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The debate over what should happen in Gaza after the war, explained
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel and the United States agree on how the Israel-Hamas war started — with the terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre. They agree on how it should end — with the removal of Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip.
But there are differences over how to get there, which are becoming more pronounced. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden openly criticized Israel’s conduct in the war.
“Israel’s security can rest on the United States, but right now it has more than the United States,” Biden said at a fundraiser at a Washington hotel convened by Lee “Rosy” Rosenberg, a major donor to Democrats and pro-Israel causes.
“It has the European Union, it has Europe, it has most of the world,” he said. “But they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
Over 18,000 Gazans have been killed so far in the fighting, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, and over 1,200 Israelis were killed on Oct. 7. Close to 250 people were taken hostage by Hamas, and over 100 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat.
There are even greater differences between Israel and the United States over what happens the day after the war ends. Does Israel stay in the Gaza Strip? If so, for how long? And who takes its place?
“Yes, there is disagreement about ‘the day after Hamas’ and I hope that we will reach agreement here as well,” Netanyahu said Tuesday in a statement, describing what he called an “intensive dialogue” he had just completed with Biden.
Netanyahu made clear what the differences are: Biden has pushed for the Palestinian Authority — which governs Palestinian population centers in the West Bank — to take control of Gaza. Netanyahu rejected that idea, referencing the Oslo Accords, the 1993 agreement that created the P.A., which is led by the Fatah Party.
“I will not allow Israel to repeat the mistake of Oslo,” Netanyahu said. He referenced longstanding Israeli complaints about the P.A.: that it glorifies violence against Israelis and pays stipends to convicted Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prison.
“After the great sacrifice of our civilians and our soldiers, I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism and finance terrorism,” he said. “Gaza will be neither Hamastan nor Fatahstan.”
Netanyahu has said Israel will retain security control of the Gaza Strip after the war, though he has not elaborated on who will govern its day-to-day affairs or how long the Israeli security presence would last. That’s frustrating the Biden administration, said David Makovsky, a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, which has ties with the Israeli and U.S. governments.
“The Americans want to know, like, OK, you have a military strategy. I get that. And maybe a very reasonable one, but tell me how it leads to political outcomes? The outcome is no Hamas. Okay. That’s good. That’s necessary. But is it sufficient?’”
Here’s a look at the outcomes the United States, Israel and other actors are talking about.
Will the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza?
The Biden administration, for several weeks after Hamas’ massacre, talked about bringing the Palestinian Authority into the Gaza Strip.
“We must also work on the affirmative elements to get to a sustained peace,” Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, said in Tokyo during a summit of the G7 industrial giants on Nov. 8. “These must include the Palestinian people’s voices and aspirations at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza. It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”
Netanyahu has emphatically counted out any P.A. role in the Gaza Strip, pointing to its continued payments to the families of jailed and killed terrorists and what he says is continued incitement in its textbooks and media.
That may explain why Blinken has been more circumspect in recent statements, in which he has envisioned the establishment of an independent Palestinian state uniting Gaza and the West Bank but hasn’t named the Palestinian Authority.
“When the major military operation is over, this is not over, because we have to have a durable, sustainable peace, and we have to make sure that we’re on the path to a durable, sustainable peace,” Blinken said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “From our perspective, I think from the perspective of many around the world, that has to lead to a Palestinian state.”
Netanyahu is not the only obstacle to such an outcome. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, is not too eager to be seen as assuming control of the Gaza Strip on the heels of an Israeli invasion. Polls show that Abbas, who hasn’t run in (or won) an election in nearly two decades, has low approval ratings among Palestinians.
“I will not return on top of an Israeli tank,” the Associated Press quoted Abbas as telling his confidants last month.
The P.A. itself is seen as corrupt and weakened by decades of cooperating with Israeli security measures in the parts of the West Bank it governs. Some major West Bank cities, such as Jenin, are home to large concentrations of militant groups.
But a paper published this week by Israel Policy Forum scholars Michael Koplow and Shira Efron says the end of the war is an opportunity for Israel to expand its relationship with the P.A. — and demand that it undergo reforms that address Israel’s concerns. IPF has long advocated for a two-state solution.
“Despite hopes to the contrary, no other players in the international community are willing to entertain long-term commitments to Gaza, let alone ruling the Strip, leaving the PA as the only viable option,” Efron and Koplow write.
Will Netanyahu preserve his hardline coalition?
