WASHINGTON — The top United States general said on Thursday Israel still has not shared much of its “day after” planning for Gaza once the war with Hamas ends.
The remarks by Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed a speech to Congress on Wednesday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that sketched only a vague outline for a “deradicalized” post-war Gaza.
“There’s not a lot of detail that I’ve been able to see from a plan from them,” Brown told a Pentagon press conference. “This is something that we’ll continue to work with them on.”
For months, Washington has repeatedly urged Israel to craft a realistic post-war plan for Gaza and warned that the absence of it could trigger lawlessness and chaos as well as a comeback by Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
“As far as the day after, we have talked to the Israelis about this, how to make a transition. We’ve talked to them a number of times,” Brown said.
Palestinians have previously said only an end to Israeli military rule and the creation of a Palestinian state will bring peace.
But in his speech to Congress, Netanyahu made no mention of creating a pathway to Palestinian statehood following the war in Gaza. That is something he and his far-right coalition partners have staunchly opposed even as the Biden administration has pushed Israel to give ground on the issue.
Netanyahu stopped short of ruling out a role for the West Bank-led Palestinian Authority, although he has done so in previous remarks. The PA’s place in a future two-state solution is favored by the Biden administration but opposed by Netanyahu’s coalition partners, who cast a Palestinian state as a prize for terror after Hamas’s October 7 massacre.
Hamas came to power in Gaza in 2007 after violently ousting the rival Fatah party.
The war in Gaza erupted when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged through southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza while committing brutal atrocities.
Vowing to destroy the terror group and free the hostages, Israel launched a wide-scale military operation in Gaza, initially making tactical advances against Hamas after powerful aerial strikes paved the way for ground troops.
But those early gains have given way to a grinding struggle against an adaptable insurgency — and a growing feeling among some Israelis that their military faces only bad options, drawing comparisons with US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 39,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and gunmen. Israel says it has killed some 15,000 combatants in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 327.