Conflict in the Middle East: We invaded Gaza, we destroyed Hamas… and then?

The stated objective of Israel in his war against Loop is to eradicate the Islamist organization Hamas, which has dominated the Strip since 2007 and on October 7 launched a deadly assault against Israeli territory, but if it succeeds, probably through extensive ground intervention, what comes next?

“The main objective is to eradicate Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The area must be demilitarized. As? Putting an end to Hamas in the Strip does not mean that it will not form again one or two years later.”Israeli analyst Adi Schwartz summarizes the problem in a meeting with the press.

And this must be completely ruled out for a country traumatized by the brutal attack by Hamas, which massacred more than a thousand civilians and then battled the Israeli Army for three days in Israeli territory, bringing the total number to more than 1,400 dead. Israelis, in addition to the taking of about 250 hostages according to Hamas, a figure lowered to 203 by the Armed Forces, with about 1,200 casualties among the Gazan militias.

Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of a spy unit in the Israeli Armed Forces and former director general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, is clear: “Israel must stay in Gaza. You can’t trust any of the Palestinians, none of them.”he declared.

It is assumed that a ground invasion of the Strip will take place soon, because it is impossible to defeat Hamas through aerial bombardments alone, given that the militia has a huge network of underground tunnels and bunkers, but destroying all this infrastructure does not end the problem. , recognize.

“If we withdraw, they will form a new similar organization. “We also cannot hand over the territory to the Palestinian Authority, because they have the same ideology focused on destroying Israel,” he believes, despite the fact that in the West Bank, the Israeli Government collaborates closely with this self-governing body formed by Fatah, the main Palestinian party in conflict with Hamas.

Adi Schwartz sees it possible, however, to copy the model: “Perhaps it will be enough to maintain greater control over the Egyptian border, where most of the arms smuggling takes place”especially through tunnels that connect the territory of Gaza with scattered points in the Sinai Desert.

adventure that “If this border is controlled, perhaps the demilitarization of Gaza can be guaranteed through daily raids, like in the West Bank,” where there is a Palestinian police with control over islets of the territory, but Israeli forces frequently break into these self-managed enclaves to arrest suspected militants or destroy the homes of families who have a member involved in an attack.

Kuperwasser is more skeptical and insists that calm and only once in a while cannot be trusted again. “mowing”expression of Israeli strategists to describe the occasional aerial bombardments of Gaza in order to periodically reduce the military capabilities of Hamas and maintain fear of retaliation for any attack on Israel.

He even evokes the option that, with Hamas destroyed, some Arab country could take charge of this coastal territory 40 kilometers long by 10 wide – Egypt administered it from 1948 to 1967 – or that an international organization would manage it, but he rules it out: “No one wants Gaza. Nobody. Us neither. But it is our obligation to be there, whether we want to or not,” he assures.

But who will build roads, run hospitals and lay pipes? “These tasks could be taken care of by a certain Palestinian civil administration, but security must be in our hands”reply.

This suggests constant friction between the civilian population and the security forces, perhaps even worse than those already common in the West Bank, where in the last 13 days at least 67 Palestinians have died due to shots fired by Israeli security forces and attacks by settlers. ultranationalists, with those detained numbering in the hundreds.

The solution must be much more radical, says Ronit Marzan, an academic at the University of Haifa specializing in Arab societies, with 32 years of experience in the Israeli spy services.

“If the Palestinians stay in Gaza, it will be very difficult for Israel. And it would all be exactly the same again. “Israel cannot allow this to happen again,” says the teacher.

“The world must understand that the suffering in Gaza must end. The Palestinians can no longer stay there. Israel will have to take the Gaza Strip, overthrow the Hamas regime and then convince the people there that if they want to have a nice life, they have to leave the Strip,” Marzan ruling.

“Even if they came back, Gaza would be destroyed. Living in Gaza is living in hell.”observes the academic, according to which “everyone should welcome contingents of Gazan refugees to offer them a better life”while Israel should use the Strip to build a huge military base there.

But there is still some time left to address this issue, because the war will last at least a month, Kuperwasser estimates.

That, of course, if there is finally a land invasion, which everyone takes for granted, but no one knows for sure.