Israeli soldiers listen to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant speak in a field near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on October 19, 2023.
Ronen Zvrun | Reuters
Israel is widely expected to launch a large-scale ground invasion of Gaza in a bid to wipe out the Palestinian militant group Hamas.away from the surface of the earth” in response to a devastating and coordinated terrorist attack earlier this month.
The prospect of an impending major invasion raises questions about what the post-war future holds, especially since Israel’s military strategy does not have a clear end goal in sight.
It has been just over two weeks since Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages. According to the Palestinian Authority, more than 5,000 people have been killed and more than 15,000 injured in Gaza since the Israeli-Hamas war began.
Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, said on Monday that an Israeli ground attack on Gaza now seems inevitable, but that it will not be possible in the next 48 to 72 hours or even the rest of this week. He said the period is likely to be impossible.
Ramani said the bigger question may be what happens next.
Asked whether there was a risk that Israel would end up in a position it could not escape from, Ramani said: “In fact, that is even what some Israeli officials are saying privately, off the record.” Ta. Various media: You never really know what’s going to happen next. ”
“One of the things that the Israeli political establishment seems to be staunchly united against is the concept of occupying or re-occupying the Gaza Strip,” Ramani said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.” ” he said.
“But the big question is, when you remove the leadership of Hamas, what exactly do you replace it with? Will you replace it with the Palestinian Authority, which is extremely unpopular in the Gaza Strip?”
Ramani emphasized that: Ismail Haniyeh, senior Hamas political leaderHe is more popular among Palestinians than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “by a significant margin,” as many see him as a corrupt pillar of the status quo.
Editor’s note: Graphic content | Israeli soldiers practice shooting with rifles in a field near the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 23, 2023, as fighting continues between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
Thomas Coex | Thomas Coex AFP | Getty Images
The Palestinian Authority, on the other hand, is likely to be reluctant to appear to be cooperating with Israel, Ramani said.
“So it is very difficult to understand what will happen if Hamas leaves, and the risks are that many civilians will die in this war, that Hamas could go underground, or that a new Extremist movements could develop and threaten Israel’s security again,” he added.
An Israeli government spokesperson did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces said the war in the Gaza Strip could end with the complete surrender of Hamas and the return of Israeli hostages.
“The objective here is to completely dismantle Hamas from its military capabilities. If it does so from the air, by means of confrontation, with very limited exposure to our forces and with less damage on the ground. It would be great if we could do that,” said an IDF spokesperson.Jonathan Conricks He told ABC Radio Melbourne..
“Violence only breeds more violence”
The United Nations previously called It called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war, called on Hamas to immediately and unconditionally release prisoners of war, and called on Israel to allow unrestricted access to essential supplies to Gaza.
The Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land sandwiched between Israel, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the most densely populated places in the world, with more than two million people living in conditions described by human rights groups as an “open-air prison.”
Chatham House associate fellow Yossi Mekelberg said on Monday that there is no “magic wand” to end this type of war and that the conflict has been left to fester “for far too long.”
“I think everyone is now gradually understanding that destroying Hamas is not just a matter of bombing Gaza, or even a ground attack. Hamas as a military force , Hamas as a political force, and Hamas as an idea as well,” Mekelberg told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe.”
“At the same time, we are now witnessing the scale of destruction and death of Palestinians. This is no longer a crisis, it is a disaster…This is unacceptable,” he continued.
“The challenge is how to reconcile all of this, reducing the suffering of the victims and the Palestinians, and at the same time ensuring that Hamas cannot harm Israel as it has in the past,” Mekelberg said. Ta. “It’s probably not going to be resolved in a few days or weeks with one surgery.”
Smoke rises after an Israeli attack on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 22, 2023, as fighting between Israel and Palestine continues.
Saeed Khatib | AFP | Getty Images
Mekelberg said that finding a political solution to the Israel-Hamas war requires policymakers to take a new approach to the root causes of the conflict. “We need new leadership in both political groups. We need people who think along the lines of peaceful coexistence,” he said.
“We need innovative and creative ideas, and we need a new generation that understands that violence only breeds more violence and bloodshed and does not improve the lives of either side in any way.”
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