News analysis
4 scenarios for the next phase in the war, with ‘intense’ fighting set to end.
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Israel’s prime minister says the war in the Gaza Strip will soon enter a new phase.
“The intense stage of the war with Hamas is about to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a television interview on Sunday. “This does not mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end.”
But whatever relief those comments may bring after more than half a year of horrific bloodshed, Mr. Netanyahu quickly made two things clear: A cease-fire in Gaza is not at hand. And the next fight might be in Lebanon, with the forces of a Hamas ally, Hezbollah.
After drawing down troops in Gaza, he said, “We will be able to move part of our forces to the north.”
Mr. Netanyahu stopped well short of announcing an invasion of Lebanon, a move that would likely result in heavy Israeli and Lebanese losses, and instead left open the door for a diplomatic resolution with Hezbollah.
Any diplomatic resolution in Gaza remains uncertain, in part because Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition would likely collapse if Israel stopped fighting in Gaza without having removed Hamas from power.
Still, the prime minister appeared to be signaling that Israel, after finishing its current military operation in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, will not seek to mount major ground invasions of cities in central Gaza, the only area of the territory where the Israeli military has not carried out such attacks.
While Israeli leaders have said since January that they were transitioning to a lower-intensity war, the end of the Rafah operation might allow for the completion of that process.
The remarks from Mr. Netanyahu, and recent comments by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who was in Washington on Monday, indicated that the focus of Israel’s political discourse and strategic planning is shifting to its northern border with Lebanon.
In a statement on Monday, Mr. Gallant’s office said that he had discussed with American officials “the transition to ‘Phase C’ in Gaza and its impact on the region, including vis-à-vis Lebanon and other areas.”
Early in the war, Mr. Gallant outlined a three-phase battle plan that included intense airstrikes against Hamas targets and infrastructure; a period of ground operations aimed at “eliminating pockets of resistance”; and a third phase, or Phase C, that would create “a new security reality for the citizens of Israel.”
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Since October, Israel has been fighting a low-level conflict with Hezbollah that has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border. But the fighting has been overshadowed by the larger war in Gaza.
The shift in rhetoric over the weekend could be the harbinger of a major escalation between Hezbollah and Israel.
Israeli officials have been warning for months that they may invade Lebanon if Hezbollah, a powerful Iranian-backed militia that dominates southern Lebanon, does not withdraw its forces from near its border. Hezbollah has also threatened to invade Israel.
But a diminution in the fighting in Gaza could also end up creating space for a de-escalation of the hostilities at the Lebanese border. Hezbollah joined the fight in October in solidarity with Hamas, and its leadership has indicated that it could wind down its campaign if the war in Gaza ebbs.
Here are four ways the shift in Israel’s stance in Gaza may play out.
1. Raids in Gaza, but smaller ones
Once the Israeli campaign in Rafah ends in the coming weeks, the military is expected to focus on hostage-rescue operations across the Gaza Strip, like the one that rescued four Israelis in early June and killed scores of Palestinians.
Military officials also say they will continue to briefly raid neighborhoods they captured during earlier phases of the war, to prevent Hamas fighters from regaining too much strength in those areas.
Templates for that kind of operation include Israel’s return to Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City in March, four months after first raiding it, or its three-week operation in May in Jabaliya, which Israeli forces also first captured in November.
2. A Gaza power vacuum
By withdrawing from much of Gaza without ceding power to an alternative Palestinian leadership, Israel might essentially allow Hamas’s leaders to retain their dominance over the ruined enclave, at least for now.
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It is possible that if it raided Gaza regularly, the Israeli military could prevent Hamas from returning to its former strength — but that would prolong a power vacuum in which large clans and gangs compete with Hamas for influence. That vacuum would make it even harder to rebuild Gaza, distribute aid and alleviate civilian suffering.
Israel is expected to retain control of Gaza’s border with Egypt, to deter arms smuggling there. It is also expected to continue to occupy a strip of land that separates northern and southern Gaza, preventing free movement between the two areas.
3. War with Hezbollah, or de-escalation
By moving more troops to its northern border, Israel’s military would be better placed to invade Lebanon so it can force Hezbollah’s fighters farther away from Israeli territory.
