Brian Carter, Johanna Moore, Alexandra Braverman, Kathryn Tyson, Kelly Campa, and Annika Ganzeveld



May 15, 2024, 2:00 pm ET

The Israeli defense minister publicly called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to define a political end state in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on May 15 that “governance by non-Hamas Palestinian entities, accompanied by international actors, is in Israel’s interest.” Gallant added that he rejected Israeli civil or military governance in the Strip. Gallant said that his statement was necessary because “the gains of the war are being eroded and Israel’s long-term security is at stake.” Gallant was responding to an earlier statement by Netanyahu in which Netanyahu argued that it would be irrelevant to discuss the post-war plans until Hamas is destroyed.

This public disagreement between Netanyahu and Gallant comes after IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi privately demanded a post-war plan from Netanyahu and called current Israeli re-clearing operations a “Sisyphean task.” Halevi made these comments during a cabinet meeting sometime between May 10 and 12. The Washington Post reported that Halevi’s private comments reflected the opinions of “many Israeli security officials.”[6] Other senior IDF officials also demanded ”political leaders...make decisions and formulate a strategy,” according to Israeli media. Israeli media also reported that Israeli cabinet officials told the prime minister that his failure to make decisions was ”risking lives.” These disagreements come as the IDF reentered Zaytoun, a neighborhood in southern Gaza City, for the third time since February 2024 and other IDF units began a major, division-sized operation in Jabalia. The IDF previously fought in Jabalia in December 2023 before withdrawing.

Key Takeaways:

• Post-War Plan for the Gaza Strip: Senior Israeli officials are publicly disagreeing over a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip. The Israeli defense minister demanded a post-war plan from Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the IDF chief of staff called current Israeli operations a “Sisyphean task” unless a post-war plan is established.

• Military action should be designed and executed with a defined political end state to guide military operations and avoid actions that will undermine the successful achievement of the political end state. Destroying Hamas is a military task, but it is not necessarily a political end state without a vision for the post-war Gaza Strip.

• CTP-ISW continues to assess that there is no sustainable end to this conflict if Hamas remains a political and military entity in the Gaza Strip. A ceasefire that leaves Hamas in power would serve Hamas’ purposes by allowing the group to prepare for the next round of fighting.

• Jordan: Jordanian security services arrested several Jordanians of Palestinian descent and seized a weapons cache that Iranian-backed militias had smuggled from Syria into Jordan with the involvement of the apprehended Jordanians. The Brotherhood cell members reportedly intended to use the weapons to conduct “acts of sabotage” to destabilize Jordan.

• Iran: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s understanding of Iranian "nuclear ambitions" has deteriorated, according to the IAEA Safeguards Implementation Report. The IAEA Director General said that Iranian officials “must stop” normalizing discussions about procuring a nuclear weapon

• Lebanon: The IDF killed a senior Hezbollah field commander in a drone strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, on May 14. 

Click here to read the full update.

ISW–CTP has launched an interactive map of Israeli ground operations to accompany our daily campaign assessments of the Israel–Hamas war. This product complements the daily static maps that ISW-CTP produces with high-fidelity and, where possible, street-level assessments of the war in Israel.

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