Israel has also been massively attacking the south of Gaza for two days – and is facing headwinds from the USA. Netanyahu cannot care less about this. But he finds it difficult to reduce military forces.
Seven days of breathing space are over. Since Saturday, Hamas has been firing many rockets at Israel again, and the Gaza Strip has also been under fire again, from the air and on the ground. Films of smashed buildings, people buried under rubble, injured people in panic are circulating on the Internet again – only this time, and this shocks many, the images come from the south of Gaza.
The southern Gaza Strip, from the center of the area down to the border with Egypt, was previously considered the part of Gaza where the two million civilians could find refuge. The Israeli military sent people there via messenger messages and leaflets, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians moved there, mostly on foot, in large refugee trains. So now bystanders are also dying there from Israeli bombs.
The Gaza Strip offers no real security anywhere
The army says it has now expanded its ground offensive to include the “entire Gaza Strip.” Palestinian refugees report how they are now setting out for the second, some for the third or fourth time, to seek protection that, at the end of the day, may not really exist anywhere. A coastal strip that is only 40 kilometers long and has been tunneled under by one of the warring parties cannot offer real security anywhere as long as the fighting continues.
“Nevertheless, a distinction is made between sectors where the security risk should be relatively higher or lower,” says Stephan Stetter, Middle East expert from the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is currently distributing leaflets with a QR code that redirects to an Arabic language website. Here the entire area of the coastal strip is visually divided into more than 620 sectors. However, the cell phone network in the Gaza Strip does not always work, so the site is not always accessible to everyone.
The IDF is today naming 27 areas that are to be evacuated, all of which are in the south around the city of Khan Yunes, which is now under increased fire. Israel designates, among other things, a small coastal area around the town of Al-Mawasi as a “humanitarian zone” where people should go from there. According to army spokesman Jonathan Conricus, the force is “fully aware that space and access is limited.” This makes it all the more important that “international aid organizations help with the infrastructure of Al-Mawasi.”
Internationally, there are increasing voices calling on Israel to protect the population of Gaza more effectively than is currently the case. Among them was French President Emmanuel Macron, now also US Vice President Kamala Harris. “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” she said in Dubai on the sidelines of the climate conference. Lloyd Austin, the American Secretary of Defense, warned that a war in “urban areas” could only be won by protecting civilians.
Two critical voices that are very relevant to Israel, because the United States is by far its most important international partner. The clock is ticking in Washington to determine how much time Israel’s armed forces have left to weaken Hamas’s military strength so severely and to destroy its command structures so massively that it would then no longer be able to act. If the US were to say “stop” at some point, Israel would almost certainly have to end its defensive strike.
Where should people from the south flee to?
There is still no stop signal from the White House, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must take statements like those from Harris and Austin very seriously. “They will make it more difficult for Israel to act in the south of the Gaza Strip in the coming days in the same way as the troops did in the north,” says Stetter. And where should the population flee from there?
Cairo continues to categorically rule out accepting Palestinian refugees. Stetter would also see such a step as a “great potential threat to the international situation.” A refugee movement from Gaza across the border into Egypt would immediately be interpreted by Arab states as a permanent expulsion of the Palestinians. “Against the background of Palestinian history, especially the ‘Nakba’ – as the Palestinians call the expulsion during the 1948 war – that would be very dangerous.”
If civilian buildings in the south of the Gaza Strip were to be as badly destroyed as in the northern areas, reconstruction would be even more difficult. Stetter sees the international statements as a “warning on the tactical level.” Israel can still continue its defensive strike after the week-long ceasefire with the approval of the USA. Arab countries such as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Israel. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have also maintained their contacts so far. So Israel still has room for maneuver.
But the signal from Washington is clear: You can continue, but it has to be done differently operationally and militarily than in the north, namely more targeted, more systematic, and with fewer civilian casualties. The humanitarian situation must not spiral completely out of control.
This puts the government and the armed forces in a quandary: Meeting the expectations of important partners would mean switching from massive bombing attacks to ground troops and special commandos. And while massive bombing can be carried out without heavy casualties, “more targeted and systematic” means exposing Israeli soldiers to greater risk in action. If the IDF had to report significantly more casualties in the coming weeks, that could become a domestic political problem. But the greater the destruction and the higher the number of victims in Gaza, the more difficult it could be to find a political solution after the war.
Deter to survive between opponents
From Israel’s perspective, another point speaks against Israel limiting the massiveness of its counterattack, and that is its deterrent effect: Surrounded by many enemies, deterrence is Israel’s life insurance. The attack on October 7th showed the country as weak and vulnerable as few people thought possible. “That’s why Israel is now very keen to rebuild its own deterrent power. From the point of view of many Israelis, the severe destruction contributes to this,” says Stetter. “At least that’s what we hope for strategically.”
From his perspective, the international warnings to Israel raise a second point. There is “a justified concern in many capitals that Israel is secretly pursuing completely different war goals than just the military destruction of Hamas.” These goals could correspond to what the radical right-wing forces in the Israeli government want to achieve. In recent weeks, Netanyahu’s coalition partners have been quoted as saying that one minister rejects any humanitarian aid for what he calls the “monsters from Gaza,” while another would prefer to see the Gaza Strip depopulated – possibly even with the use of a nuclear bomb.
Even if the right-wing radical party “Jewish Strength” is only a small partner in the government coalition, nervousness is still spreading internationally because the big partner, Netanyahu’s Likud party, does not stand against it and neither – despite pressure from the USA – itself once more precisely how she imagines the future of Gaza after the end of the war.
There was recently talk of a “buffer zone” and, according to Stetter, this wish is met with understanding in the West and, secretly, in some Arab states. But do you urgently want to know how long this buffer zone would be intended for and how exactly it should work? When would the population, currently crammed together in the south, be able to return to their home areas? Who will build new houses from the rubble? “All these political questions are being asked by Israel’s partners, and the most important question is: What role will the Palestinian Authority play after the war?”
Does Israel see not only an economic but also a political perspective for Gaza and the West Bank? “There are many forces in Israel who would be willing to provide answers to these questions,” says Stetter. “The majority of them are not in the government right now.”
The USA’s patience is finite, even with Israel, even if it stands behind its right to self-defense without any ifs or buts. But if Netanyahu wants to secure the necessary support from Washington for his defensive strike, then Israel’s strategy will have to change visibly – in the government’s statements and on the battlefield.