But a buildup of troops there could provoke more rocket strikes from Hezbollah, increasing the likelihood of a miscalculation that could spiral into all-out war. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned last week that the group could invade Israel, and the risk of escalation appears closer than it has in months.
At the same time, Israel’s declaration that it is moving into a new phase in Gaza could also provide a context for de-escalation. Less fighting in Gaza could give Hezbollah an off-ramp. In February, Mr. Nasrallah said that his group would stop firing “when the shooting stops in Gaza.”
A period of relative calm along the Lebanon border might also prompt displaced Israelis to return home. That in turn would ease pressure on the Israeli government to take firmer action against Hezbollah. One of the main reasons Israeli leaders considered invading Lebanon was to create conditions in which displaced Israelis could be convinced to return home.
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4. Continued tensions with the Biden administration
By announcing a drawdown in Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu reduced one source of friction with President Biden, but maintained others.
Mr. Biden has criticized Israel’s conduct of the war, even as his administration continues to fund Israel and supply it with arms. A less destructive war in Gaza will offer less opportunity for arguments with Washington over Israeli military strategy.
But Mr. Netanyahu’s refusal to articulate a clear plan for postwar governance of Gaza, as well as the lingering possibility of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, leaves ample opportunity for disagreement with Washington.
The Biden administration wants the fighting with Hezbollah to end, and it has pressed Mr. Netanyahu for months to empower an alternative Palestinian leadership in Gaza. But Mr. Netanyahu has kept Gaza’s future vague, amid pressure from his right-wing coalition partners to occupy and resettle the territory with Israelis.
— Patrick Kingsley reporting from Jerusalem
Key Developments
An Israeli panel issues a warning to Netanyahu in a corruption case, and other news.
An Israeli government panel issued warnings to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and four others on Monday as part of a yearslong inquiry into a multibillion-dollar purchase of submarines and missile boats from Germany, an episode regarded as the worst corruption scandal in the country’s history. In a statement, the panel said that Mr. Netanyahu had endangered Israel’s security and bypassed official channels with the purchase, during a previous term as prime minister. It was not clear if Mr. Netanyahu himself was suspected of corruption in the case, but the panel said it issued the warning to give him and the others — including a former defense minister and a former head of Mossad — the opportunity to respond. The prime minister defended himself, saying in a statement from his office that the submarines were “a central pillar of Israel’s national security.”
Mr. Netanyahu reaffirmed his support for a cease-fire proposal endorsed by the United States and the United Nations Security Council, a day after sending mixed messages. “We are committed to the Israeli proposal, which President Biden has welcomed,” Mr. Netanyahu said Monday in an address to Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset. “Our position has not changed.” He also repeated his longstanding position that Israel would not stop the war until Hamas was eliminated, and added that there was no contradiction with the proposal, a three-phase plan meant to lead to a sustainable peace. His remarks came a day after an interview on Israeli television in which he suggested that he was willing to strike a “partial” deal for the return of only some of the hostages before resuming the war, which quickly prompted criticism within Israel.
Lebanon’s government said on Monday that the Hezbollah militia had not stored weapons or ammunition at the main airport in Beirut. The denial, by the transport minister, Ali Hamieh, came during a tour of Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport for journalists and diplomats intended to show that there were no weapons hidden there. Whistleblowers at the airport had told a British newspaper, The Telegraph, that they were concerned about weapons arriving on direct flights from Iran. Hezbollah and Israel have engaged in a series of cross-border strikes in recent months, raising fears of a war.
Israel’s top military official said the destruction of Hamas’s brigade in the city of Rafah was nearly complete. “We are clearly approaching the point where we can say we have dismantled the Rafah brigade,” Herzi Halevi, the military’s chief of staff, said in a briefing late on Sunday. He said that Hamas’s organization in Rafah “is defeated not in the sense that there are no more terrorists, but in the sense that it can no longer function as a fighting unit.” He said the Israel had killed numerous Hamas fighters, destroyed tunnels and secured a strip of land running from Israel’s border to the sea. Israel began its operation in Rafah in early May, forcing more than a million civilians to flee the city.
Israeli forces struck a traffic roundabout near the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing at least seven people and injuring nearly two dozen, local health officials said. Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said at least three people were also killed near Gaza City in the north, after Israeli strikes killed dozens of people there over the weekend.
