As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes
under increasing pressure to produce a program for “the day after”
Hamas in the Gaza Strip, several Likud lawmakers have issued a plan to
refocus attention on first defeating the Islamist organization.
Titled “Plan for Victory in the Gaza
Strip” and dated Jan. 16, the 102nd day of the war, the plan calls first
for the IDF’s continued destruction of Hamas’s “order of battle”—its
command structure, fighters, equipment and infrastructure.
The number of Hamas terrorists is estimated at 30,000-40,000, of whom 25% are said to have been killed.
“The achievement is not nothing, certainly
if you add the number of wounded and prisoners of the organization, but
the campaign is far from over,” the plan states.
The plan underscores the importance of
Israeli territorial control of the Gaza Strip, which it proposes
dividing into three sections—north, central and south—cut by two
security corridors running east to west.
The northern area, where Gaza City is
located and which served as Hamas’s power center, is to remain
unreconstructed. The central and southern sections will combine Israeli
security control with the possibility of full local control of civilian
affairs.
The plan calls for two “de-escalation
zones” located on the sea sides of the two security corridors where
humanitarian aid will be distributed to the civilian population. It also
provides for a security perimeter between the Gaza Strip and Israel
along which new IDF outposts will be built.
A “mortal blow” to Hamas won’t be achieved
without “operational control” of the Strip that will enable “IDF
freedom of action similar to what it has in Judea and Samaria,” the
program posits.
A map of a divided Gaza Strip according to the “Plan for Victory.”
The authors of the plan are Amichai
Chikli, minister of both Diaspora affairs and social equality, and Likud
members of Knesset Moshe Saada, Dan Illouz and Boaz Bismuth. They
created their plan with the input of security experts.
Israel’s wartime government came under
pressure from the U.S. early on, with the Americans insisting on looking
ahead to the day after Hamas’s defeat. The White House has made no
secret of its desire to see the Palestinian Authority installed in power
in Gaza, uniting Judea, Samaria and the Strip under one authority and
eventually becoming the government of a Palestinian state.
Recently, pressure has also mounted on
Netanyahu from within his War Cabinet as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
and National Unity Party leaders Benny Gantz and Gadi Eizenkot have
signaled that formulating a post-Hamas political plan will help the war
effort.
Left-wing groups are also hard at work devising strategies to coerce Israel to adopt U.S. proposals.
Netanyahu has been reluctant to lay out a
post-Hamas plan. He has limited his comments to rejecting the U.S.
solution and calling for Israeli control of the Philadelphi Corridor,
Gaza’s border with Egypt, to prevent smuggling.
The pressure on the government motivated
the Likud MKs to produce the report, as they grew concerned that talk of
the day after would distract from the war effort.
“It is no secret that the Israeli
government is under heavy international pressure that may divert us from
the path of decisive victory,” Chikli tweeted on Jan. 18. “This could
be due to mismanagement of civil and humanitarian aspects, or as a
result of a loose grip on the territory that may allow Hamas to restore
its power.
“Let us recall that the main goal of the
war as defined by the Israeli government is the destruction of the
military capabilities and governmental and organizational infrastructure
of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, so at the end of the war
they will no longer pose a long-term threat to Israel,” he added.
The plan does devote a page to three
“guiding principles” for the day after Hamas: 1. No extreme nationalist
elements must be allowed to control the Strip; 2. A complete disconnect
between Israel and the Gaza Strip; and 3. Rebuilding the Rafah Crossing
on the Egypt-Gaza border, giving Israel supervision of goods entering
the Strip.
“Workers or goods [from Gaza] will no longer be allowed to enter Israeli
territory. Also, Israel must gradually stop the supply of water and
electricity until it is completely cut off,” the program says, calling
as an initial step for the “demolition and permanent closure” of the
Erez Crossing from Israel, located at the northern end of the Gaza
Strip.
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