Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel released on Friday his most detailed vision yet for a postwar Gaza, pledging to retain indefinite military control over the enclave while ceding the administration of civilian life to Gazans without links to Hamas.
The plan, if realized, would make it almost impossible to establish a contiguous Palestinian state in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, at least in the short term. That would likely accelerate a clash between Israel and a growing number of its foreign partners, including the United States, that are pushing for Palestinian sovereignty after the war ends.
Mr. Netanyahu released his plan on the day that Israeli, Qatari, U.S. and Egyptian officials were set to meet in Paris in an effort to advance a deal for a cease-fire and the release of hostages captured by Hamas and its allies in their Oct. 7 attacks. While Israeli officials have indicated that they are open to making a deal to pause fighting and free captives, they have steadfastly rejected pressure to move toward a permanent cease-fire, insisting that
they are prepared to wage a protracted campaign to destroy Hamas.
Mr. Netanyahu’s document is in effect a position paper that would need to be adopted by the government, though there is no timeline yet for such discussions.
It envisions the creation of an Israeli-controlled buffer zone along the length of Gaza’s border with Egypt, a move that risks inflaming tensions with the Egyptian government. That aspect of the plan
would require Israel to invade Rafah, the southernmost city of Gaza, where most Gazans are currently sheltering, risking their mass displacement onto Egyptian territory, an outcome that
Egypt has repeatedly warned against.
The plan also says Israel will seek to retain control over a sliver of land inside Gaza along the Israeli border, where its military is systematically
demolishing thousands of buildings in order to create another buffer zone. Israel’s intention is to make it harder for militants in Gaza to repeat a raid like that of Oct. 7, in which Israeli officials say some 1,200 people were killed, although the United States and others have spoken out against any effort to reduce the size of Gaza.
The plan was circulated to cabinet ministers and journalists in the early hours of Friday morning. Though Mr. Netanyahu has laid out most of the proposals in public statements, this is the first time that he has collected them in a single document.
The plan does not say whether Israeli settlers would be allowed to re-establish communities on Gazan soil,
as Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing supporters are pushing for. A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that puts the prime minister at odds with his base, said that there were no plans to resettle Gaza with Jews, but declined to say so on the record, leaving Mr. Netanyahu with room for maneuver in the future.
Israel dismantled its settlements in Gaza in 2005, while maintaining control over its airspace, access to the sea, population registry and telecommunication networks.
Other parts of the plan include:
- Handing administrative control to “local stakeholders with managerial experience” who are “not affiliated with countries or entities that support terrorism.” The reference to terrorism aims to exclude anyone that Israel says has connections to Hamas. And while the document does not explicitly mention the Palestinian Authority, the body that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the reference to local residents implicitly rules out the involvement of the authority’s leadership in the postwar set-up — a position that is at odds with that of the Biden administration.
- The dismantling of UNRWA, the main U.N. agency operating in Gaza. Israel has accused 30 UNRWA workers of participating in the Oct. 7 attack. UNRWA’s leaders say the agency tries to ensure its 13,000 employees in Gaza uphold standards of neutrality, but they say it is not possible to track the private allegiances of all its employees.
- The overhaul of the Gazan education and welfare systems. Israel says schools and other public institutions in Gaza foment extremism.
- Opposing foreign recognition of a Palestinian state. The plan says that a final resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be achieved through bilateral talks between the two sides — an implicit rejection of hints by countries including Britain and France that they could unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu has previously rejected the concept of an independent Palestinian state, but his plan released on Friday did not explicitly rule it out.