Efron and Koplow added, however, that Netanyahu is rejecting cooperation with the P.A. in Gaza because of pressure from far-right parties in his coalition. Those parties, they said, wield an “absolute veto” over strengthening the P.A.
Regarding Netanyahu’s political interests, Makovsky was blunter.
“He can’t say the word ‘P.A.’ — he can’t say it,” Makovsky said. “If the government seems completely shut down over being able to talk about the day after, that’s a function of the politics.”
On Tuesday, Biden suggested that it was time for Netanyahu to cut off his far-right partners, whom the president has long reviled.
“Bibi’s got a tough decision to make,” he said at the fundraising event, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “This is the most conservative government in Israel’s history,” that “doesn’t want a two-state solution.”
He called for Netanyahu to bring in the center-left opposition and drop the extremists. Netanyahu “has to strengthen and change” the government, he said.
That’s not going to happen as long as the far right is ready to keep Netanyahu in office and shield him from the political consequences of the Oct. 7 attack, said Nimrod Novik, another IPF scholar and a member of the executive committee of Commanders for Israel Security, which also favors a two-state outcome.
“The longer [the war] is, the farther the trauma of Oct. 7,” Novilk said. “The longer it is, the farther the investigations of the responsibility for it all. Maybe people will forget, maybe something good will happen and he’ll get credit for it.”
Jonathan Schanzer, a vice president with the right-leaning Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Netanyahu had every incentive to pursue the war until victory somewhat repairs his legacy shattered by Oct. 7.
“He said ‘everybody will have to give answers’ [about what went wrong] when the war is over,” Schanzer said. “And he’s hoping that he can postpone that discussion until such a time that events on the ground will have swung in his favor.”
Will Israel reoccupy Gaza?
Although Netanyahu has discussed maintaining control of security in Gaza, he has not yet said the word “occupation”: For one thing, it would set off a firestorm at home. Before Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, many Israelis remember weeks of military reserves duty spent occupying the dangerous strip of land, and the costs it incurred in lives and resources.
For another, the Biden administration has said indefinite Israeli occupation of Gaza is not an option.
At the G7 summit in Tokyo last month, Blinken rejected every possible iteration of occupation that has apparently bubbled up under consideration by Netanyahu, according to leaks to the Israeli media. These include resettlement of Israelis in Gaza, military occupation, “buffer zones” that Israel would control along Gaza’s border, a return to blockading the strip — which was the status in place until Oct. 6 — and the removal of a portion of the Palestinians, an action that would bolster charges of ethnic cleansing against Israel.
“The only way to ensure that this crisis never happens again is to begin setting the conditions for durable peace and security, and to frame our diplomatic efforts now with that in mind,” Blinken said. “The United States believes key elements should include no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza — not now, not after the war. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza.”
Many Palestinian commentators have focused their attention on the Gaza death toll over the past two months. But Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian negotiator, wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday that ongoing Israeli occupation of Gaza would be the worst possible option.
“The future of Gaza — like that of the West Bank — is for Palestinians to decide,” she wrote. “That is the essence of self-determination. The international community must not continue to place Israel first, as has been done for decades.”
She added, “Palestinians must live freely, without the faintest sense of an Israeli noose around our necks.”
Will Israel’s Arab partners play a role in Gaza’s future?
Blinken has shuttled between Arab capitals for weeks seeking buy-in for the postwar scenario. But in public comments after meeting foreign ministers from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,and Turkey, as well as a Palestinian Authority senior official, he was vague about what that scenario involves — beyond expressing hope for a Palestinian state.
Behind the scenes, reports have said, he has been more explicit, seeking pledges of funding for whatever form the government of Gaza takes after the war. He has also weighed asking Arab countries to commit troops to Gaza to help maintain the peace.
Arab states, which have been calling for a ceasefire, have not bitten at that offer, for myriad reasons: They, like Israel, distrust Abbas, who has gained a reputation for corruption and fecklessness. And while four Arab states have normalized relations with Israel in recent years, they are not ready to join with it in a military effort to keep Gaza calm.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the United Arab Emirates, which has cultivated increasingly close ties with Israel in recent years, said it would help with the reconstruction of Gaza only if there’s progress toward a two-state solution.
“We need to see a viable two-state solution plan, a road map that is serious before we talk about the next day and rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza,” said the Emirati ambassador to the United Nations, Lana Nusseibeh.
