Israel’s plan to seize the city of Gaza and the control of the enclave to the “Arab forces” not only specified has not only drawn the sentence by Western governments and aid agencies, some former officials and experts within Israel say it would be unfeasible.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his security cabinet voted early on Friday for a plan to capture the city in the north of the enclave, one of the few places within the strip that the Israeli army does not control, while distributing help to civilians outside the combat areas.
The five -point plan “to conclude the war” requires the Hamas Prothemer, the return of all hostages and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, which would be under the control of Israeli security. It also proposes that a government be established in Gaza that does not involve the Islamist militants of Hamas, who have governed the enclave since 2007, or the Palestinian authority, the most secular governing body that has supervised parts of the West Bank occupied since the mid -99 years and is recognized internationally.
It is likely that the basic concepts of the plan are unfeasible because it is based on the cooperation of the Arab states that have explicitly said that they will not do so under these terms, according to Giora Eiland, a main head of the Israeli national security withdrawal from the National Security Council of the country.
“I don’t know if Netanyahu has any real basis for what he said, if he has any communication with other countries about Gaza’s future,” Eiland told NBC News in a telephone interview on Friday. “And I’m afraid that his statement”, about the Arab nations that receive control of Gaza, “does not have a real and reliable basis behind her.”
The Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan “clearly indicated again and again” that a previous condition for their participation would be that the Palestinian authority becomes a “leading actor” in the future governance of Gaza, said Nimrod Goren, president of the Mitvim Institute, a tank of Israeli thought.
Netanyahu had previously suggested in the war that, instead of the Palestinian authority or Hamas, wanted the Palestinian “clans” to take control of the enclave, and in fact confirmed in June that Israel was assembling such groups.
But their hopes of these “clans that take over Gaza have not materialized, and it is not expected to do so,” said Goren, who is also a member of the Executive Board of Diplomeds, or the Mediterranean Diplomacy Council, a political group based in the Netherlands.
Ultimately, “the plan approved by the Israeli cabinet is detrimental to Israel’s national security and foreign policy. It is also not realistic in terms of its final game,” Goren added. All this reinforces the “common perception in Israel that Netanyahu is acting due to its own political needs, instead of the national good and the concern for Israeli hostages,” he said.
NBC News has contacted the Netanyahu office to obtain an answer to these criticism.
International protest
Israel’s plan has encountered international protest, with the United Nations and some Western governments warning that it would lead to a greater catastrophe for the Palestinians in Gaza, more than 61,000 of which have been killed in the 22 months of war with Israel.
Large parts of the population of Gaza have been regularly displaced since Israel launched its offensive after October 7, 2023 led by Hamas, attacks in which some 1,200 people were killed in Israel and around 250 taken as hostages. The paralyzing help restrictions in recent months have caused the spiral hunger crisis in Gaza, the United Nations groups have said and help it.
The voices within Israel have been alarmed similarly by the plan, with the families of the hostages and even the chief of cabinet of the Armed Forces of Israel, Eyal Zamir, warning that it will lead to the death of the remaining captives within the enclave.
The aerial photographs this week showed the absolute devastation in the enclave, while the Revised Israel Aid Distribution Plan has fed more chaos and hunger.
Eiland, the retired Israeli general, supports war, like the majority of the population of the country. However, he said that I did not agree with Netanyahu’s plan because he believes that most hostages “will perish” and the Israeli army “would suffer many victims.”
Even if Israel managed to execute his plan in some way, “we will not change anything in the Hamas approach,” Eiland added. “On the contrary, it will only give them justification to continue their guerrilla war against us.”
