PBS/NPR
By —Geoff Bennett
By —Janine AlHadidi
For perspective on the Israeli government's decision to launch a military takeover in Gaza City, Geoff Bennett spoke with Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department official.
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Geoff Bennett:
For perspective, we turn now to Aaron David Miller. He's a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department official.
Welcome back to the program.
In your view, are the stated goals of this upcoming military operation, the gradual takeover of Gaza City, are they achievable?
Aaron David Miller, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Look, I think they're as elusive as the prime minister's earlier conception of total victory.
The reality is, the Israelis have achieved a good deal. They have hollowed out Hamas as a military organization. They have got the Egyptians and the Qataris involved in trying to negotiate. And let's be clear. Of the 252 hostages that Hamas took amidst the willful and indiscriminate murder of men, women and children, the sexual predation, the mutilation and the taking of hostages, 100-plus have come back through negotiation.
So I think that, in the prime minister's conception, frankly, he's more interested in avenging the dead and keeping the war going than he is about redeeming the living. So I think the answer to the question is no.
I don't think that a takeover or occupation — Israelis don't want to use that word — of Gaza City is going to somehow magically produce the victory of ending Hamas' influence in Gaza and somehow creating a post — a day after that's conducive to the prime minister's goal. He doesn't have a strategy and he hasn't been willing, not that it's easy, to lay out the elements of what you and I would describe as a sort of rational approach to try to end the war.
And we're two months away from a two — marking a two-year period. And the war strikes me as no closer to ending. It's going to expand.
Geoff Bennett:
And this plan calls for the forced evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians. What do you see as the immediate and long-term consequences of that, the humanitarian consequences, on top of the famine that's already playing out?
Aaron David Miller:
Look, I think that part of the sort of unsaid objective here is not just to destroy Hamas as a military organization, but to hollow it out and deny it governing capacity. It's still paying salaries. It still has its probably Palestinian Authority paid officials basically on the ground.
And, look, the Israelis have, what, taken over 75 percent of Gaza. The 25 percent that they have not taken over is the 25 percent where the vast majority of Palestinians are now living, in, what, anywhere from 12 to 20 percent of an already — one of the most densely populated areas on the planet?
So I think the idea is to separate the fighters from the population, have a clear field to either lay siege to Gaza City and the Hamas elements inside, or to begin operating inside Gaza City proper and then expand to the central refugee camps.
And, look, let's be clear. In May of 2024, the Israelis ended up one way or another moving almost 800,000 Palestinians out of Rafah before they began their military operations. So can they move the population? Yes, but at a frightful cost.
You pointed out the humanitarian issue here. Whether it's malnutrition, starvation, food insecurity, large numbers of Palestinians are dying for lack of adequate food. And once you get to malnutrition, you're talking about systemic illnesses that require access, predictable and regular access to medical care.
So no, I think that this plan won't work. And we're going to find ourselves on October 7, which is the date that the Israelis are now using to complete the evacuation of Gaza City of civilians, we're going to find ourselves in an even more fraught and tragic position for the hostages, their families, and for the residents of Gaza.
Geoff Bennett:
Meantime, you have got IDF leaders warning that expanding operations could stretch reservists. It could add and create new burdens for governance.
In the minute we have left, what does that reveal about the internal dynamics within Israel's security establishment?
Aaron David Miller:
I mean, it's rare to have this kind of controversy between a prime minister and his chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, aired so publicly.
Should Zamir resign, I think the government would be faced with a political crisis. He probably won't. But I think it's a testament to the reality of the degree of difficulty that IDF faces in prosecuting a war where its adversary embeds its assets around, below and within civilian populations.
Last point, Sharon, Ariel Sharon, the builder of settlements in Sinai and in Gaza, in 2005, withdrew IDF forces, ended the Israeli occupation, as well as the 8,000 settlers in large part because he was concerned about the impact of those force — the forces, in terms of their morale, their esprit de corps, as an active occupying power.
Geoff Bennett:
Aaron David Miller, thanks again for your time. We certainly appreciate your perspective.
Aaron David Miller:
Thanks for having me.
Hamas cannot be defeated by military reoccupation of Gaza, says former head of Israel's Shin Bet
Only the creation of a Palestinian state will ensure Israel's security, Ami Ayalon tells The National
As Israel's government pushes ahead with plans to reoccupy Gaza, Israeli opponents of the war are becoming more strident, with one telling The National the move would not bring further security to the country but would instead endanger it.
“From a military point of view, we've reached the point we wanted to achieve. The impact now will be that our security will be decreasing,” said Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet.
Mr Ayalon argued that those who say reoccupying Gaza after 22 months of Israeli bombardment would bring an end to Hamas do not understand what occupation means, nor what eliminating the Palestinian militant group would entail.
He said Israel had achieved its military goal of ensuring that Hamas was no longer a threat by killing its leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, his brother Mohammed Sinwar, and Ismail Haniyeh, but this did not put an end to the beliefs they represented.
“You cannot defeat the ideology by the use of military power, but [instead] by presenting a better horizon, which is a state for the Palestinans. Unless we do it, Israel will not be secure.
Mr Ayalon is one of 550 signatories of an open letter to US President Donald Trump, calling on him to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza immediately.
The former security official acknowledged the heavy toll that Israel's actions have taken on the people of Gaza, something that many in Israel either deny or attribute to “propaganda” by Hamas.
So far, Israel has killed more than 61,000 people in Gaza, and wounded more than 152,000 others, according to local health authorities, whose figures the UN considers to be reliable.
“You have to understand the meaning of occupation. First of all, you have to kill hundreds or thousands of people,” Mr Ayalon said. “You have to be able to control the life every person.”
Israel's military now controls about 75 per cent of Gaza's territory, 20 years after it “disengaged” from the Palestinian territory. It has forced much of Gaza's population into a small area in the south, where more than 40,000 people are living in every square kilometre, according to UN estimates.
Israel's planned offensive on Gaza city, as part of its reoccupation goal, is expected to drive another one million people – half of the enclave's population – into the south.
Internal divisions
Mr Ayalon said a fundamental issue is that Israel views its enemies in one of two ways: either as targets that need to be destroyed, or as statesmen, who will be negotiated with at a later stage.
He referred to the 1973 war in which Israel lost thousands of soldiers in exchange for control of the Sinai Peninsula and withdrew when they established diplomatic relations with Egypt.
Mr Ayalon said the Israeli government's goal of reoccupation and its conduct of the war in Gaza was causing further divisions within Israel.
The government that was elected legally as part of a democratic system no longer represents the people, he said.
“The government has not presented a political goal until today. They refuse to discuss the day after [the war] because they understand that they will not get the support of the people.”
Israeli polls show that at least 70 per cent of people want to bring back the hostages in Gaza and end the war. Hamas and other militant groups are believed to be still holding 50 hostages, of who 20 are alive, out of the 250 people they seized from Israel during the attack on October 7, 2003 that started the war.
Mr Ayalon said the case can no longer be made that killing one person in Gaza is a means to save the lives of many.
“If you cannot prove it to yourself then it's not just. It is against human nature and humanity. So I cannot justify what we are doing today in Gaza.”