In their paper, Efron and Koplow propose a U.S.-led rehabilitation of Gaza that melds Arab buy-in with reconstituting the Palestinian Authority in the territory. Preparing for that future, they wrote, needs to begin even as the fighting is ongoing.
“Stabilizing Gaza, resuming necessary services, rebuilding infrastructure, and preventing the return of Hamas — assuming that Israel is successful in removing it from effective power — will require a concerted effort from multiple stakeholders: Israel, the Palestinians, Middle Eastern countries, the international community, and particularly the United States,” said the paper.
Ghaith al-Omari, a former adviser to Palestinian officials and a fellow at the Washington Institute, told the Washington Post last week that bringing in the P.A. was a prerequisite to getting other Arab countries to play a role in postwar Gaza.
Arab nations, “to even be able to engage with us, they need that framing, the two-state solution framing and the transitional framing,” he told the Post. “Because this way they can always claim, ‘We’re doing this to support the Palestinians.’”
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Examining Three Remarkable Women From Jewish History in These Turbulent Times
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
Anyone interested in history will know that the Yalta Conference was a meeting between the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union that took place in February 1945 towards the end of the Second World War. There is a famous photograph of Roosevelt and Stalin sitting next to an unhappy Winston Churchill, who realized he was being marginalized. As we now know, Stalin suckered Roosevelt into believing him to be someone that could be worked with, when he was actually a murderous fanatic. And it seems so far that Putin is going to sucker Trump over Ukraine, and I fear Iran will too.
Like Roosevelt, Trump wants a deal. But as Barack Obama has shown, naive appeasement is the road to disaster. Only time will tell if the case with Iran is going to be another example.
But here, by way of distraction, I am writing about a person. This Yalta was a distinguished lady from a noble and wealthy family who lived in Babylon between the end of the Second and the Third centuries. She had a strong sense of self-worth, and self-confidence in an era of almost total male dominance. She was, according to Rashi, the daughter of the Exilarch, the head of the Jewish community in Babylon. She was familiar with Jewish law. But she had a temper. When she thought she was being slighted, she smashed four hundred barrels of wine after a guest offended her and women in general (TB Brachot 51b.)
Yalta showed her expertise in kashrut matters. In a debate that hinted at current questions of what constitutes meat if it is produced artificially, she asked her husband about kosher food that would taste like meat cooked in milk. She argued the halachic case expertly. And he accepted the argument (TB Chullin 109b). She also argued the law in other matters such as purity.
Yalta was a doctor too. She personally took Rav Amram to the bathhouse to soak in hot water for a cure when he was stricken with an unknown disease (TB Gittin 67b). And she offered her husband counsel on how to deal with someone who was arguing with him disrespectfully (TB Kidushin 70b). Perhaps these were not in themselves major issues — but they were indicative of her importance in that society, where the only chance women had beyond the home depended either on independent wealth or a compliant husband.
The more famous Talmudic woman however, was Bruria, the daughter of the saintly Chaninah Ben Teradion (an outstanding scholar, from a very wealthy family and martyred by the Romans). She was the wife of Rebbi Meir, who lived in Israel during the second century CE. He is the third most frequently mentioned rabbi in the Mishnah.
She was admired for her breadth of knowledge. She was said to have learned 300 laws from the rabbis on a single cloudy day (TB Pesachim 62b) and was happy to challenge rabbis she thought less knowledgeable than she was. She was also renowned for her sharp wit and often caustic jibes, attacking males for underestimating women. Rebbi Meir was sorely troubled by local louts and prayed that they should die. Bruria argued that he should rather pray that evil disappear. Not people.
The third important woman is Rav Chisda’s daughter. Her actual name is never mentioned. She was gifted with the power of prophecy. She predicted her marriage to her father’s two students (consecutively). First, she was the wife of the Rami Bar Chama, and after his death she married Rava (both were Amoraim of the third generation). She is mentioned many times in the Talmud and commentaries in the Talmud and its commentaries only as “the daughter of Rav Chisda.” The Talmud (TB Bava Batra 12b) says she sat on her father’s lap as he taught Torah in the academy and taught her and her sisters Torah and laws, personally. There were rabbis in those days and later who recognized the value of female scholarship and empowerment — even in times when the rest of the world resolutely refused to encourage it.
Right now, we need people who demonstrate leadership through creativity and flexibility. Most are being silenced by the plague of conformity and the fear of stepping out of line. But the reality is that more and more women within the Orthodox world are studying to the highest levels and making their mark. There are signs of their campaigning to achieve political power too. More power to their elbows (so long as they are covered of course)! You can’t keep a good woman down forever. And more young men are volunteering to serve in the army.
