Apart from the 1,600 Palestinian fighters killed on 7 October, according to the same sources, 45 times more Palestinians have died during the Israeli military’s attack on Gaza than Israelis died on 7 October, including fatalities reported by the Palestinian health ministry (steadily rising) and people still thought to be buried under rubble (more than 10,000 according to an estimate by UNOCHA).
Gaza: is there any plan for ‘the day after’?
Israel’s ‘disproportionate force’ doctrine taken to new extremes
Airstrikes on Rafah killed 45 Palestinians on 26 May alone in what Israel calls a ‘tragic mistake’ and in defiance of world outrage. What is the eventual plan for Gaza and who is to administer it?
by Gilbert Achcar
[This article posted in June 2024 is available on the Internet, https://mondediplo.com/2024/06/07palestine.]
Nearly eight months after Israel launched reprisals for the 7 October attack by Hamas’s military wing, Izz al-Din al-Qassam, across the security barrier that surrounds the Gaza Strip, ‘disproportionate force’ – the dissuasion strategy Israel first deployed in Lebanon in 2006 – has acquired a new meaning.
Better known as the ‘Dahiya doctrine’ (1), it was first publicly set out in 2008 by its author, General Gadi Eizenkot, then head of the Israeli military’s Northern Command, later chief of staff (2015-19) and now an observer member of the war cabinet formed on 11 October. In the words of reserve colonel Gabi Siboni, it requires the Israeli military to ‘act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses. Such a response aims at inflicting damage and meting out punishment to an extent that will demand long and expensive reconstruction processes’ (2).
‘Disproportionate’ feels euphemistic when applied to the Israeli offensive in Gaza. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), deaths between 2007, when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, and 7 October 2023 were 6,904 Palestinians and 326 Israelis – a ratio of 21 to one (3). According to Israeli sources, Hamas’s October attack killed 1,143 (mostly Israelis): 767 civilians and 376 military and security personnel.
Apart from the 1,600 Palestinian fighters killed on 7 October, according to the same sources, 45 times more Palestinians have died during the Israeli military’s attack on Gaza than Israelis died on 7 October, including fatalities reported by the Palestinian health ministry (steadily rising) and people still thought to be buried under rubble (more than 10,000 according to an estimate quoted by UNOCHA).
A joint report by the European Union, World Bank and United Nations states that over 290,000 housing units had been damaged or destroyed by the end of January, leaving more than one million of the enclave’s 2.3 million people homeless (4). The devastation is such that the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing suggested adding ‘domicide’ to the list of crimes against humanity (5). According to Charles Mungo Birch, chief of the UN’s mine action program (UNMAS) in the Palestinian territories, there are 37 million tonnes of rubble in Gaza – more on a strip of land 41km north-south than along the 1,000km front in Ukraine (6). UNMAS estimates the debris could take 14 years to clear (7).
A ‘historic pace’ of killing
The language used to describe Israel’s relentless violence quickly escalated. Apart from South Africa taking Israel to the International Criminal Court for genocide, the mainstream US media have since last year focused on the unprecedented intensity of the bombardment. In late November the New York Times said civilians in Gaza were being killed at a ‘historic pace’, citing UN reports that more children had died there in seven weeks than in all major conflict zones worldwide in 2022, across two dozen countries, including Ukraine (8). In December the Washington Post called the war ‘one of this century’s most destructive’ (9) and in January Associated Press quoted political scientist Robert Pape of the University of Chicago as saying it was ‘one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history’ (10).
The damage to Israel’s image is huge, something Samy Cohen of the Center for International Research (CERI) at Sciences Po in Paris linked to the ‘disproportionate response’ strategy back in 2009 (11): ‘If you harm civilians, the whole world turns against you, but the Israeli military don’t seem to have understood how sensitive global public opinion is to civilian losses.’ At the time, he decried the Israeli military’s large-scale use of ‘non-precision munitions’, repeated in Gaza today: the Washington Post reported last December that almost half of Israeli airstrikes involved unguided bombs (12).
There will need to be an interim period during which ‘Israel will capitulate to international pressure and hand Gaza over to an Arab peacekeeping force which could include members such as Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates
Ehud Barak
However, the horrifying number of Palestinian victims is also due to the use of bombs which, though fitted with guiding systems, are of a size that should be banned in urban warfare. The New York Times report cited above noted that nearly 90% of munitions used in Gaza in the first two weeks of the war (the most intensive phase of the bombardment) were satellite-guided bombs weighing half a tonne or a tonne. In a densely populated area, no matter how precisely these bombs may be aimed, they will cause immense damage. The NYT reported that experts were astonished by Israel’s ‘liberal’ use of them, one saying that to find a historical comparison one would ‘have to go back to Vietnam, or the Second World War’.
This level of intensity would not be possible without the US’s help (13). Between 2019 and 2023 it supplied 69% of Israel’s military imports (Germany providing 30%) (14). Apart from a much larger number of smaller bombs delivered to Israel since last October, the US had, as of December, supplied more than 5,000 Mark 84 or BLU-117 bombs weighing close to one tonne (15). The spat between Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu in early May concerned the suspended delivery of 1,800 additional Mark 84 bombs and 1,700 Mark 82s, weighing half a tonne.
