Israeli military expert predicts Gaza war to continue for 10 years

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

Warning: This story contains language that could be distressing.
Across Gaza, rows of blue tarpaulin sheets are home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
As summer temperatures soar, these tents are stifling.
For people who have had to move countless times during 21 months of war, the shelter they provide is still welcome.
There is a sense of frustration and desperation among the Palestinians living in this community in central Gaza.
As the war in Gaza rages on, Israeli forces' displacement orders threaten to send them elsewhere in the strip.
And amid all this is uncertainty about the future and what it could bring.
"My biggest fear is to lose my parents, my children, my wife — the people I love," Mohammed Skiek, 40, told the ABC.
If his family are killed, they will join more than 59,000 other Palestinians who have lost their lives during Israel's war in Gaza, according to Gaza health authorities.
With Israel showing little sign of easing its bombardment of Gaza, his concerns are well-founded.
Images of devastation across the territory and of starving children lying helpless in hospital beds have again fuelled debate about Israel's ultimate goal in Gaza.
The criticism levelled at the Netanyahu government is that it has moved well beyond trying to retrieve Israeli hostages and destroy Hamas and that its rhetoric and actions are indicative of more sinister plans for Gaza.
As the war in Gaza approaches its second anniversary, there is a sobering prediction from former members of Israel's military.
Gabi Siboni is a colonel in the Israel Defense Forces reserves and an expert in military strategy at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
He told the ABC he believed fighting would continue for another decade.
"What's the alternative? We need to clean Gaza. This is a task for years," he said.
His views stand in stark contrast to the overwhelming majority of international opinion, which has been critical of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza and, in particular, the lack of aid entering the strip.
"Israel is conducting this war in the most humanitarian way ever, both in the humanitarian supply that the population is receiving and in the non-involved deaths that we have," he said.
"We try to reduce that as much as possible."
Last week, Australia joined more than two dozen other countries in condemning restrictions on aid deliveries and demanding an end to the war.
More than 100 humanitarian agencies have warned: "The Israeli government's siege starves the people of Gaza."
Colonel Siboni does not see it that way.
"The Gazan population is a parasite population," Colonel Siboni said.
"They have lived on humanitarian aid for the last 20 years.
"And so the current situation is that the aid funnelled into Gaza is much, much more than sufficient to the needs of Gaza."
Palestinian health officials say at least 101 people, including 80 children, have died of hunger — most of them in recent weeks.
Recent events have shown the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are prepared for the total occupation of Gaza.
Since the last ceasefire was shattered in mid March, and Israel launched Operation Gideon's Chariots, the IDF's control of Gaza has grown exponentially.
Data collected by the United Nations suggests evacuation and displacement orders issued by the military have left 93 per cent of the strip either under Israeli military control or declared combat zones.
Palestinians have already been squeezed into a tiny part of Gaza.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has floated the idea of moving at least 600,000 Palestinians into what he has called a "humanitarian camp" built on the ruins of Rafah in Gaza's south.
Humanitarian advocates have likened the proposal to something more like a concentration camp, designed to depopulate the north of Gaza.
Citing a "need to eliminate Hamas", Colonel Siboni outlined the plans.
"Palestinians who enter would not be allowed to leave," Colonel Siboni said.
"We invite the population of Gaza to go to areas with full control of the IDF, what is called a humanitarian town, city or compound, and they will be there until we finish Hamas.
"I don't see the problem."
Even before the kite-flying exercise of the Rafah "humanitarian city" idea began, Mr Katz described the goal of taking control of large swathes of the strip.
"The population of Gaza is evacuating from the fighting zones, and large areas are being seized and added to Israel's security zones, leaving Gaza smaller and more isolated," he said in April.
Israeli media have reported deep concerns about the idea within the government and the IDF.
There has been discussion about the viability and merits of the camp: Could it be built quickly enough? Would it be too expensive? How would it be run?
The IDF chief of staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, has reportedly said the proposal has "more holes than cheese".
The debate has reached Gaza's desperate residents.
