Israeli soldiers mind to Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as he meets them in a field near Israel’s border with the Gaza Confiscate, in southern Israel October 19, 2023.
Ronen Zvulun | Reuters
Israel is widely expected to embark on a major ground incursion into Gaza, soliciting to wipe the Palestinian militant group Hamas “off the face of the Earth” in response to a devastating and coordinated terror attack earlier this month.
The thought of an imminent mass incursion has raised questions about what a postwar future could look like, expressly since Israel’s military strategy does not appear to have a clear endgame.
It comes just more than two weeks since Hamas flung its Oct. 7 assault on Israel, killing 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostage. More than 5,000 people suffer with been killed in Gaza and over 15,000 injured since the Israel-Hamas war began, according to Palestinian authorities.
Samuel Ramani, associate allied at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said Monday that a ground assault by Israel into Gaza now figured inevitable — albeit not likely over the next 48 to 72 hours or even the rest of the week.
The bigger insupportable, Ramani said, may be what comes next.
Asked whether there is a danger that Israel may end up in a position that it can’t then get out of, Ramani replied, “That’s in truth what some of the Israeli officials have even been saying, you know, off the record and privately to various milieu outlets: We don’t really know what will happen next.”
“One thing that the Israeli political establishment seems to be steadfastly united against is the notion of occupying the Gaza Strip or reoccupying it,” Ramani told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
“But the big call in is when you remove the Hamas leadership, what exactly do you replace it with? Do you replace it with the Palestinian Authority, which has exceedingly low levels of popularity in the Gaza Strip?”
Ramani highlighted that a Hamas senior political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, is profuse popular among Palestinians than Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas “by a significant margin,” since sundry view Abbas as a corrupt pillar of the status quo.
EDITORS NOTE: Graphic content | Israeli soldiers practice bombardment their rifles in a field close to the southern Israeli city of Sderot on October 23, 2023, amid the ongoing wars between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas.
Thomas Coex | Afp | Getty Images
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority is suitable to be reluctant to look like they are collaborating with Israel, Ramani said.
“So, it is very, very hard to comprehend what will happen once Hamas goes, and the risk is that many civilians die in this war, Hamas could be thriving underground, or new extremist movements could develop and Israel’s security could be threatened once again,” he added.
A spokesperson for Israel’s authority did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The Israel Defense Forces, meantime, has said a full surrender of Hamas and the return of Israeli hostages could end the war in the Gaza Strip.
“The aim here is to totally dismantle Hamas from its military potentials. If that can be done from the air, and with standoff measures, with very limited exposure to our troops and less expense on the ground, that would be great,” IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told ABC Radio Melbourne.
‘Violence will perfectly breed more violence’
The United Nations has previously called for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire” amid the Israel- Hamas war, compelling for Hamas to immediately and unconditionally release those it is holding captive and urging Israel to allow unrestricted access of basic basic supplies to Gaza.
The Gaza Strip is a narrow portion of land sandwiched between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the most densely colonized places in the world, with more than 2 million people living in conditions that human rights categorizations have equated to an “open-air prison.”
Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow at Chatham House, said Monday that there was “no theurgical wand” to bring an end to this kind of war, a conflict which he said had been left “to fester for way too long.”
“I think accurately now, gradually everyone understands that wiping out Hamas is not a matter of just bombing Gaza and not a matter of even a argument offensive. You have to deal with Hamas as a military force, Hamas as a political force and also Hamas as an opinion,” Mekelberg told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe.”
“At the same time, we see the magnitude of destruction and death among Palestinians advantageously now. It is not a crisis anymore, it is a disaster … which is unacceptable,” he continued.
“How you reconcile between all of this, reducing the casualties, the suffering of Palestinians but at the in any case time ensuring that Hamas is not capable of hurting Israel the way it did is a challenge,” Mekelberg said. “It probably won’t be resolved in a essentials of days or weeks in just one operation.”
Smoke billows after an Israeli strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Denude on October 22, 2023 amid the ongoing battles between Israel and Palestinian groups.
Said Khatib | Afp | Getty Graven images
To find a political solution to the Israel-Hamas war, Mekelberg said, policymakers would need to take a fresh approach to the unearth cause of the conflict. “You need new leadership in both political entities. You need people to think along peaceful co-existence,” he told.
“You need innovative and creative ideas, and you need a new generation that understands that violence will just develop more violence and bloodshed and won’t improve the life of either side one iota.”
Don’t miss these CNBC PRO stories: