Earlier this month, Israel and Hamas announced a ceasefire to the two-year war in Gaza. The agreement was brokered in part by the United States, but American officials are concerned, according to the New York Times, that the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may be trying to end it. And indeed, since the ceasefire began, nearly a hundred Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers have been killed. (Per the first stage of the deal, Israel remains in control of approximately fifty-three per cent of Gaza.)
I recently spoke by phone with Michael Milshtein, the head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University. Milshtein served as senior adviser to the commander of COGAT, which supervises civilian policy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and as the head of the Department for Palestinian Affairs in the I.D.F.’s military-intelligence wing. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what Netanyahu wants for Gaza, Hamas’s strategic aim to take over the Palestinian national movement, and why a lasting ceasefire in Gaza will be so difficult.
If this ceasefire is going to work, what would it look like over the next few months? What is the best-case scenario?
Most or maybe all of the scenarios are going to be bad, so we’re not speaking about the best case, but the least worst case. And that would be the beginning of a new regime, the establishment of a new Palestinian regime in Gaza, which does not include Hamas. There would be a symbolic deployment of international forces, and a kind of coördination system between Israel, the United States, and other international forces about any violations of the ceasefire. And then Israel would be able to act immediately against any challenge or threat that is being developed in Gaza, and get warnings about a plan to launch rockets or to smuggle weapons or things like that. That would be the best case.
At the same time, I must say in a very frank manner, this best case would also mean that Israel would not control most of the territory in Gaza, with the exception maybe of several areas near the border. This is the only part that would be kept by Israel. And, in this scenario, Hamas would commit to hold only defensive weapons, such as rifles and grenades and pistols. They would not be able to have offensive weapons, mainly rockets.
So there would be some sort of disarmament of Hamas, and Israel wouldn’t launch strikes, and an international force would help secure Gaza, which is what the ceasefire agreement lays out. I assume that when you said that you wanted to be “very frank” you meant that a solution like this could also prevent Israeli expansionist fantasies in Gaza, correct?
Yes. There are still many people here in Israel who say that our goal is not only to defeat Hamas but actually to make Palestinians vanish from Gaza or maybe even to deport them. And this fantasy will not happen. And, more than that, I assess that Hamas cannot be convinced to give up its weapons totally. But I think that if Hamas does not have the same power that it had two years ago, and it will not be able to commit once again October 7th, and it will be limited always by Israel and by the international forces, I think that this is not a bad situation for Israel.
You’re saying that there’s no great solution here, but you’ve laid out what you think might be the best one or the least bad one.
That’s right.
But does either side want that? How do you understand at this point what both Hamas and the Netanyahu government want? Let’s start with Netanyahu.
I think that he doesn’t want the current ceasefire. He was forced to accept it, because it was imposed on him. And, of course, there is a very broad gap between his demands for a ceasefire and what actually happened. For example, he demanded that there would be a very clear commitment by Hamas for full disarmament. And, of course, we do not see that right now. I’m quite sure that Netanyahu’s government will not be glad with the scenario that I described above. I think that maybe another government in Israel, when there are elections, will be more satisfied with such a scenario. And I think that other players, such as Turkey and Qatar, will be very satisfied with such a scenario, because they will be able to preserve Hamas as a player in Gaza. But, at the same time, they can say that there is a kind of a change, even if it’s a cosmetic change.
And, regarding the United States, I’m quite sure that there will not be any way to implement all the goals they have laid out, for example, to get the total disarmament of Hamas or to convince Hamas to accept all the international forces that Vice-President J. D. Vance spoke about on his recent trip to Israel. He spoke about forces from Indonesia and the Gulf that could deploy in Gaza. But a large international force is something that I think Hamas does have some reservations about.
Netanyahu resisted a ceasefire for a long time. You said the ceasefire was forced on him. But what does he want? When we talked several months ago, you thought that Netanyahu was flirting with the expansionist views about resettling Gaza expressed by his right-wing ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. What do you think that he actually wants now?
What he really wants is to be able to announce that Hamas was defeated, even if it means to occupy most or maybe all of Gaza, and even to stay there. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are eager to occupy Gaza, of course, and even to encourage the Palestinians to emigrate from Gaza. Regarding Netanyahu, I think he understands that he cannot really convince a lot of people in Israel today that he defeated Hamas. And I think he’s very embarrassed of the fact that Hamas still exists, that Hamas is still the dominant player in Gaza. If he could choose, he would prefer to continue the war. It seems that President Trump was the one who decided to end the war.
What I find so strange about it from Netanyahu’s perspective is the following: you’re saying that he doesn’t want Hamas to remain in charge of Gaza.
That’s right.
But my understanding is that he also doesn’t want the Palestinian Authority [P.A.] coming into Gaza, and he certainly doesn’t want conditions in Gaza making it so a Palestinian state is more likely.