November 19, 2024

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Hopes Fading for an End to the Gaza Conflict

Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP

U.S. and regional diplomats have expressed frustration at the failure to end the conflict in Gaza, which has left 43,000 Gaza residents (including Hamas militants) dead and caused the destruction of a large proportion of the physical, medical, services, and social infrastructure in the enclave. U.S. officials, who at times perceived a diplomatic resolution was at hand, had hoped to bring the war to an end long before the November 5 U.S. presidential election, only to encounter frustration as both sides refused to bend on non-negotiable demands.

Signaling the hope that President-elect Donald Trump might be willing and able to use his close relations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to obtain new Israeli flexibility, the political transition meeting on Wednesday between President Joe Biden and President-elect Trump included extensive discussion of the Gaza conflict. At a meeting that same day with families of some of the hostages still held by Hamas, President Biden told them he and Trump agreed that the hostage issue is urgent and that they want to try and solve it before January 20 (inauguration day). National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stated later that day: "We're prepared to work with the incoming (Trump foreign policy) team in common cause on a bipartisan basis to do everything in our collective American power to secure the release of the hostages, both living and deceased.”

Frustration over the inability to find a diplomatic solution extends to a key U.S. regional ally. Qatari leaders did not order Hamas to leave Doha but instead suspended their role as key mediators, asserting, according to Qatari officials, “the two sides refused to negotiate in good faith.” There are reports that Hamas leadership is planning to relocate to Türkiye, but Reuters reported yesterday that the Hamas political bureau office in Doha has not been shuttered. To revive talks, U.S., Qatari, Egyptian, and other officials will be looking for new flexibility to be displayed by Hamas leaders. However, perhaps complicating Hamas’s efforts to agree to compromise on proposals, the group has reportedly formed a five-person post-Sinwar collective leadership. The group appears to want to present Palestinians with an “inclusive” leadership committee. Some experts speculated the collective leadership structure could be a defensive strategy to avoid the selection of a single chief who would immediately be targeted by Israel. But multiple decision-makers and veto power over courses of action could further delay progress.

The five Hamas leaders include Khalil al-Hayya, who was deputy to the top Hamas leader and October 7 attack architect Yahya Sinwar. He remains close to Iranian and Syrian leaders. By contrast, relations between Tehran and another senior Hamas leader, Khalid Meshaal, have been strained since Meshaal turned against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close Iran ally, during the Syrian civil war. Another member of the collective grouping, Muhammad Ismail Darwish, heads Hamas’s Shura Council, a religious advisory body composed of about 50 clerics. Whereas all three are based in Qatar, two others in the leadership grouping, Zaher Jabarin and Nizar Awadullah, are based in Istanbul and Gaza, respectively. None of these Hamas figures have signaled any intended deviation in Sinwar's strategy. They continue to demand, as Sinwar did, a permanent halt to hostilities, a complete withdrawal of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops from the Gaza Strip, the release of Palestinian detainees in return for the approximately 100 remaining Israeli hostages (an unknown number of whom are deceased), and guarantees that Israeli attacks will not wipe out the group after the hostages are freed.

The Hamas leaders appear to believe the battlefield situation enables them to insist on their demands. Experts assess Hamas can continue fighting a war of attrition against the Israeli military until there is an agreement that meets its conditions. It still has the capability to undertake small-unit guerrilla operations with the militia forces it has left, inflicting casualties on the IDF that might eventually generate sufficient political pressure inside Israel to stop fighting. Hamas sees the continued holding of the Israeli hostages as a bargaining chip and as well as a means of inflicting further wounds on Israeli society, according to experts.

Corroborating experts’ assessment, the acting Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), Brett Holmgren, told a Washington audience last week that Hamas has been “significantly diminished…essentially morphing into an insurgent force on the ground." However, despite being forced from its role as a governing authority and its resort to hit-and-run-type tactics, Holmgren’s office and other U.S. intelligence agencies see few indications Hamas has lost its appeal to Gazans or Palestinians more broadly. Holmgren stated: "Hamas has been able to recruit new members to its ranks and will likely continue its ability to do so, so long as there is not another viable political option on the ground for these disaffected young men in Gaza to turn to." He added: "There has to be a more viable political actor on the ground in Gaza to give these new recruits for Hamas, to give them a better option."

The U.S. intelligence assessments suggest Israel is not capable of attaining the total victory that Prime Minister Netanyahu envisions. His drive to eliminate Hamas as a military and political force has underpinned his refusal, to date, to accept a full and enduring IDF withdrawal as a condition for the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. IDF senior leaders and other Israeli strategists have similarly argued that Israel has accomplished all it can hope to achieve in Gaza and should accept the settlement terms outlined by regional and U.S. mediators. U.S. officials have encouraged Netanyahu to formulate a viable “day after” plan under which Palestinian authorities not linked to Hamas can eventually govern and secure Gaza, with help from major Arab states. However, Netanyahu and his political allies distrust that U.S. and regional proposals for post-war Gaza will prevent Hamas from regrouping and rebuilding its political and military infrastructure in the enclave.

The failure to reach a settlement has caused conditions in the Gaza Strip to steadily deteriorate to the point where the enclave is an ungoverned space wholly dependent on humanitarian aid deliveries. The declining humanitarian situation has produced significant strains between U.S. and Israeli leaders, who can control humanitarian aid donor organizations’ access to the territory. The donors’ complaints over Israeli restrictions contributed to a decision by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to issue a written threat on October 13 to cut off military assistance to Israel unless it increased the flow of aid to Gaza by November 12. Even though aid deliveries to Gaza did increase in response to the threat, aid agencies asserted the total amount of aid and commercial goods flowing into Gaza was still lower than what U.S. officials had demanded, and significantly insufficient to meet the staggering need. Nonetheless, apparently wary of causing a domestic backlash from voters supportive of Israel, U.S. officials stated in late October that progress was sufficient to avoid cutting Israel’s military aid.

U.S. officials say they are continuing to press Israel to remove roadblocks to the flow of aid into Gaza and to ensure their military operations avoid, to the extent possible, civilian casualties. In a November 15 call with newly appointed Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Secretary Blinken “… discussed recent actions Israel has taken to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including food, medicine, and other essential supplies, and urged Israel to take additional steps to accelerate and sustain the delivery of lifesaving assistance. Secretary Blinken emphasized the importance of ending the war in Gaza, bringing all of the hostages home, and establishing lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.” Even though U.S. officials have apparently decided not to risk an open rift with the closest U.S. ally in the region, the opportunities to restore Gaza to a functioning political and economic entity are narrowing.