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How Israel Can Ensure Security in Post-War Gaza
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri
JNS.org – Israel’s calculated and legitimate response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and years of rocket fire on Israel’s civilian population is advancing systematically, leading many to anticipate the eventual dismantling of the terror group and its leadership. However, divergent views have emerged regarding the future governance of Gaza.
A paramount objective is mitigating the security challenges confronting Israel. Post-conflict, Israel’s military and security apparatus will maintain a concerted effort to systematically destroy Hamas’s presence within Gaza, targeting terrorists and dismantling both its military and administrative infrastructures. Simultaneously, a structured, phased strategy will be imperative to institute effective civil governance mechanisms in the coastal enclave.
One proposal for post-Hamas Gaza has come from Israeli Knesset member and former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon. His plan came in response to pressure from the Biden administration, which has recently been demanding that the close of this war result in two states for two peoples, with Gaza being governed by the Palestinian Authority.
Danon’s proposal rejects the P.A. as the ruling party. Instead, he foresees the best governing solution as the establishment of an international framework that will consist of the region’s countries and the broader international community.
In his plan, Danon lists five core steps for Gaza after the war. These comprise complete demilitarization of the Gaza Strip; the establishment of a defensive security buffer zone along the border with Israel; an upgrade of the Rafah crossing on the Gazan side, which he envisions as being overseen by a combination of Israeli and international forces; the enabling of voluntary emigration for Gazans who wish to relocate; and finally, economic rehabilitation within Gaza on the premise of the renunciation of incitement and terror.
Danon explained: “My five-point plan will provide a solution that will ensure the security of Israel’s residents in the southern communities and will also allow the Gazans to build a normal life free from the trappings of hate and terror. Given the devastation and trauma [inflicted on Israel by] Oct. 7…we cannot abide…a solution that involves Gaza being ruled by any authority that supports and promotes terror. We will never risk the lives of our citizens in this way.”
Danon told JNS that in Gaza, Israel will retain the freedom “to act against any terror threat, as we do in Judea and Samaria.”
Israel will not count on the international community to fight terrorism, “but we are counting on them to deal with the civilian issue and rebuild society in Gaza,” he added.
In a similar vein, former National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror said on a JINSA conference call on Thursday that Israel will require a buffer zone on the Gaza side of the fence and will also need to maintain freedom of action as it has in the West Bank and Syria to prevent and eliminate threats to the Jewish state.
There are several stages of operation that Israel is considering. Initially and of immediate concern is killing or capturing all Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and destroying all terror infrastructure. At the same time, Israel is working with the Biden administration to ensure the transfer of aid to the Palestinian population.
Dr. Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, and Col. (res.) Prof. Gabi Siboni, an expert on cyber security, military strategy and technology at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, noted that at a later stage, “Complex needs will need to be addressed, such as education, employment, advanced health services, environment, communications and infrastructure, among other needs.”
The question of who will be addressing these needs has yet to be solved. Israel has expressed disinterest in taking on this responsibility and instead would like to see the Abraham Accords group of nations, together with the United States, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, adopt the role of rebuilding Gaza and rehabilitating its residents while ensuring the end of all incitement against Israel.
Israel also needs to prepare for the political chaos that will take place in Gaza after the transition period from high-intensity to low-intensity conflict, after achieving full operational freedom there.
As part of Israel’s complete breakaway from Gaza, Michael and Siboni suggested that Israel’s coordination and liaison administration, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), “be dismantled to ensure complete Israeli civilian disengagement from the Gaza Strip. A similar process should be examined in Judea and Samaria to create an alternative organizational structure to the P.A.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the P.A. being given influence in Gaza, citing its historical failures, corruption and anti-Israeli sentiments. The P.A. is known for inciting violence, supporting terrorism and lacking legitimacy.
According to Michael and Siboni, “Three decades of P.A. rule have shown it to be—through most of that time—a failed, corrupt and illegitimate entity, devoid of domestic legitimacy. The P.A. has also become a major instrument in building a Palestinian consensus that denies the right of the Jewish people to self-determination. The P.A. has systematically incited against Israel and the Jews and delegitimized Israel.”
They also noted that to date, no P.A. official has condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. “In addition, many schools under the P.A.’s jurisdiction glorify the massacre. It is clear that after the war it will be necessary to reexamine the situation in Judea and Samaria as well,” they said.
“There’s a need to revise the educational curriculum in Palestinian territories to eliminate content that incites violence against Israel,” they added.
Similarly, Israel’s National Security Council Director Tzachi Hanegbi said in a Saudi editorial published last week that Israel seeks a “reformed” P.A., and focused on the need to denazify the next generation growing up in Gaza and Judea and Samaria.
Michael and Siboni also called for an end to the P.A.’s “pay-for-slay” policy of paying salaries and allowances to terrorists detained and imprisoned in Israel, or to the families of terrorists.
According to Michael and Siboni, one of the most important demands Israel must now make of any new Palestinian leadership is that Palestinians must drop “the two foundational pillars of the Palestinian ethos: the ‘right of return’ and the ‘armed struggle.’ To this end, all mechanisms for perpetuating Palestinian refugeehood—the refugee camps and UNRWA—must be dismantled.”
Overall, Michael and Siboni’s message is that Israel must ensure a strategic reevaluation and restructuring of governance and security in the Gaza Strip and the wider Palestinian territories, with a focus on regional collaboration.
As part of its plan to eradicate terrorism in the Gaza Strip, Israel will need to maintain security control, including over the Philadelphi corridor, which it left in 2005 due to pressure from then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. This was a costly mistake that led to the massive militarization of Gaza, allowed Hamas to fire approximately 100,000 rockets at Israel, and led to the massive stockpiling of weaponry the IDF sees today in Gaza’s homes, hospitals, mosques, schools and tunnels.
Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS that Israel and Egypt “will need to share national security responsibilities, each on its side of the border.”
He noted that Israel, “like in areas A and B of the areas under nominal P.A. control in Judea and Samaria, will always maintain the right to pursue terrorists” in post-war Gaza.
“It remains unclear who and how internal policing will be handled in Gaza, but it is reasonable to assess that local police forces will secure their local districts,” he said. “What is an essential pre-condition to future security for both Gazans and Israel is that the IDF destroys Hamas militarily and politically with an overwhelming victory,” he said.
“The Arab world as well as the Iranian regime and its terror proxies are watching carefully,” he warned.
However, David Weinberg, a senior fellow at Misgav: The Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, and Israel’s Defense and Security Forum, told JNS that post-Hamas Gaza “is mostly the world’s problem, not Israel’s, because the resolution is tied to broader regional battles.”
“Israel is done with coddling Gaza,” said Weinberg. “Relief and rehabilitation for Gazan Palestinians is now the world’s problem, not Israel’s.”
Weinberg suggested that Israel is “exempt from answering this question—certainly now when it must laser-focus only on outright military victory. The demand that Israel answer this question now is pointedly meant to prevent Israel from doing what needs to be done in Gaza, so it must be rebuffed.”
Weinberg agreed with other experts that Israel will need to create “a new security buffer zone inside Gaza and along its entire perimeter (maybe including the Philadelphi corridor on the border with Egypt) which Israel will control indefinitely.”
The post How Israel Can Ensure Security in Post-War Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.