction, given the current uncertainty around the length of Israel\u2019s campaign. <\/p>\n
The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute, however, put that estimate at up to $20 billion over the next five years. It also said that \u201cno single Palestinian party can reconstruct the Gaza Strip after the war, or restore its devastated economy, in the absence of generous international aid.\u201d <\/p>\n
Experts have pointed to the UNDP and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees\u00a0(UNRWA) as some of the key players that could help distribute aid and reconstruct the territory but have warned that donor countries will not only need to contribute generously, but also that aid groups will need to feel they can operate safely there. <\/p>\n
With Israel showing no sign of succumbing to pressure to agree a ceasefire, the conflict risks dragging on, experts say, and an Israeli presence in Gaza is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. <\/p>\n
Levy warned that unless the \u201cproblem of Palestinian dispossession, statelessness and lack of rights\u201d is addressed, the most likely outcome of the current conflict will be that \u201cHamas will continue to exist.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIts military capacity may be downgraded, (but) politically it is probably stronger than before,\u201d he said. \u201cThere will still be a Hamas.\u201d <\/p>\n
In terms of a future resolution, Lowenstein said that a lot of work will need to be done if the two-state solution is revived as it was \u201cat best on life support before the conflict,\u201d and \u201coften more of a talking point than a policy.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cFar-sighted leadership and tough decisions\u201d are needed to change the course of the current conflict, he added, \u201cwhich is really hard to imagine in the current political climate.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cBut maybe this will eventually make both sides realize there really is no viable alternative,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n\n
The Israeli military is tightening its grip on northern Gaza, as its war on the Hamas militant group is showing no signs of abating. Almost six weeks into the conflict, however, Israel is yet to offer a clear post-war plan for the territory. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last week said the Israel Defense Forces <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}