What is endgame in Gaza?

As these lines are being written, tens of thousands of IDF soldiers are stationed near Gaza, ready to enter. Israel’s security cabinet has met multiple times and made decisions that have remarkably not been shared press. It appears that the actual goals of the war remain top secret.

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, closest to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spoke generally about his government’s objectives in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, thw day he attended security cabinet meetings and was on the phone when US President Joe Biden called Netanyahu.  “We need to cripple the capacity of the terrorists,” Dermer said, without revealing too many details.

Israeli military warns Gazans to relocate south for safety. It means there has been a change in the paradigm, because if not, what is the point of risking the lives of Israel’s soldiers and the reservists who left lucrative jobs to fight for the country?

The IDF has been advised to craft a security zone around the Gaza Strip to prevent future infiltrations. The security zone would be no man’s land and would not enable additional surprises. 

It was not safe to have communities so close to the Gaza Strip that has been controlled by terrorists since the 2007 Hamas takeover. Such a security zone would obviously not stop rocket attacks, but it would give the Iron Dome missile defense system additional precious seconds to protect people. 

Israel has had security zones on its border before, including in Lebanon. A security zone on the Lebanese border can be restored.   

During the time the security zone is in place, international efforts must be made to inculcate a culture of peace in the next generation of Gazans and eliminate a culture of terrorism.

It is interesting that after betting pools were created on whether the potential agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia would be sabotaged by Israel, the Palestinians, or Biden, it ended up being Iran. Biden, of course, did his part, too.

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s attacks after authorizing them at a meeting in Beirut last Monday. 

The Biden administration admitted on Saturday that there was no doubt Tehran has been providing support for Hamas in the form of funding and arms, the Journal reported.

What connects these two reports is that the Biden administration has enabled Iran to receive access to billions of dollars that were frozen in South Korea. It also distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in US taxpayer funds to the Palestinians.

Internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon in August found that despite internal assessments that such funding could boost Hamas, the Biden administration allocated the money anyway. The internal documents included the draft of the exemption request and internal emails about the need for the Treasury Department to grant it.

“We assess there is a high-risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from US assistance to Gaza,” the State Department wrote in a draft sanctions exemption request circulated internally in March 2021, shortly after Biden took office, according to the report. “Notwithstanding this risk, State believes it is in our national security interest to provide assistance in the West Bank and Gaza to support the foreign policy objectives.”

It must make up for this strategic error by giving full support to Israel to do everything necessary to ensure that Hamas and Islamic Jihad will never be able to attack Israel again from Gaza, Judea, or Samaria.

Finally, Biden must seek a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia along the parameters of the Abraham Accords, with no Palestinian involvement or concessions to the corrupt Palestinian Authority or the terrorist organizations.