The Israeli army is caught in a doom loop in Gaza. By Economist

Read time: 6 minutes

May 16th 2024

IN RAFAH the stakes could not be higher. Supporters see Israel’s military offensive there, which began earlier this month, as a necessary assault on Hamas’s last bastion. Sceptics worry it will doom continuing talks about a hostage deal and, perhaps, the hostages themselves. Much of the world fears it will become a human tragedy, killing thousands of Palestinians and displacing a million more.

There was less drama around the Israeli campaign in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, which began days after the fighting in Rafah. Instead there was a sense of déjà vu. Israel’s army fought there last year, at the start of this war, and returned for a two-week offensive in February. Now it is back for a third time, and perhaps not the last.

The twin campaigns say much about Israel’s faltering war effort. Though the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have real objectives to pursue in Rafah, talk of the city as Hamas’s last stand is overblown: the group’s fighters may melt away. Hamas is trying to reassert control in other parts of Gaza—and eight months into the war, Israel has no plan for how to prevent that. The refusal of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to talk about post-war arrangements has estranged President Joe Biden and, increasingly, his own generals as well.

Israel began its push into Rafah on May 6th, when it dropped leaflets urging residents to evacuate areas on the city’s periphery. It has moved slowly, first seizing the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza and several kilometres of land along the border. By May 14th there were reports of Israeli tanks in residential neighbourhoods in eastern Rafah, but they were still some distance from the city centre.

The border has strategic value. For decades it has been honeycombed with tunnels, which Hamas used to smuggle weapons, construction equipment and other items into Gaza. Cutting the group’s supply lines is important, though it also risks a crisis with neighbouring Egypt, which was angry that Israel did not give it much notice before it seized the crossing.

Yet for many Israeli politicians, the real focus of the Rafah offensive is Hamas itself. The IDF claims that 19 of its 24 battalions have been “dismantled” (the meaning of that term is open to interpretation), with four still intact in Rafah. Those battalions have taken on totemic importance for some Israeli officials: Mr Netanyahu has talked about them for months.

As the Israeli offensive gets under way, however, defence officials believe Hamas has already shifted a chunk of its forces elsewhere. It will leave a contingent in Rafah to harass the IDF, but there will be no dramatic showdown: like most guerrilla movements, Hamas will want to avoid head-on conflict with a better-armed foe.

Instead it is attacking Israel elsewhere. In recent days Hamas has shelled the Netzarim corridor, a line of Israeli outposts that runs the width of Gaza; fired at Kerem Shalom, the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza; and launched volleys of rockets at Sderot and Asheklon in southern Israel. The group is also trying to move fighters back into northern Gaza—hence the déjà vu in Zeitoun and Jabalia, another area that Israeli troops returned to this month after a long absence.

Strategists often talk of a “clear-hold-build” approach to counter-insurgency: clear an area of insurgents, hold onto the gains and build an alternative. Israel is only doing the first bit. Aside from the Netzarim corridor, there have been almost no Israeli troops in Gaza for the past two months, leaving a vacuum that Hamas has inevitably tried to fill.

A fortnight ago Mr Biden delayed a shipment of 3,500 guided bombs due for delivery to Israel. In an interview on May 8th he threatened to go further, saying he would cut off the supply of bombs and artillery shells if Israel went ahead with an offensive in Rafah. Mr Biden’s words were inelegant, and he may have overstated his own policy: a week later his administration notified Congress it was advancing a $1bn shipment of military aid, which included tank rounds and mortars. Still, he caused an uproar in Washington, where Republicans and some Democrats accused him of tying Israel’s hands in Rafah.

Map: The Economist

Yet Mr Biden has never demanded that Israel refrain from attacking the city, only that it create a plan to evacuate civilians to areas with adequate humanitarian aid. The evacuation is now under way: an estimated 600,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah this month. It has not been smooth. Some Palestinians went to al-Mawasi, a barren strip of coastline which Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone”. Others have returned to cities farther north, such as Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah, which had already been battered by months of fighting.

New arrivals to al-Mawasi describe inhuman conditions, with tents crammed together on the dunes, little food and water available and no infrastructure for sewage. After Israel seized the Rafah crossing earlier this month, Egypt halted deliveries of aid. Kerem Shalom has been repeatedly closed because of Hamas rocket attacks. In the week from May 6th, just six lorries carrying aid entered southern Gaza. Aid workers say supplies are running low across the south just as hundreds of thousands of people are on the move—not at all the organised evacuation Mr Biden urged.

This is not the first time Mr Netanyahu has ignored Mr Biden’s demands. He has refused to talk about “the day after” in Gaza, despite pleading by American officials. The Americans have promoted their own plan, which starts with an Israeli commitment to let the Palestinian Authority (PA) return to Gaza. From there they hope to broker a tripartite deal in which Saudi Arabia would normalise ties with Israel. That could unlock Arab support for reconstruction and restart a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Nature abhors a vacuum

All this is easier said than done: it is hard to imagine, for example, that a weak and corrupt PA could effectively rule Gaza. But it is a better plan than the Israeli one, which is no plan at all. Mr Netanyahu has ruled out bringing the PA back to Gaza and has spent months wrongly equating it with Hamas. His far-right allies want to rebuild the Jewish settlements that Israel dismantled in 2005. While the prime minister does not share that goal himself, he does not want to upset them by promising Palestinian control of Gaza. Instead he has allowed the territory to lapse into anarchy.

Israeli generals have grumbled about this privately for months. At a press conference on May 14th Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the army spokesman, was asked whether the repeat offensives in northern Gaza were the result of the government’s failure to make post-war plans. “There is no doubt that an alternative to Hamas would put pressure on it, but that is a question for the political echelon,” he said. To many Israelis, his words sounded like a rare rebuke of Mr Netanyahu’s policy.

The next day Yoav Gallant, the defence minister, warned that Israel might be headed for prolonged military rule in Gaza. American officials agree. “They will be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency,” Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, told CBS, a broadcast network, warning of the risks of leaving Hamas a vacuum to fill.

There is blame to go around. The idf pushed for a big ground offensive in October knowing full well that Mr Netanyahu would be loth to talk about post-war diplomacy. America supported that offensive. They are belatedly realising what should have been clear months ago: that without a plan to secure and govern Gaza, Israel will be fighting a war without end. ■

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