‘There is no day after’: What the US and Israel want for Gaza after Sinwar’s death | Gaza News

Just moments after confirming that Israeli forces had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, officials in the United States hailed the killing as an “opportunity” to turn the war around and move to a “day after” for Gaza.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan didn’t offer a clear idea of ​​what the future of the devastated area might look like, but described Sinwar’s killing on Thursday as an opportunity to “bring about a better day for the people of Gaza.” Israel said people from the entire region.”

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris repeated that claim in their own statements.

However, Israeli leaders had a completely different message. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war was “not over yet” and vowed that Israeli forces would continue to operate in Gaza for “many years to come.”

However, since there are no details about Washington’s vision for Gaza’s future and there is no indication that the Biden administration would meaningfully push Israel toward a political solution to the conflict, Israel is likely to continue – if not increase – its military onslaught. say analysts.

And amid the widespread destruction and carnage in Gaza, any postwar plan will face enormous difficulties in conception and implementation.

HA Hellyer, a geopolitical analyst, dismissed US talks about a “day after” in Gaza as “ridiculous”.

“There is no day after,” Hellyer said. “We all have to recognize that the Israelis have made it very clear that they will not leave Gaza, that the military presence will remain, so the idea of ​​any political horizon here is just very, very unrealistic.”

He added that while Washington was discussing the future of the Gaza Strip, Israel was pressing ahead with its occupation of the territory, along with the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights, while simultaneously invading Lebanon.

Israel “does not show the slightest interest in leaving any of these places any time soon,” Hellyer told Al Jazeera.

The real obstacle

While U.S. officials this week spoke of Sinwar as an “obstacle removed,” it is unclear how his killing will affect negotiations over a ceasefire agreement that includes the release of Israeli prisoners in Gaza, which has not materialized for more than a year.

Hamas has stressed that it supports a deal that would lead to a permanent ceasefire, while Netanyahu has repeatedly vowed to continue the war until complete victory.

“Sinwar was not the only obstacle to a ceasefire or even the main obstacle to a ceasefire. That was Netanyahu and that remains Netanyahu,” Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.

“What’s really at stake is: Will the Biden administration finally be ready to put real pressure on Netanyahu, both to end the war and to commit to not simply moving to permanent Israeli occupation the day after? “

U.S. officials say they want the war to end as quickly as possible. However, they have been unwilling to exercise the influence available to them, and it is unclear whether Sinwar’s assassination will change that.

The United States supplies Israel with billions of dollars worth of weapons essential to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza and Lebanon. Biden and Harris have rejected calls for an arms embargo against Israel.

“This is the persistent missing piece, not just in the course of this war, but historically in the U.S. management of the peace process and its policies toward Israel and Palestine,” Duss said.

“Consequences and costs are only ever imposed on one side – the weaker side, the Palestinian side. The Israelis can do whatever they want with complete impunity. And that’s part of what led us to this disaster.”

U.S. officials have floated various postwar scenarios since the war began — including handing over Gaza to a “revived” Palestinian Authority — which have been flatly rejected by Israel. Recently, the US was considering an Emirati plan to create an interim authority in Gaza, according to an Axios report.

But US hopes for a ceasefire or a political solution continue to fail given Israel’s continued unconditional support.

“For the war to end, the U.S.’s most important ally in the region, the State of Israel, would have to significantly change its actions, and at no time in the past year has the U.S. shown any willingness to exert that pressure to actually force that change in behavior.” must,” said Hellyer.

“In fact, the opposite is happening: if the Israelis are given a red line by DC and they cross it, there are no consequences. I don’t know why anyone would expect that to change in the next few weeks or months.”

For example, earlier this year Biden warned Israel against invading the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded.

Israel ignored U.S. calls and launched a massive bombing campaign and ground invasion against the city. Washington responded that the offensive, which nearly depopulated and destroyed the city, was not a major operation.

Which day after?

Even if a ceasefire occurs against all odds, planning for Gaza’s future is a significant task given the devastation wrought by a year of war.

“Gaza has just been destroyed – its infrastructure, its villages, its towns, its buildings, its cities. It’s in ruins,” Duss said. “How do you strengthen a credible governance structure?”

In addition to the staggering death toll of more than 42,500, it is feared that another 10,000 or more may die under the rubble. One in 23 people in Gaza were injured last year, a quarter of them with life-changing injuries requiring long-term treatment.

Some 114 hospitals and clinics were taken out of service; According to Palestinian officials in Gaza, 150,000 homes have been destroyed and 96 percent of Gaza’s population suffers from severe food shortages and lacks access to clean water.

“What day after that? What is a day after, when you have destroyed more than 70 percent of Gaza, leaving most people homeless and five percent of the population killed?” Zaha Hassan, human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s very difficult to hear U.S. officials talk almost solemnly about a day after for Gaza, as if the guns had fallen silent, which they haven’t, and given the magnitude of what happened.”

“How do you even begin to think about how to rehabilitate and fix what happened?”

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have requested arrest warrants against Sinwar, as well as Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yaov Gallant, for possible war crimes in the ongoing conflict.

Hassan noted that although Sinwar is dead, there has been no mention of justice or accountability in U.S. discussions about Gaza’s future. “Where is justice and accountability for the mass atrocities and likely genocide we have seen in Gaza?”

The United States has vigorously opposed the International Criminal Court’s investigation into the Gaza conflict, and some lawmakers have called for sanctions against the court’s prosecutor. It is unclear whether U.S. pressure has delayed the issuance of the arrest warrants, which still need to be approved.

“The situation is simply catastrophic,” said Hassan. “There are just so many questions and no answers coming from the U.S. government.”

Forever war

Whatever the U.S. desires to turn the page in Gaza, if the U.S. is unwilling to change its stance toward Israel, nothing is likely to change there, experts say.

Ori Goldberg, an Israel-based political analyst, said Israeli officials appeared to have no clear goal beyond consolidating their military presence in Gaza – and little interest in what their U.S. counterparts might prefer.

“Israel is doing what it has always done: it is bombing and killing and murdering, but there is no plan, there is no progress, there is no sense of anything happening other than death,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We really don’t have an end goal or any real political plan for where this is going and especially where it ends.”

He added that Israel wants the conflict to be a “forever war.”

So far, timid US and international criticism has proven largely irrelevant to Israel.

“Never before has a country broken every single rule so blatantly and blatantly. “No country has ever done exactly what it wanted, regardless of various attempts at intervention by its friends and allies,” Goldberg said.

“The USA is there.”