The buffer zone.

 

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Israel notified the United States about its intentions to establish a one-kilometre buffer zone along the Gaza-Israel border soon after Israel declared war on Hamas.

The report cited an unnamed Israeli official who said that a "temporary security buffer zone would likely be part of the demilitarisation process of the Gaza enclave.

“Such a buffer zone could ensure security in the Gaza periphery communities targeted in the Hamas massacres on October 7.”

The WSJ report also noted that construction of such a buffer zone is liable to exacerbate tensions between Israel and the U.S. and its other Western allies who have warned against ‘shrinking Gaza.’

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "We’ve been very clear about opposition to any permanent change to Gaza’s territorial configuration." Blinken was reiterating Washington's stance against occupation of the Strip by the IDF or permanent displacement of its residents.

It is unclear whether the U.S. discouraged Israel when the buffer zone idea was first brought up. But Washington appears to acknowledge Israel's quest for security guarantees after the war with Hamas ends.

"They’re not just going to pick up and leave a complete security vacuum in Gaza, so there’s going to have to be a transition period of some sort," the U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said earlier in January.

On Monday the IDF suffered the worst single loss in the Gaza ground operation.  The Wall Street Journal describing the incident said twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed, 21 of them reservists, when Hamas terrorists attacked the force with rocket-propelled grenades. The Israeli forces were operating inside Gaza around 600 metres west of Kibbutz Kissufim in southern Israel.

"In discussing the deaths of the soldiers, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi used the term 'buffer zone.' He said they had been killed while operating 'in the buffer zone between Israeli communities and Gaza' as part of efforts to 'create security conditions' for Israelis to return to their homes near the border with Gaza."

Halevi met with commanders at the scene of the incident, and was briefed on the initial investigation of the blast.

“We, as always, will investigate the matter in depth and learn the lessons while the fighting continues. The initial probe is being conducted with the aim of preventing a recurrence of the incident”  

On the ground, fighting raged in Khan Yunis, Gaza's main southern city, which the IDF has "encircled".

I have often wondered how Hamas leaders in the Gaza strip manage to communicate with one another undetected by Israel’s sophisticated eavesdropping technology. Hamas is said to have employed a landline phone network since 2009. However, war damage to the landline has forced Hamas to revert to even lower-tech methods.

Hamas leaders, hunkered down in subterranean bunkers in the Gaza Strip, are reportedly communicating with each other using handwritten notes carried around the war-torn territory by runners.

The memos are even enabling communication with senior officials abroad, the Saudi-owned Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported recently.

 

Jamie Dettmer opinion editor at POLITICO Europe said,” Today, Israelis don’t believe a Jewish state can live alongside a Palestinian one.

As it stands, they have lost all faith in a two-state solution — not that they had much to begin with, even before Hamas’ October 7 attacks on southern Israel. Rather, they want bigger and better fortifications and greater vigilance in the wake of the intelligence and security lapses that failed to prevent what was clearly a long-planned pogrom.

“Israelis are in a belligerent mood,” pollster Dahlia Scheindlin told POLITICO. She was speaking after a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 75 percent of Jewish Israelis think the country should ignore mounting pressure from the United States to wind down the war in Gaza. And another poll by Gallup recently showed that 65 percent oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

This hardening of Israeli opinion regarding a two-state solution is in lockstep with clear signs that the October 7 attacks will tilt the country further right, dominated in its vanguard by the ideas of West Bank settlers who want Israel to have the footprint of all the biblical lands of the Jews. This is in keeping with a historical pattern, Scheindlin said — whenever Israel is dealt a major violent shock, right-wing parties and politicians benefit.

However, if elections are held soon, this won’t necessarily benefit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself or his Likud Party. Most Israelis blame Netanyahu for the bloody security debacle, and seething with anger, they just want him gone — whether sooner or later. But according to Scheindlin, the basic direction of political orientation is unlikely to budge with or without him.

This suggests that the overarching question about Palestinians’ future and their national aspirations will continue to be sidelined — let alone serious talk of the two-state solution.

From 7 October onward, Israelis have clung to the one hope that unified this normally fractious and now broken society: freeing the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. The faces of those stolen people haunt us on every street. Hope soared when nearly half of the hostages were released in a temporary ceasefire deal last November, and Israelis took to the streets demanding more.

But Israel’s government is hardly rushing to cut another such deal. The first one forced it to make painful concessions. Israel released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, which encourages further hostage-taking; such deals can include dangerous prisoners, and the whole situation left some Israeli families elated as their loved ones returned, while others remain in agony wondering if their loved ones will be released before it is too late.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, US sources estimate that Israel has killed 20% to 30% of Hamas forces in Gaza. Those figures, somewhat less than the Israeli assessment, are nothing to scoff at or declare a failure.

In three months, Israel has taken out about a third of Hamas. From the beginning, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this war would not be six days or even three weeks. A year was mentioned as part of the painstaking process of dismantling tunnels in Gaza and going door-to-door in search of terrorists and the hostages.

The IDF seems to be on track with that yearlong framework. Between external pressure over the high civilian casualties in Gaza and internal pressures over the inability to free more hostages following the November ceasefire deal, it remains to be seen if Israel will be given the time to complete the task.

A premature end to the war will leave a battered Hamas still intact and able to recover and regain its stranglehold on Gaza and the Palestinians it has held hostage since 2006. And that’s something Israel can’t live with. Just ask Khaled Mashaal. The Hamas leader reiterated in an interview last week that post-October 7, “our Palestinian project is our right in Palestine from the river to the sea.”

The families of the hostages and their supporters are perfectly justified and correct in their ongoing protests and calls for a ceasefire and a deal to bring their loved ones home. Anyone with a family member who has been cruelly held captive for more than three months should be demanding action and accountability from their government.

A government must also look at the bigger picture, however, and in this case, it is the threat posed by Hamas that is the overriding factor in fuelling this war.

The problem is a significant breach of trust regarding Netanyahu’s motives among a large population segment. We don’t know what they are, whether they are for country’s good, or for the survival of the government he leads, or to stave off the inevitable storm of blame that will likely sweep him away after the war.

If the current government was dissolved and new elections were held, there’s a good chance that the next prime minister would be someone other than Netanyahu.

But despite the change at the helm or within the coalition’s makeup, the next prime minister would almost certainly adopt the same policy as Netanyahu: no withdrawal from Gaza and a continuation of fighting until Hamas is no longer in charge.

The IDF must be given time to carry out that mission in Gaza. But time is running out regarding the hostages.

Before I conclude I want to add a disclaimer regarding some of the opinions I have mentioned. I quote them because they are relevant.

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni,

 

25^th of January, 2024.