Trump seems to have learnt the lesson of Yalta. But will his natural desire for a long-term deal end up with his being suckered by Iran’s ideology of deceit to achieve victory? Time will tell. Meanwhile, I pray Israel will take a long hard look at its divisive politics.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
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Battling to Survive, Hamas Faces Defiant Clans and Doubts Over Iran
Hamas terrorists carry grenade launchers at the funeral of Marwan Issa, a senior Hamas deputy military commander who was killed in an Israeli airstrike during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in the central Gaza Strip, Feb. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Short of commanders, deprived of much of its tunnel network, and unsure of support from its ally Iran, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is battling to survive in Gaza in the face of rebellious local clans and relentless Israeli military pressure.
Hamas fighters are operating autonomously under orders to hold out as long as possible, but the Islamist group is struggling to maintain its grip as Israel openly backs tribes opposing it, three sources close to Hamas said.
With a humanitarian crisis in Gaza intensifying international pressure for a ceasefire, Hamas badly needs a pause in the fighting, one of the people said.
Not only would a ceasefire offer respite to weary Gazans, who are growing increasingly critical of Hamas, but it would also allow the Islamist group to crush rogue elements, including some clans and looters who have been stealing aid, the person said.
To counter the immediate threat, Hamas has sent some of its top fighters to kill one rebellious leader, Yasser Abu Shabab, but so far he has remained beyond their reach in the Rafah area held by Israeli troops, according to two Hamas sources and two other sources familiar with the situation.
Reuters spoke to 16 sources including people close to Hamas, Israeli security sources, and diplomats who painted a picture of a severely weakened group, retaining some sway and operational capacity in Gaza despite its setbacks, but facing stiff challenges.
Hamas is still capable of landing blows: it killed seven Israeli soldiers in an attack in southern Gaza on Tuesday. But three diplomats in the Middle East said intelligence assessments showed it had lost its centralized command and control and was reduced to limited, surprise attacks.
An Israeli military official estimated Israel had killed 20,000 or more Hamas fighters and destroyed or rendered unusable hundreds of miles of tunnels under the coastal strip. Much of Gaza has been turned to rubble in 20 months of conflict.
One Israeli security source said the average age of Hamas fighters was “getting lower by the day.” Israeli security sources say Hamas is recruiting from hundreds of thousands of impoverished, unemployed, displaced young men.
Hamas does not disclose how many of its fighters have died.
“They’re hiding because they are being instantly hit by planes, but they appear here and there, organizing queues in front of bakeries, protecting aid trucks, or punishing criminals,” said Essam, 57 a construction worker in Gaza City.
“They’re not like before the war, but they exist.”
Asked for comment for this story, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said the group was working for an agreement to end the war with Israel but “surrender is not an option.”
Hamas remained committed to negotiations and was “ready to release all prisoners at once,” he said, referring to Israeli hostages, but it wanted the killing to stop and Israel to withdraw.
‘IT DOESN’T LOOK GOOD’
Hamas is a shadow of the group that attacked Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking another 251 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas.
The damage inflicted by Israel is unlike anything Hamas has suffered since its creation, with most of its top military commanders in Gaza killed. Founded in 1987, Hamas had gradually established itself as the main rival of the Fatah faction led by President Mahmoud Abbas and finally seized Gaza from his control in 2007.
With a US-brokered truce in the Iran-Israel war holding, attention has switched back to the possibility of a Gaza deal that might end the conflict and release the remaining hostages.
One of the people close to Hamas told Reuters it would welcome a truce, even for a couple of months, to confront the local clans that are gaining influence.
But he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s terms for ending the war – including Hamas leaders leaving Gaza – would amount to total defeat, and Hamas would never surrender.
“We keep the faith, but in reality it doesn’t look good,” the source said.
Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said he believed Hamas was simply trying to survive. That was not just a physical challenge of holding out militarily, he said, but above all a political one.
“They face being eliminated on the ground in Gaza if the war doesn’t stop, but they also face being erased from any governing formula that ends the war in Gaza (if such a thing can be found),” he wrote in response to Reuters’ questions.
Palestinian tribes have emerged as part of Israel’s strategy to counter Hamas. Netanyahu has said publicly that Israel has been arming clans that oppose Hamas, but has not said which.
