Israel and US Are at Odds over Conflicting Visions for Postwar Gaza

An Israeli army self-propelled artillery howitzer fires rounds from a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on December 7, 2023 amid battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
An Israeli army self-propelled artillery howitzer fires rounds from a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on December 7, 2023 amid battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
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Israel and US Are at Odds over Conflicting Visions for Postwar Gaza

An Israeli army self-propelled artillery howitzer fires rounds from a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on December 7, 2023 amid battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)
An Israeli army self-propelled artillery howitzer fires rounds from a position near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern Israel on December 7, 2023 amid battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (AFP)

The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against the Hamas militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. But the allies are increasingly at odds over what will happen to Gaza once the war winds down.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West Bank.

The United States has laid out a much different vision. Top officials have said they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. They have repeatedly called for a return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

These conflicting visions have set the stage for difficult discussions between Israel and the US.

Here’s a closer look at the issues.

SHAKY COMMON GROUND Israel declared war on Hamas after the militant group burst across its southern border on Oct. 7, slaughtering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping more than 240 others. President Joe Biden quickly flew to Israel on a solidarity mission, and his administration has strongly backed Israel’s right to defend itself while providing weapons and military assistance.

Israel has said its goal is to destroy Hamas —- a difficult task given the group’s deep roots in Palestinian society.

The US, which along with other Western countries considers Hamas a terrorist group, has embraced this goal. But as the war drags on, it has expressed misgivings about the dire humanitarian conditions and mounting civilian death toll in Gaza, where health authorities report over 16,000 dead, at least two-thirds of them women and children. Israel says Hamas is to blame by using civilians as human shields.

Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it is critical that Israel protect Gaza’s civilians.

“If you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” he said. “So I have repeatedly made clear to Israel’s leaders that protecting civilians in Gaza is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative.”

On Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken went even farther, telling Israel that “civilian casualties remain too high and that Israel must step up its efforts to reduce them,” his office said. Blinken also called on Israel to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

DIFFERENT VISIONS The biggest differences between the allies have emerged over the longer-term vision for Gaza.

Netanyahu has offered only glimpses of what he plans.

On Tuesday, he said the military would retain open-ended security control over the Gaza Strip long after the war ends, suggesting a form of extended Israeli occupation.

Netanyahu ruled out the idea of foreign peacekeepers, saying only the Israeli army could ensure that Gaza remains demilitarized. Netanyahu has also rejected a return of the Palestinian Authority, saying its leader, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cannot be trusted.

“After destroying Hamas, Gaza will be demilitarized and de-radicalized so that no threat will be posed to Israel from Gaza,” said Ophir Falk, an adviser to Netanyahu. “The buffer zone may be part of the demilitarization. That’s the plan.”

Biden and other top officials have repeatedly said that a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority must play a role in postwar Gaza and that Israel must seek a two-state solution involving the PA. They have ruled out a long-term re-occupation or redrawing of Gaza’s borders.

Vice President Kamala Harris laid out perhaps the clearest US vision during an address in Dubai last weekend.

“Five principles guide our approach for post-conflict Gaza: no forcible displacement, no re-occupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territory, and no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism,” she said. “We want to see a unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian voices and aspirations must be at the center of this work.”

Frustration with Netanyahu may not be limited to the US.

Amos Harel, the military affairs columnist for the Haaretz daily, said Israeli army commanders believe Netanyahu is motivated by domestic political considerations and refusing to deal with the Palestinian Authority “due to coalition constructions from his far-right partners.” Netanyahu and his hardline coalition partners oppose Palestinian independence.

HOW SERIOUS ARE THE DISPUTES? For now, both sides seem to be focused on the shared goal of destroying Hamas.

“It's important for them that Israel achieve the military goals because this is the starting point for any changes that can happen the day after,” said Eldad Shavit, a former high-ranking Israeli intelligence official.

He said US pressure in the short term will be on immediate issues — such as pressure to minimize civilian casualties and to allow more deliveries of humanitarian aid.

The US has indicated that it will show some patience after the fighting subsides.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the US understands “there will have to be some kind of transition period after the end of major combat operations.” He declined to say how long that would take.

But as the death toll in Gaza continues to rise, conditions deteriorate, and Biden enters an election year with significant portions of his Democratic base pushing for an end to Israel’s offensive, these differences are likely to grow in the absence of a clear endgame.

