• ‘Regardless of what is put on the table, the war will continue while Netanyahu believes that doing so will keep him in power,’ says Robert Geist Pinfold of King’s College London
• ‘Netanyahu’s message from the strike on Qatar was equally clear: eliminate the negotiator and derail the mediation,’ says Ihab Maharmeh, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies

ISTANBUL

Three years into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the future of the decimated enclave and its millions of Palestinians remains bleak and uncertain.

Post-war reconstruction plans are drawing scrutiny from critics who say they could be used by Israel to push for the permanent displacement of Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

The main proposal now is the 20-point plan put forward by US President Donald Trump, which has been backed by countries across the world, including several Arab and Muslim nations.

While the US president announced the plan alongside the Israeli prime minister, analysts warn that it is Benjamin Netanyahu himself who poses the biggest threat to Trump’s proposal.

Ihab Maharmeh, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, emphasized that Netanyahu’s political calculations, such as the recent strike on Qatar that disrupted mediation talks, show that Israel’s strategy remains focused on prolonging the assault on Gaza.

“Netanyahu’s message from the strike on Qatar was equally clear: eliminate the negotiator and derail the mediation,” Maharmeh said.

Multiple reports by American and international news outlets have spoken about Trump’s recent frustration with Israel and Netanyahu, particularly over the attack on Qatar, a key US ally.

Trump even made Netanyahu apologize to the Gulf state’s prime minister in a joint call from the White House, and has since signed an executive order vowing to use all measures – including the US military – to defend Qatar.

Robert Geist Pinfold, a lecturer in international security at King’s College London, reiterated that Netanyahu’s own political objectives trump everything else for him.

Israel and Netanyahu have “rebuffed multiple initiatives by the (Joe) Biden administration, Gulf countries and others … to implement a day-after plan for the territory that ends the war,” he said.

“But Netanyahu has repeatedly deemed it not in his political interests to do so. Regardless of what is put on the table, the war will continue whilst Netanyahu believes that doing so will keep him in power.”

Displacement scenarios

Analyst Maharmeh said Israel’s clearest intention is to forcibly displace Palestinians from the north and center of Gaza and confine them in an uninhabitable zone in Rafah, at the southern edge of the Strip, “a space that would function as a concentration camp.”

“If necessary, Israel would seek to expand this area further into Egyptian territory, not into the Palestinian territory,” he said.

On possible mass expulsions of Palestinians to other countries, he asserted that Israel’s “declared goal is ethnic cleansing,” and it could be weighing up several options to expel the population.

“In the foreseeable future, there is no indication that the genocidal war will be halted before the maximum number of Palestinians are expelled from Gaza,” Maharmeh told Anadolu.

However, he stressed that “no Arab or Western state has agreed to do this.”

“Any transfer of Palestinians would require the consent of host countries, which is absent to this day,” he said.

Even Trump has said no to removing Palestinians from Gaza, walking back his initial comments made in February and including this provision in his 20-point plan: “No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.”

However, Pinfold reiterated that Netanyahu would only pursue a course of action that he believes suits his interests.

“There are many Israeli ministers who want to ethnically cleanse, resettle and annex Gaza or parts of Gaza … (Netanyahu) would ultimately be fine with ethnically cleansing Gaza, but he’d also accept a ceasefire,” he said.

“He will do and continue to do whatever is the most expedient route to keep him in power.”

Regarding the threat of forced displacement of Palestinians, Pinfold argued that Israel’s government does not really care where Palestinians go. “The far-right figures who want to ethnically cleanse Gaza also don’t care – they just want the Gazans gone,” he said.

“There is no agreement on where the Palestinians should go, or how many should leave; you could see some move into the Sinai, others go abroad, or some combination of both these options.”