One of the most prominent challenges has come from Abu Shabab, a Palestinian Bedouin based in the Rafah area, which is under Israeli control.
Hamas wants Abu Shabab captured, dead or alive, accusing him of collaboration with Israel and planning attacks on the terrorist group, three Hamas sources told Reuters.
Abu Shabab controls eastern Rafah and his group is believed to have freedom of movement in the wider Rafah area. Images on their Facebook page show their armed men organizing the entry of aid trucks from the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Announcements by his group indicate that it is trying to build an independent administration in the area, though they deny trying to become a governing authority. The group has called on people from Rafah now in other areas of Gaza to return home, promising food and shelter.
In response to Reuters’ questions, Abu Shabab’s group denied getting support from Israel or contacts with the Israeli army, describing itself as a popular force protecting humanitarian aid from looting by escorting aid trucks.
It accused Hamas of violence and muzzling dissent.
A Hamas security official said the Palestinian security services would “strike with an iron fist to uproot the gangs of the collaborator Yasser Abu Shabab,” saying they would show no mercy or hesitation and accusing him of being part of “an effort to create chaos and lawlessness.”
Not all of Gaza’s clans are at odds with Hamas, however.
On Thursday, a tribal alliance said its men had protected aid trucks from looters in northern Gaza. Sources close to Hamas said the group had approved of the alliance’s involvement.
Israel said Hamas fighters had in fact commandeered the trucks, which both the clans and Hamas denied.
IRAN UNCERTAINTY
Palestinian analyst Akram Attallah said the emergence of Abu Shabab was a result of the weakness of Hamas, though he expected him to fail ultimately because Palestinians broadly reject any hint of collaboration with Israel.
Nevertheless, regardless of how small Abu Shabab’s group is, the fact Hamas has an enemy from the same culture was dangerous, he said. “It remains a threat until it is dealt with.”
Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran has added to the uncertainties facing Hamas. Tehran’s backing for Hamas played a big part in developing its armed wing into a force capable of shooting missiles deep into Israel.
While both Iran and Israel have claimed victory, Netanyahu on Sunday indicated the Israeli campaign against Tehran had further strengthened his hand in Gaza, saying it would “help us expedite our victory and the release of all our hostages.”
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that great progress was being made on Gaza, adding that the strike on Iran would help get the hostages released.
A Palestinian official close to Hamas said the group was weighing the risk of diminished Iranian backing, anticipating “the impact will be on the shape of funding and the expertise Iran used to give to the resistance and Hamas.”
One target of Israel’s campaign in Iran was a Revolutionary Guards officer who oversaw coordination with Hamas. Israel said Saeed Izadi, whose death it announced on Saturday, was the driving force behind the Iran–Hamas axis.
Hamas extended condolences to Iran on Thursday, calling Izadi a friend who was directly responsible for ties with “the leadership of the Palestinian resistance.”
A source from an Iran-backed group in the region said Izadi helped develop Hamas capabilities, including how to carry out complex attacks, including rocket launches, infiltration operations, and drones.
Asked about how the Israeli campaign against Iran might affect its support for Hamas, Abu Zuhri said Iran was a large and powerful country that would not be defeated.
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Israeli Strikes Targeting Hezbollah Pummel South Lebanon Hilltops
Smoke billows from the Nabatieh district, following Israeli strikes, as seen from Marjayoun, in southern Lebanon, June 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Karamallah Daher
More than a dozen Israeli air strikes battered a row of hilltops in southern Lebanon on Friday, security sources said, with the Israeli military saying it had attacked a damaged military site that terrorist group Hezbollah was seeking to restore.
The simultaneous strikes hit a mountainous strip near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, according to the Lebanese security sources, who said Iran-backed Hezbollah likely still had arms depots there. There was no immediate comment from the Islamist group.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets had attacked a site used to manage Hezbollah’s “fire and defense system.” It said the site was destroyed in last year’s war but that Hezbollah was attempting to resume activities there in breach of the November truce that ended the conflict.
Lebanon‘s President Joseph Aoun on Friday fired the same accusation back at Israel, saying it was continually violating the US-brokered ceasefire deal by keeping up strikes on Lebanon.
The ceasefire deal stipulates that southern Lebanon must be free of any non-state arms or fighters, Israeli troops must leave southern Lebanon as Lebanese troops deploy there. and all fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border must stop.
Israeli troops remain in at least five posts within Lebanese territory and its air force regularly kills rank-and-file Hezbollah members or people affiliated with the group.
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