Shavit said that tensions could rise if the US at some point concludes that Israel is dragging its feet or ignoring American demands. But for now, “the Americans want Israel to succeed,” he said.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who is president of the US/Middle East Project, a policy institute that studies the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said the Americans are unlikely to put their foot down.

He cited what he described as a tepid American response to heavy civilian casualties in southern Gaza as an indicator of what lies ahead.

“Israelis have a sense that their road to run is not endless, but they still feel they have lots of road to run,” he said.



Israeli Soldiers Describe Clearance of 'Kill Zone' on Gaza's Edge

Soldiers sit on top of APC's, at the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Soldiers sit on top of APC's, at the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
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Israeli Soldiers Describe Clearance of 'Kill Zone' on Gaza's Edge

Soldiers sit on top of APC's, at the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Soldiers sit on top of APC's, at the Israel-Gaza border, in Israel, March 18, 2025. REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

Israeli troops flattened farmland and cleared entire residential districts in Gaza to open a "kill zone" around the enclave, according to a report on Monday that quoted soldiers testifying about the harsh methods used in the operation.

The report, from the Israeli rights group Breaking the Silence, cited soldiers who served in Gaza during the creation of the buffer zone, which was extended to between 800-1,500 meters inside the enclave by December 2024 and which has since been expanded further by Israeli troops.

Israel says the buffer zone encircling Gaza is needed to prevent a repeat of the October 7, 2023 attack by thousands of Hamas-led fighters and gunmen who poured across the previous 300 metre-deep buffer zone to assault a string of Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip.

"The borderline is a kill zone, a lower area, a lowland," the report quotes a captain in the Armored Corps as saying. "We have a commanding view of it, and they do too."

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report, Reuters reported.

The testimony came from soldiers who were serving in Gaza at the end of 2023, soon after Israeli troops entered the enclave, until early 2024. It did not cover the most recent operations to greatly enlarge the ground held by the military.

In the early expansion of the zone, soldiers said troops using bulldozers and heavy excavators along with thousands of mines and explosives destroyed around 3,500 buildings as well as agricultural and industrial areas that could have been vital in postwar reconstruction. Around 35% of the farmland in Gaza, much of which is around the edges of the territory, was destroyed, according to a separate report by the Israeli rights group Gisha.

"Essentially, everything gets mowed down, everything," the report quoted one reserve soldier serving in the Armored Corps as saying. "Every building and every structure." Another soldier said the area looked "like Hiroshima".

Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers that aims to raise awareness of the experience of troops serving in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, said it had spoken to soldiers who took part in the operation to create the perimeter and quoted them without giving their names.

One soldier from a combat engineering unit described the sense of shock he felt when he saw the destruction already wrought by the initial bombardment of the northern area of the Gaza Strip when his unit was first sent in to begin its clearance operation.

"It was surreal, even before we destroyed the houses when we went in. It was surreal, like you were in a movie," he said.

"What I saw there, as far as I can judge, was beyond what I can justify as needed," he said. "It's about proportionality."

'JUST A PILE OF RUBBLE'

Soldiers described digging up farmland, including olive trees and fields of eggplant and cauliflower as well as destroying industrial zones including one with a large Coca Cola plant and a pharmaceutical company.

One soldier described "a huge industrial area, huge factories, and after it's just a pile of rubble, piles of broken concrete."

The Israeli operation has so far killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, which do not distinguish between civilians and armed fighters. The Israeli military estimates it has killed around 20,000 fighters.

The bombardment has also flattened large areas of the coastal enclave, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in bomb-damaged buildings, tents or temporary shelters.

The report said that many of the buildings demolished were deemed by the military to have been used by Hamas fighters, and it quoted a soldier as saying a few contained the belongings of hostages. But many others were demolished without any such connection.

Palestinians were not allowed to enter the zone and were fired on if they did, but the report quoted soldiers saying the rules of engagement were loose and heavily dependent on commanders on the spot.

"Company commanders make all kinds of decisions about this, so it ultimately very much depends on who they are. But there is no system of accountability in general," the captain in the Armored Corps said.

It quoted another soldier saying that in general adult males seen in the buffer zone were killed but warning shots were fired in the case of women or children.

"Most of the time, the people who breach the perimeter are adult men. Children or women didn't enter this area," the soldier said.