Both men knew this would not affect the Israeli military’s capacity to complete their occupation of Gaza by invading Rafah (nearly 15% of its total area), into which more than half of the population had been driven. Netanyahu melodramatically declared that Israel was prepared to fight with its fingernails – though the Israeli military’s chief spokesman Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari said they had what they needed for their planned missions, including the invasion of Rafah (16).
Israel still getting its arms needs
The White House national security communications advisor, retired rear-admiral John Kirby, explained, ‘Everybody keeps talking about pausing weapons shipments. Weapons shipments are still going to Israel. They’re still getting the vast, vast majority of everything that they need to defend themselves’ (17). Biden has repeatedly emphasized that the suspended delivery only concerns the Mark 84 and 82 bombs (18).
On 14 May the US announced it would send more than $1bn worth of additional arms to Israel, including $700m in tank ammunition and $60m in mortar shells: this confirmed that Biden’s show of reluctance was largely symbolic, aimed at distancing the US from the expected massacre in Rafah at a time when talk of genocide was spreading among American universities, Democratic voters and Democrats in Congress.
Several Congress Democrats had called for a State Department report on compliance with human rights law among countries supplied with US weapons. Published shortly after the arms shipment suspension was announced, it sat on the fence, concluding that it was ‘reasonable’ to assess that Israel had used weapons supplied by the US in ways inconsistent with international human rights law, but that there was not enough concrete evidence to link specific weapons to violations in such a way as to warrant halting their supply (19). Ultimately, Biden has not only failed to silence critics on the left, but given Republicans, including Donald Trump, an opportunity to mount a full-scale attack on him for serving Hamas’s interests (20).
Biden had already shown unconditional support for Israel’s response and its goal of eradicating Hamas, making no distinction between the political organization and its military wing, and failing to take account of the fact that it is a mass movement and has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. Comparing Hamas after 7 October to ISIS rather than Hezbullah, with which it has far more in common, was intended to justify the eradication of Hamas and distract from accusations of genocide. On 15 October Biden told CBS’s Scott Pelly that while another occupation of Gaza would be a mistake, ‘going in’ and ‘taking out the extremists’ was necessary. When Pelley asked, ‘Do you believe that Hamas must be eliminated entirely?’ he replied, ‘Yes, I do’ (21).
The administration’s position on the invasion of Rafah was similar, not opposing it outright, but demanding assurances that it would not lead to slaughter – an amber light rather than red. Israel heard the message, amplified by growing anger worldwide, and encouraged those previously told to take refuge in the Rafah area to move to an expanded ‘humanitarian zone’ at Al-Mawasi, on the coast west of Khan Younis.
Far right aimed at a second Nakba
The decision to move people away from the Egyptian border, on which Rafah is the sole crossing, highlights the failure of the Israeli far right’s plan to bring about a second Nakba, with a mass expulsion of Gazans into Sinai (22). The problems the Israeli military already face in controlling the territory confirm that a new total, long-term occupation is not an option (23).
Netanyahu is once more facing the dilemma that led to the 1993 Oslo accords. With growing pressure around the world for a Palestinian state, especially from the US (right across the political spectrum: Trump himself in January 2020 presented establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as the ‘deal of the century’), he will find it hard to continue rejecting this option, which he has until now boasted of blocking.
The trouble is that Netanyahu, like the rest of Israel’s political class, and like Biden, has no faith in the ability of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) to keep the people of Gaza under control. It has failed to do that even in the West Bank, despite the Israeli military’s presence and their frequent intervention in zone A, which the PA is supposed to govern. This is why support is growing for the solution that Israel’s former Labor prime minister Ehud Barak advocated from the start.
On 15 October The Economist reported, ‘Mr Barak believes that the optimal outcome, once Hamas’s military capabilities have been sufficiently degraded, is the re-establishment of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza … However he warns that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, “cannot be seen to be returning on Israeli bayonets”. There will, therefore, need to be an interim period during which “Israel will capitulate to international pressure and hand Gaza over to an Arab peacekeeping force, which could include members such as Egypt, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates” (24).’
However, in early May the New York Times revealed that, according to anonymous sources (including three Israeli officials), senior officials in Netanyahu’s office are discreetly looking at a proposal made last November by business leaders close to the prime minister, under which Israel and Arab states could share oversight of Gaza (25). But no Arab state will back such a project without the establishment of a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia, without signalling any readiness to put troops on the ground, is making it a condition of normalizing relations with Israel.
Normalized relations with Saudi Arabia would be a significant consolation prize, allowing Netanyahu to confront his far-right coalition partners, were he to decide to make a U-turn. He could then negotiate, on the grounds of national interest, remaining at the head of a national unity government that would exclude the far right but include his rival Benny Gantz, who agreed to join the war cabinet last October. Otherwise, Netanyahu could face a split within his own Likud party; defense minister Yoav Galant is in favor of the oversight-sharing proposal. So it’s likely he will eventually come around to the idea, which would please Biden, who sees it as the ideal solution.
