Not many Israelis are looking forward to another year of war in Gaza. The army brass and the majority of Israelis support a deal to free the 100 or so hostages still held by Hamas in exchange for ending the conflict. But the decision-makers oppose such an agreement, and that includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his acolytes, and—more importantly—leaders of the messianic far right. This group represents a small minority of voters but one that quite literally calls the shots in today’s Israel. If they have their way, which is probable, the war will never really end. Rather, it will morph into a violent occupation, accompanied by Jewish settlement and eventually annexation.
For months, the fighting in Gaza has been eclipsed by more dramatic events on Israel’s other fronts—the operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon that forced the militant group to accept a cease-fire, the tit-for-tat attacks with Iran, and the sudden collapse of the Assad regime in Syria. Nevertheless, the war in Gaza is grinding on.
Palestinian military and civilian deaths have increased by another 3,900 over the past three months, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The brunt of the fighting since October 2023 has occurred in the north and especially in the Jabalia refugee camp, which has been frightfully destructive—even according to the high bar set by Israeli operations in Gaza. The north’s prewar population of around 1.5 million has been reduced to one-fifth of that, mainly through forced evacuation. Those who remain are being driven out by a scorched-earth policy that approximates the harsh measures contained in the so-called “generals’ plan” devised by reservist officers, which aim to clear north Gaza of its inhabitants and declare it a military exclusion zone.
The returns from pursuing a prolonged military operation (as opposed to going in and out of Gaza to suppress Hamas when needed) have steadily diminished while the costs remain high. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) regularly sustain casualties, the burden of reserve duty weighs heavily on families and on the economy, and discipline has grown lax.
The purely military case for continuing the war is based on the fact that Israel has yet to vanquish Hamas, as it vowed to do after its attack on Oct. 7, 2023. The army estimates that the militant group has about 18,000 fighters, half of them in organized units, and it continues to take in recruits at a faster pace than the IDF eliminates them. Hamas periodically launches rockets into Israel.
But Netanyahu’s determination to continue the fighting has less to do with military concerns than with domestic political calculations. Were the conflict to end decisively, Netanyahu would risk losing the mantle of wartime leader, much like his idol Winston Churchill, who lost elections in the summer of 1945 as World War II was winding down. In the worst-case scenario, Netanyahu’s far-right partners—those pushing for a forever war in Gaza—would bolt his coalition, forcing him to call a snap election that he would likely lose, according to polls. Even if he managed to avoid an early election, ending the war would bring pressure on Netanyahu to form a state commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 debacle that would inevitably hold him at least partly responsible. The prime minister has done everything possible to avoid such an inquiry, even though state commissions are the norm in Israel—including in the wake of less serious instances of government failure.
Netanyahu’s fear that the far right would bring down his government if he ended the war is probably exaggerated. Early elections would not necessarily benefit the two far-right parties. One of them, the Religious Zionism party, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, would not get enough votes to enter the next Knesset, according to polls. The other, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, might capture as many as eight seats in the 120-seat Knesset, compared with its current six. But that would do Netanyahu little good if the right is voted out of power. Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s fear that they would bolt deters him from so much as hinting at an end to the fighting.
Far more important is the far-right’s belief, as expressed by Israeli lawmaker Orit Strock, that Netanyahu’s government represents “a time of miracles,” a one-time opportunity for the settlers and far right to realize their messianic aspirations to annex the West Bank, expel most or all its Palestinian population, and bring Israel closer to Judaism at the expense of liberal democracy. They will not give up the opportunity easily.
From the far-right’s point of view, the war is not an unadulterated tragedy but another miracle. It has reinforced its worldview of an Israel under siege that is justified in using whatever tools necessary in its defense, including the destruction of Gaza. It has also enabled the most extreme settlers in the West Bank to force Palestinians off their land and mount violent attacks while the army and public opinion are distracted by the fighting in Gaza. Above all, the war has made it possible to reestablish Israeli settlements in Gaza.
The majority of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced into makeshift camps in the south. Much of the enclave’s housing and infrastructure have been reduced to rubble. Where the Israeli army isn’t in control, Hamas has often ceded political power to criminal gangs. In effect, the Gaza Strip has become open country—ungoverned, in many places depopulated, and therefore ripe for Jewish settlement. But more than that, the desire to settle Gaza is about ideology: The war offers an opportunity to reverse Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the dismantling of the settlements there. That event was a severe blow to the messianic right’s worldview, which holds that fulfillment of the biblical promise to possess the Holy Land is as inevitable as manifest destiny was to 19th-century Americans. The deviation from the arc of history can now be corrected.
In some parts of Gaza held by the IDF, there are already signs that Israel intends to remain indefinitely. In the Netzarim Corridor that separates northern and southern Gaza, for instance, the army is building permanent infrastructure.
But far-right activists aren’t leaving the task just to the army and the government. They have held marches along Gaza’s border and, in a few instances, breached it. In the absence of formal government backing, their plan is to establish makeshift settlements on the border and eventually infiltrate Gaza itself. In the Knesset, meanwhile, their representatives hope to rescind the 2005 Gaza disengagement law, which precipitated the Israeli withdrawal. Netanyahu may look askance at all this, but he has done little to prevent it.
Gaza is destined to become a perpetual humanitarian disaster area. The idea floated early in the war that Hamas rule would be replaced by the Palestinian Authority and/or regional powers has all but disappeared from the agenda. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNWRA), which provides education, medical, and other services in Gaza, may be forced to shut down later this month when an Israeli law barring contact with the group goes into effect. The enormous and costly task of reconstructing Gaza will not even begin as long as there is no widely accepted postwar governmental framework. As the occupier, the task of providing services and humanitarian aid will thus fall on a reluctant Israel, meaning the army. Many on the far right actually like that idea because it would embed Israel’s presence in Gaza.
For Palestinians, this future is nothing short of a disaster—a life among ruins, in the absence of a functioning economy, and even more dependent on humanitarian aid than before the war. But for the majority of Israelis who don’t share the far right’s messianic dreams, a revival of the Gaza occupation (and perhaps full or partial annexation) is also problematic. The war has been costly for Israel in terms of money, manpower, and army morale and discipline, which has deteriorated over the months; an occupation will likely exacerbate the problems. As it is, Israel faces a rising defense burden in the years ahead. A prolonged stay in Gaza would only add to it. Palestinian resistance will grow. Israel will become more alienated from its Western allies, possibly even the war-averse Trump administration in the United States. And the prospect of a coveted normalization deal with Saudi Arabia will fade.
Imbued with messianic fervor, the far right has little concern for the consequences for Israel, much less the fate of the Palestinians. “Occupying Gaza is not a dirty word,” Smotrich said last November. “If the cost of security control is 5 billion shekels [$1.3 billion], I will accept it with open arms.” Smotrich framed his argument in national security terms rather than religious ones. He knows that the security argument is more palatable for most Israelis, but in doing so, he is making them complicit in a dangerous act of religious fundamentalism.