By Mayank Chhaya –
As apprehended, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in candid terms that in the aftermath of the current war against Hamas, Israel will oversee Gaza’s security “for an indefinite period.”
It would not quite be reoccupation but could be nearly so, 18 years after Israel left Gaza even though the prime minister is not saying that.
Netanyahu told ABC News’s David Muir that Israel would “have the overall security responsibility.”
“We’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale we couldn’t imagine,” he said.
With that he has clearly signaled that he will continue to test U.S. President Joe Biden’s counsel that reoccupation would be ‘a big mistake.” Although Netanyahu has not quite called for reoccupation it appears to have some of the contours of that for the foreseeable future at least.
To soften the blow, Netanyahu said “Those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas” should be in control of Gaza. That appeared to open the door for the Palestinian Authority and its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas to have a say in the running of Gaza post-war.
According to The New York Times, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said the Palestinian Authority should have a central role in the enclave’s future.
At this stage of the war, as it enters its second month today, Netanyahu faces the “if you broke it, you bought it” inevitability since the relentless bombing of Gaza has caused widespread death and destruction. According to satellite images close to 30 percent of all buildings in Northern Gaza have either been destroyed completely or badly damaged. Gazan authorities’ death toll puts the number at 10,000 plus. Add to that the fact that some two million Gazans’ lives have been violently uprooted.
Together this represents a dire scenario for Israel as well given that its own economy is beginning to show serious cracks. According to JP Morgan Chase & Co. Israel’s economy could contract 11% on an annualized basis in the last three months of this year. The war is expected to cost 200 billion shekels or about USD 51 billion, which is 10 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).
With that as the backdrop, Netanyahu’s plan to takeover Gaza’s security for an indefinite period as a version of reoccupation has only one significant factor inhibiting it—the country’s strained economy which is likely to be stretched even more.