One thing, however, is sure: there is no question of Israel handing the PA – no matter how ‘revitalized’, as Biden put it last November (26) – full control of Gaza, as it did in 2005. At most, the Israelis are looking at a similar scenario to the West Bank, where the Israeli military surround zone A (governed by the PA) and intervene when they see fit. Even before this latest invasion of Gaza, Israeli ministers had announced plans to create a buffer zone within the enclave (27). It’s a done deal: as well as clearing a 1km-wide strip along the border, Israel has established strategic control corridors through Gaza, similar to the way it has carved up the West Bank (28). Anyone who thinks this will solve the Palestinian problem is indulging in wishful thinking.
Gilbert Achcar
Gilbert Achcar is professor of development studies and international relations at SOAS, University of London.
(1) After the south Beirut suburbs where Hezbullah was based, largely destroyed by Israeli shelling in 2006; dahiya is suburb in Arabic.
(2) Gabi Siboni, ‘Disproportionate Force: Israel’s concept of response in light of the second Lebanon war’, INSS Insight, Tel Aviv University, 2 October 2008.
(3) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), ‘Data on casualties’, ochaopt.org/data/casualties
(4) European Union, The World Bank, United Nations, ‘Gaza Strip Interim Damage Assessment: summary note’, 29 March 2024, thedocs.worldbank.org
(5) Balakrishnan Rajagopal, ‘Domicide: the mass destruction of homes should be a crime against humanity’, The New York Times, 29 January 2024.
(6) Lisa Schlein, ‘Explosives clearance enables aid to reach victims of war in Gaza’, Voice of America News, 1 May 2024.
(7) Reuters, ‘UN official says it could take 14 years to clear debris in Gaza’, 26 April 2024.
(8) Lauren Leatherby, ‘Gaza civilians, under Israeli barrage, are being killed at historic pace’, The New York Times, 25 November 2023.
(9) Evan Hill et al, ‘Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza’, The Washington Post, 23 December 2023.
(10) Julia Frankel, ‘Israel’s military campaign in Gaza seen as among the most destructive in recent history, experts say’, Associated Press, 11 January 2024.
(11) Samy Cohen, ‘Tsahal ou la stratégie de la “riposte disproportionnée” ’ (Tsahal or the strategy of ‘disproportionate response’), Les Cahiers de l’Orient, no 96, 2009/4.
(12) John Hudson et al, ‘Unguided “dumb bombs” used in almost half of Israeli strikes on Gaza’, The Washington Post, 14 December 2023.
(13) Gilbert Achcar, ‘The first US-Israeli joint war’, Le Monde diplomatique, online blog, 22 January 2024.
(14) Pieter D Wezeman et al, ‘Trends in international arms transfers, 2023’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Stockholm, March 2024.
(15) Robin Stein et al, ‘A Times investigation tracked Israel’s use of one of its most destructive bombs in south Gaza’, The New York Times, 21 December 2023.
(16) Julian Borger and Jason Burke, ‘“We will fight with our fingernails” says Netanyahu after US threat to curb arms’, The Guardian, London, 10 May 2024.
(17) ‘On-the-record press gaggle by White House national security communications advisor John Kirby’, The White House, Washington, 9 May 2024.
(18) Kevin Liptak, ‘Biden says he will stop sending bombs and artillery shells to Israel if it launches major invasion of Rafah’, CNN, 9 May 2024.
(19) Julian Borger, ‘US finds Israel’s use of weapons in Gaza “inconsistent” with human rights law, but will not cut flow of arms’, The Guardian, 10 May 2024.
(20) Toluse Olorunnipa and Jacqueline Alemany, ‘Biden’s isolation grows as Gaza report both criticizes and clears Israel’, The Washington Post, 10 May 2024
(21) Scott Pelley, ‘President Joe Biden: the 2023 60 Minutes interview transcript’, CBS News, 15 October 2023.
(22) See Gilbert Achcar, ‘Israeli far right’s plans for expulsion and expansion’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, December 2023.
(23) Jared Malsin and Summer Said, ‘Hamas shift to guerrilla tactics raises spectre of forever war for Israel’, The Wall Street Journal, New York, 15 May 2024.
(24) ‘Ehud Barak blames Binyamin Netanyahu for “the greatest failure in Israel’s history” ’, The Economist, London, 15 October 2023.
(25) Patrick Kingsley, ‘Israeli Officials Weigh Sharing Power With Arab States in Postwar Gaza]. The Financial Times, quoting Western sources, reported that the three states named by Barak were open to the idea of joining a peacekeeping force in Gaza [[Andrew England and Felicia Schwartz, ‘US encouraging Arab states to join multinational postwar force in Gaza’, Financial Times, London, 15 May 2024.
(26) Will Weissert, ‘Biden says “revitalized Palestinian Authority” should eventually govern Gaza and the West Bank’, Associated Press, 18 November 2023.
(27) James Shotter and Neri Zilber, ‘Israel plans buffer zone in Gaza after Hamas war’, Financial Times, 19 October 2023.
(28) Loveday Morris et al, ‘What Israel’s strategic corridor in Gaza reveals about its postwar plans’, The Washington Post, 17 May 2024.