Israel and Gaza Need an All-for-All Strategy

Israeli political-security officials have endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recommendation that Israel should fully occupy the Gaza Strip, including areas where Israel believes the hostages are being held. Other than that the army prefers to avoid the burden of occupying and controlling the entire area, details are sparse. With U.S. President Donald Trump’s apparent acquiescence to Israel’s reoccupation of Gaza— “That’s going to be pretty much up to Israel”—the question is whether this is a pressure tactic to compel Hamas to agree to another interim exchange (demonstrating Israeli resolve in the face of international pressure) or a major shift in policy. 

Either way, it’s more than a march of folly and is likely to spell more pain and suffering for the hostages, their families, and the civilian population of Gaza. Indeed, military pressure hasn’t succeeded in destroying Hamas or pressuring it to free the hostages. The reoccupation of Gaza is a trap in which Israel is likely committing itself to facing an extended insurgency. 

Netanyahu’s plan comes on the heels of other reporting suggesting that the Trump administration has been considering abandoning its incremental approach to freeing hostages in Gaza in favor of an all-for-all approach. This presumably would mean a cessation of military activities, swapping all the hostages for a large number of Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, a significant increase in humanitarian inflow to Gaza, and a timetable for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza that is tied to the introduction of an Arab force on an interim basis to ensure security and governance.

An all-for-all strategy is an idea whose time has come—though it’s unclear how committed the Trump administration is to the plan, which has decided to let Netanyahu have his way in Gaza. The framework would also involve something that the administration so far has been unwilling to embrace: a strategy for postwar Gaza involving the Palestinian Authority, key Arab states, the Europeans, the United Nations, and above all Israel. This strategy should have been explored more than a year ago, when Israel’s military assessed that it had severely set back Hamas’s capabilities on the ground.

But even this strategy, which will be extremely hard to negotiate, risks eventually returning Gaza to the situation that existed before Hamas’s attack in October 2023. None of these outcomes will address, let alone move toward, the resolution of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, let alone the underlying conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. 

Any sustainable end to the war will depend on finding answers to at least four critical questions: Who will govern Gaza both in the immediate future and over the long term? Who will provide security and maintain law and order? Who will fund and oversee the monumental task of reconstruction in Gaza? And what sort of political pathway might be constructed to put Israelis and Palestinians on road to a better, peaceful future? 

Pursuing these aims will be exponentially more challenging than the current effort to secure an interim ceasefire and hostages deal. But the interim approach has run its course. It has become an extended zero-sum exercise in which Hamas plays for time and its own survival while the Netanyahu government drags out the negotiations in hopes that a total victory over Hamas becomes possible. In the meantime, the hostages languish in terrible conditions, and the Palestinian civilian population suffers unending trauma, including starvation.

Soon after October 7, one of us proposed a process for postwar Gaza. Gaza would need interim governance, security, and law and order; reconstruction of housing and infrastructure; and rebuilding the governing capacity of the Palestinian Authority. In parallel, the United States—at that time, led by president Joe Biden—would take a series of steps to re-engage Israel and the Palestinians in a political process of peacemaking. The theory was that an end of the war and the reconstruction of Gaza were critically important, but not sufficient: In the wake of October 7, neither Israel nor Palestinian leaders are willing or able to sit and negotiate an end to their conflict. At the same time, any plan can’t focus solely on Gaza, with no bridge to the future. If the Israelis and Palestinians do not deal with the underlying conflict, they are doomed to an endless wash, rinse, and repeat cycle of war and suffering.  

What might have been possible a year ago is much more challenging today. The situation is far more fraught in three important respects. First, Gaza is now destroyed, and the Palestinian population in Gaza is facing widespread malnutrition and starvation. Second, the Israeli government’s appetite for occupation has grown substantially, to the point where Netanyahu wants to occupy the entire area, possibly as a prelude to annexation. Third, Trump is now president, and while he talks of wanting to be a peacemaker, he has yet to demonstrate that he has a strategy to do so, let alone the patience and strategic knowhow to see it through.

Given the close relationship between Trump and Netanyahu, it is time for the U.S. president to push the Israeli prime minister to end the war, withdraw under safe conditions, and rebuild. Israel has proven militarily strong enough to defend itself from external threats. It now must show its own people that it is strong enough and wise enough to overcome deep differences and build a healthy, pluralistic, democratic society.

Moving expeditiously to end the war, bring the hostages home, and relieve Palestinian suffering is critically important in and of itself. But it also opens the path to changes in the region that could benefit American, Israeli, and Arab interests in the long term. This includes consolidating the ceasefire in Lebanon and strengthening the Lebanese government; encouraging positive change in Syria, as its interim government seeks to extend its authority throughout the country; enhancing U.S. alliances with key Arab allies such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states, while also exploring the possibility of Israeli-Arab normalization; and, in an oft-neglected imperative in the region, dealing with endemic social and economic problems that have created a welcoming atmosphere for extremism.

Is all of this achievable? Perhaps. But it surely will not emerge from Israel’s occupation of Gaza. It could, however, grow from a smart and sustained all-for-all approach. The necessary ingredients are leadership and will from all parties, especially the United States and Israel. Without them—including the Trump administration’s willingness to exert pressure on all parties—the day after in Gaza is more likely to look like so many of the horrible days before.