By James Mackenzie
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli government divisions over the war in Gaza emerged this week after the defense minister publicly demanded a clear strategy from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as troops returned to fight Hamas fighters in areas that I thought they had been vacated for months. back.
The comments by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said he would not agree to the creation of a military government in the enclave, reflect growing unease in the security establishment with Netanyahu’s lack of guidance on who will be left to govern Gaza once the fighting stops. . .
They also brought to light the deep division between the two centrist former army generals in the cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, who supported Gallant’s appeal, and the far-right religious nationalist parties led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and by the Minister of Internal Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who condemned the comments.
“This is no way to conduct a war,” the right-wing tabloid Israel Today headlined its Thursday edition, with a photo of Netanyahu and Gallant looking in different directions.
In addition to dismantling Hamas and returning around 130 hostages still held by the Islamic movement, Netanyahu did not articulate any clear strategic objective for ending the campaign, which killed around 35,000 Palestinians and left Israel increasingly isolated internationally.
However, supported by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, both close to the West Bank settler movement, he rejected any involvement in the post-war management of Gaza by the Palestinian Authority, created under the Oslo interim peace accords three decades ago and generally viewed internationally as the most legitimate Palestinian governing body.
Netanyahu, struggling to hold his increasingly fragmented coalition together, has so far kept his promise of total victory over Hamas. Afterwards, Gaza could be run by a “non-Hamas civilian administration with Israeli military responsibility, general military responsibility,” he said in an interview with CNBC television on Wednesday.
Israeli officials have said that Palestinian clan leaders or other civil society figures could be recruited to fill the gap, but there is no evidence that such leaders, capable or willing to replace Hamas, have been identified and no friendly Arab country has come forward to help.
“For Israel, the options are either to end the war and withdraw, or to establish, for all intents and purposes, a military government in the country, and control the entire territory, who knows for how long, because, once leave an area, Hamas will reappear,” said Yossi Mekelberg, research associate in the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.
GUERRILLA TACTICS
Gallant’s refusal to contemplate any form of permanent military government reflects the material and political costs of an operation that could painfully harm the military and the economy, reviving memories of the years of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon after the 1982 war.
Taking full control of Gaza would require perhaps four divisions, or about 50,000 troops, said Michael Milshtein, a former intelligence officer and one of Israel’s top experts on Hamas.
Although thousands of Hamas fighters were killed in the campaign and Israeli commanders say most of the movement’s organized battalions have been dismantled, smaller groups have emerged in areas the army abandoned in the early stages of the war.
“They are a very flexible organization and can adjust very quickly,” Milshtein said. “They adopted new patterns of guerrilla warfare.”
The likely cost to Israel of a prolonged insurgency was illustrated on Wednesday when five Israeli soldiers were killed by an Israeli tank in an incident called “friendly fire” while Israeli troops fought fierce battles in the Jabalia area, north of the city. of Gaza.
Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the military’s job was to “destroy the places where Hamas is returning and trying to rebuild itself”, but said any question of an alternative government to Hamas would be a matter political level.
Although most polls show that Israelis still largely support the war, that support has been declining, with more and more people prioritizing the return of hostages over the destruction of Hamas. Such incidents could further undermine support if they continue.
A glimpse of the broader social divisions likely to be triggered was seen in the long-running dispute over the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox Torah students into the army, a move supported by Gantz and his allies as well as many secular Israelis but fiercely resisted by the religious parties. .
So far, Netanyahu has managed to avoid an exit from both sides that could potentially bring down his government.
But Gallant, who has already led a revolt against Netanyahu within the cabinet over plans to cut the power of judges last year, has clashed repeatedly with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir and his latest challenge to the prime minister may not be his last. .
(Additional reporting by Andrew MacAskill in London; Editing by Nick Macfie)