"Katz's proposal is hopefully a failed one. They want to forcibly deport people to Rafah, and I hope it will fail," Saja Al-Bahisi, 21, told the ABC.
"It is an uncomfortable feeling for sure."
Umm Fadi said if people wanted to move from their homes to Rafah, they would have done it on the first day of the war.
"Why would we have paid this high price — blood, genocide, people who died — to end up in a small lot in Gaza to be concentrated there?" she asked.
Rami Jaber Nawfal said Israel wanted to displace the Palestinians and take control of Gaza.
"We refuse this," he said.
"We are ready to die altogether if that's the case."
Maya Rosenfeld, an expert in Israeli Palestinian policy at the Hebrew University, was not convinced the Israeli government would ever pursue the Rafah city proposal.
"The whole thing is that you do not leave [the Palestinians] any means of re-establishing themselves," Dr Rosenfeld said.
Dr Rosenfeld said Israel's real intention could be seen through its widespread destruction of Gaza as, according to the Israeli government, it targeted Hamas fighters and facilities.
She described it as destroying the "infrastructure of existence" — not only things like housing, water and sewerage pipelines and roads, but also schools and workplaces where Gazans have the opportunity to learn and provide for their families.
"Gaza has been under extreme conditions for many years now," Dr Rosenfeld said.
She argued the high death toll across the strip, now reaching towards 60,000 people, according to local health authorities, was evidence of a dramatic shift in policy.
"What do you think, you can bombard a place day after day … and you say, 'OK, to reach one Hamas militant, we kill 40, 50 people?'" she said.
"It's clear that the target here is to kill the people and to destroy their existence.
"I think Israel has actually entered a war of annihilation — annihilation doesn't necessarily mean, you know, the killing of 2 million Palestinians … but it is to make life in the Gaza Strip impossible."
The current war began after Hamas launched deadly attacks in Israel in October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
About 50 hostages are still in Gaza, 20 of whom are still believed to be alive.
"I don't want to belittle Hamas's responsibility here, I don't want to overlook it," Dr Rosenfeld said.
"Without the attack on the seventh of October, all this would not have taken place. Perhaps Israel would have looked for another opportunity."
With the war dragging on, thousands of Israeli reservists are now refusing to serve.
Among them is Yotam Vilk, who spent more than 230 days on the front line in Gaza.
"I proved myself. Like, I was willing, I put myself in danger, I was willing to take the actions in need," he told the ABC.
"I know I'm not a pacifist. Again, we understand that war has consequences. We understand that the situation is complicated. We don't advocate for Hamas.
"I was fighting Hamas for a year. I lost friends in this war."
But for Mr Vilk, a 30-year-old master of law student, the shifting goalposts became too much.
"At some point, I think everyone in Israel will have to face the facts of the situation; that we're all in in Gaza currently," he said.
"At no point did anyone in the IDF get a command to do actions to ethnic cleanse Gaza as a means of killing civilians.
"But the IDF is oblivious towards what we'll call collateral damage, so it doesn't really matter, so you could kill a lot of people under that justification."
Three reservists took their concerns about Israel's actions to Israel's Supreme Court.
They challenged the legality of displacement orders across the Gaza Strip and the so-called humanitarian city under Operation Gideon's Chariots.
The court has dismissed their petition.
Mr Vilk argued loud voices within the Netanyahu government were demanding that the war continue and that Hamas and the Palestinian population be destroyed.
Two far-right ministers have been sanctioned for inciting extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said he will not allow "even a grain of wheat" to enter Gaza, which he says will be "entirely destroyed".
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has called for the Palestinian population to be pushed out of Gaza, saying "we must encourage emigration".
"We have to end this war at any means necessary. We have to stop digging the hole that we're currently still digging," Mr Vilk said.
That would be achieved, he said, through a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas.
But Colonel Siboni argued there was very little room for negotiation, insisting a deal with the militant group was a fruitless pursuit.
"We took the issue of hostages to the extreme," he said.
"I've made my choice between the national security and the security of the hostages. I choose our national security, which is a very hard thing to say, but such is life."