With the Gaza war now into its seventh month and no clear end in sight, Israeli and global commentators have shown discomfort and discouragement with the conflict’s course and possible outcomes. It seems as if nothing is going according to plan. Phrases like “defeat” and “forever wars” recur. Concern has grown in Israel that the country may be turning into a pariah state. Gazans are faced with unimaginable and unmet humanitarian needs, while talk of reconstruction cannot even begin. The discomfort and discouragement are understandable, but the surprise is much less justified: everything is going according to plan.
And what is that plan? Israel was clear in its strategic goals from the outset: to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. Those vaguely defined objectives were to be met through a variety of quite openly discussed means that would entail the massive dislocation of Gaza’s population for an undefined period, significant destruction of infrastructure, and elimination of United Nations bodies that had provided education and other social services for many Gazans.
The goal of eliminating Hamas was ambitious, and it was not one to be finally achieved so much as continuously managed: from the beginning Israeli officials were very clear that they anticipated an indefinite Israeli security presence in Gaza. Officials have spoken off the record—and have been echoed by former officials on the record—that they anticipate a situation like “Area B” in the West Bank. They seem to be referring here not to the original Oslo Accords provisions but to current arrangements in which the Israeli security forces have complete freedom of movement and Palestinian Authority civil structures operate to the extent that Israeli security arrangements allow them to do so.
To be fair, for all the horrific consequences of such an approach, there was a strong logic behind it: past attempts to work out a modus vivendi with Hamas had collapsed; a series of unspeakable atrocities had just been committed. Just below the surface was a sense that Israel was already in a “forever war,” whether it liked it or not. Therefore, the plan was how to manage this situation for the foreseeable future.
Given the atmosphere in Israel, those who have argued for a different approach find themselves pushing very steeply uphill. Talk of a two-state solution is repugnant for some Israeli leaders and outmoded for others. Even talk of reintroducing the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Gaza is rejected by officials. When working with the PA has been reluctantly accepted by some centrist and even dovish experts as “pragmatic” and “realistic,” it has come only with unworkable conditions attached that make Palestinian leaders essentially subcontractors rather than state builders.
Those complaining that Israel had no “day after” plan for Gaza have presumably read and heard all this. But what was understood last fall and early spring as a lack of Israeli planning for the day after missed the point. This was the plan for the day after. It just did not include any provisions for Gazans. Governance, social services, and public security (as opposed to Israeli security) were not Israel’s problems and would have to be provided by others—subject to Israeli oversight and approval.
More than six months after the onset of war, most of the post-conflict scenarios discussed in the early stages—among them, the deployment of international or regional peacekeeping forces or a transitional government potentially overseen by the United Nations to administer Gaza—have faded away. They are giving way to a sense that the war may be over in the sense of continued major military offences. Recent developments, including the delay or even cancellation of military operations in Rafah; open U.S. pressure; a notable reduction in Israeli combat forces in Gaza; and promises of an increase in humanitarian aid all combine to suggest that Israel might be veering toward less severe operations that would not include displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
So whether this is the “day after,” whether there will be “no day after,” or whether this is “the new normal,” the situation is clear. Gaza lies in ruins, heavily reliant on humanitarian assistance, with Israel maintaining military control without intentions of withdrawal. Significant areas of Gaza have been transformed into buffer zones, rendering them uninhabitable, effectively turning Gaza into a refugee “super-camp.” Gazans are completely dependent on aid delivered by the United Nations agencies. Hamas’s prewar governance may be effectively destroyed, but the organization seems to maintain a capacity to engage in limited yet disruptive attacks, including eliminating potential competitors for local governance in Gaza.
The joint interim assessment report of the European Union, the World Bank, and the UN is that losses estimated at $18.5 billion have been inflicted on the built-up infrastructure of Gaza, which is equivalent to 97 percent of the total Gross Domestic Product of the West Bank and Gaza in 2022. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza are now “multidimensionally poor” (access to health and education, employment, housing, safety and personal freedom, and monetary poverty). According to the International Labor Organization, 90 percent of pre-conflict jobs have been lost. Clearing unexploded bombs will take years. In the worst-case scenario, where the economy grows by 0.4 percent a year, as has been the case in recent years, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development predicts that it will take Gaza “until 2092, or seven decades, just for it to go back to its economic level of 2022.” And plans to create a framework for reconstruction in Gaza are not even in the works.
While not in the focus, the situation in the West Bank is also dire, with unprecedented levels of land confiscation. The blunt plan of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to turn Palestine into Bantustans is unfolding without obstruction, with no Israeli factions currently supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state. Should there be a shift in the U.S. administration, those who may frame policy have already openly abandoned the idea of the State of Palestine and are bluntly advocating for “Guam and Puerto Rico.”
And it is now clear that if a “revitalized Palestinian Authority” is the key to a better future, this is not happening. “Revitalization” seems to mean little more than younger leaders cut from the same cloth as older ones, coupled with policy changes to meet the demands of Israelis who never trusted the Oslo process during the 1990s. And the result is that there is a new government in Ramallah, but its agenda resembles the reform goals which the former Palestinian prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh announced before being replaced. So far, there is very little evidence of change in the prospect of real Palestinian Authority (PA) governance in Gaza. Hamas-Fatah relations are not getting better and intra-Fatah jockeying for power has not abated. With Israel holding an effective veto over elections in Palestine, it is difficult to envision how the PA will regain democratic legitimacy. Presidential succession remains an issue, and, if anything, the possible resolution through elections in case of a presidential vacancy is now more complicated. Those who talk of “revitalization” have no viable plan to reverse PA decay.
The Israeli military takeover of Gaza and the level of devastation there, coupled with ongoing violence and deepening annexation in the West Bank, make it necessary to repeat that what is looming appears to be less like the day after conflict than a long twilight of disintegration and despair.
* Vladimir Pran has been an adviser on Palestinian electoral and political processes for the National Democratic Institute, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the European Union, and the United Nations.