The Israeli military confirmed the death of a soldier who disappeared on Oct. 7. Military officials said in a statement that Sgt. Maj. Muhammad El Atrash, a soldier in the Bedouin Trackers Unit in the Northern Brigade of the Gaza Division, had been killed in combat and that his body was being held in Gaza. Members of his family told Israeli media in December that he was last heard from at Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas-led attack that set off the war. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the relatives of those captured in the attack, acknowledged his death in a statement “with a heavy heart.” About 120 hostages are being held in Gaza, according to Israeli officials, and more than a third are believed to be dead.
Yoav Gallant meets with U.S. officials in Washington.
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Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, met with two senior Biden administration officials in Washington on Monday — the C.I.A. director, William J. Burns, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken — as the United States sought a clear plan for postwar Gaza and hoped to head off an Israeli miliary push in Lebanon.
Mr. Gallant’s visit — which was set to continue with two more days of meetings — comes at a crucial time for Israel and the war in Gaza. The future of a cease-fire agreement that would release the hostages is unclear, worries about intensified fighting between Hezbollah and Israel are increasing, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the intensive phase of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was “about to end.”
Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department, said topics discussed by Mr. Blinken and Mr. Gallant included the stalled cease-fire negotiations, next steps for governance and security in Gaza after a deal was reached, and the importance of those efforts to Israel’s security. Mr. Blinken also emphasized importance of avoiding an escalating conflict at its northern border — across which Hezbollah and Israeli forces have increasingly traded fire in recent weeks, raising fears of a wider regional war.
Mr. Gallant is scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Tuesday and with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Wednesday.
Early in the war, Mr. Gallant publicly outlined a three-phase battle plan for Gaza that included intense airstrikes against Hamas targets and infrastructure; a period of ground operations aimed at “eliminating pockets of resistance”; and a third phase that would create “a new security reality for the citizens of Israel.” He said over the weekend that his meetings in Washington would feature discussion of “the transition to ‘Phase C’ in Gaza.”
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On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu reaffirmed his support for a cease-fire proposal endorsed by the United States and the United Nations Security Council, a day after sending mixed messages about how his government expected the war to end in the same interview in which he discussed the war entering a new phase.
“We are committed to the Israeli proposal, which President Biden has welcomed. Our position has not changed,” Mr. Netanyahu said Monday in an address to Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset.
His remarks came after an interview on Israeli television on Sunday night in which he suggested that he was willing to strike a “partial” deal for the return of only some of the hostages before resuming the war, which quickly prompted criticism from within Israel and which Mr. Netanyahu’s office soon walked back. (During a briefing Monday afternoon, Mr. Miller, the State Department spokesman, said Mr. Netanyahu had misspoken during the interview, and noted that he subsequently clarified his position.)
A key question remains about an evolution in the fighting in Gaza: how that could affect Israel’s dealings with Hezbollah, a powerful militia and Lebanese political faction that is, like Hamas, backed by Iran.
In the interview on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said that after drawing down troops in Gaza, Israel would “be able to move part of our forces to the north” — a reference to the embattled border area with Lebanon where Israeli forces and Hezbollah are exchanging fire.
The two conflicts are intertwined: Hezbollah began the current series of cross-border strikes into northern Israel in support of Hamas after Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Escalating fire across the Israel-Lebanon border in recent weeks has been stoking fears that the fighting could grow into all-out war.
The first meeting Mr. Gallant had on his trip came Sunday with Amos Hochstein, a Biden adviser who has overseen previous talks between Israel and Lebanon. Mr. Hochstein had met with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem and with Lebanese officials in Beirut a week earlier, as the Israeli military warned that Hezbollah’s cross-border strikes against Israel risked a wider confrontation.
Johnatan Reiss and Ephrat Livni contributed reporting.
— Michael Crowley,Julian E. Barnes and Mike Ives
An Israeli strike kills the coordinator of ambulance services in Gaza, health officials say.
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A senior official in charge of coordinating ambulance movements in Gaza was killed by an Israeli strike, the health ministry in the enclave said in a statement on Monday.
The official, Hani al-Jafarawi, the director of ambulance and emergency services in Gaza, was killed in a strike on a health clinic in Gaza City, the ministry said.
The Israeli military didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. It said earlier on Monday that it had killed a man named Muhammad Salah, whom it called a Hamas operative, in Gaza City on Sunday night. It was not clear if the two men were killed in the same strike.
Hundreds of health care workers in Gaza have been killed by Israel’s pulverizing bombing campaign or been caught in the middle of ground combat between the Israeli military and Hamas, according to the ministry.
In an interview, Yousef Abu al-Rish, the deputy minister of the health ministry, said Mr. Jafarawi had relocated to a clinic in Gaza City months ago after an Israeli raid left Al-Shifa Hospital, his previous base of operations, in ruins.
Mr. Abu al-Rish, the most senior health ministry official in Gaza, said Mr. Jafarawi coordinated the transfer of wounded people from the field to hospitals, as well as between hospitals. He had been responsible for doing that work across Gaza, but after Israeli forces divided the enclave in half, he focused on the northern part of the territory.
Mr. Abu al-Rish said a replacement would be named, but predicted that the person would not have the same expertise and contacts.
On Monday, the Israeli military said the Air Force had killed Mr. Salah, the Hamas militant, in Gaza City. It said he was “part of a project to develop strategic weaponry for the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of exploiting hospital grounds and other civilian infrastructure for military purposes. The militant group has denied the allegation, even though in November the Israeli military revealed a stone-and-concrete tunnel shaft below Al-Shifa. At the time, the health ministry said the military’s raid put the hospital out of service.
— Adam Rasgon reporting from Jerusalem
Austin and Gallant meet as attacks intensify across Israel’s border with Lebanon.
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Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, were meeting on Tuesday in Washington to discuss the war with Hamas in Gaza and to address the intensifying conflict along Israel’s border with Lebanon.
Mr. Gallant’s last visit to the Pentagon was in March, and Mr. Austin has visited Israel twice since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack set off the war in Gaza. “And you and I have spoken by phone more times than I can count,” Mr. Austin told Mr. Gallant in opening remarks that emphasized American support for Israel.
Since Mr. Gallant’s last visit to Washington, the United States has helped defend Israel against an “unprecedented” Iranian attack in April, President Biden signed legislation with more than $14 billion in assistance for Israel, and the United States helped to open new routes to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including constructing a temporary pier for aid delivery off the coast of Gaza, Mr. Austin said.
Mr. Austin also noted that Israel still faces a “very real and very dangerous threat from Iran” and “from its terrorist partners and proxies” including Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. “The United States will always support Israel’s right to defend itself, and the United States will always ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself,” Mr. Austin said.
But Mr. Austin also stressed that “another war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war with terrible consequences for the Middle East, and so diplomacy is by far the best way to prevent more escalation.”
Mr. Gallant, in his opening remarks, called Iran “the greatest threat to the future of the world and the future of our region,” and warned that “time is running out” to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Mr. Gallant also did not rule out the possibility of escalating conflict at Israel’s norther border with Lebanon, following weeks of intensifying hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel. “We are working closely together to achieve an agreement, but we must also discuss readiness for every possible scenario,” Mr. Gallant said.
Mr. Gallant met with Mr. Austin on his third day of talks with senior Biden administration officials. Days before, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared that the intensive phase of fighting in Gaza was nearing an end and indicated that Israel was preparing to turn its focus to the threat from Hezbollah. The United States is seeking to prevent those tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon from becoming another full-fledged war.
Mr. Gallant met with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in Washington on Monday, and they discussed stalled cease-fire negotiations with Hamas, next steps for governance and security in Gaza, and the importance of those efforts to Israel’s security, a state department spokesman said. Mr. Blinken also emphasized the importance of keeping the conflict with Hezbollah from escalating further.
The Israeli defense minister began his meetings in Washington on Sunday, sitting down with Amos Hochstein, a Biden adviser who has overseen previous talks between Israel and Lebanon. A week earlier Mr. Hochstein met with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem and with Lebanese officials in Beirut, as the Israeli military warned that Hezbollah’s cross-border strikes against Israel risked a wider confrontation.
On Monday, Mr. Gallant also met with William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to meet with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
— Ephrat Livni
