Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Israel this week bearing a message for the country’s leaders only an American diplomat could deliver with a high chance of being heeded: Alleviate Gaza’s misery and plan for its future. President Biden, with his rhetorical and material support for Israel’s war against Hamas, has positioned himself to influence Israeli leaders to see past their understandable outrage at the horrors of Oct. 7 and their legitimate desire to eliminate Gaza-based terrorists — and toward critical humanitarian and strategic concerns that Israeli leaders should see are in everyone’s interest, including theirs. These include minimizing civilian deaths; improving conditions for displaced Palestinians; and planning for a postwar dispensation that provides dignity to both Israelis and Palestinians, by laying the groundwork for a Palestinian state not dominated by Hamas.
The Biden administration’s challenge is extreme. But so is the need.
The Israel-Gaza war has left an ugly scar in Gaza. The war began with a gruesome and merciless terrorist attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas, followed by Israel’s military onslaught. Now, huge sections of Gaza are reduced to rubble, its civilian population huddled in tent camps, desperately in need of food and medicine.
A seaside strip 25 miles long and about four to seven miles wide, Gaza has been bombed like few places in recent decades. Hamas has embedded itself deeply in civilian life and structures, such as schools and hospitals. Meanwhile, Israel has deployed massive firepower in its campaign to uproot Hamas. The Wall Street Journal reported that, by mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on the strip, destroying or damaging nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings, and much of the water, electrical, communications and health-care infrastructure is beyond repair. Most of the strip’s 36 hospitals are shut down, the Journal reported, and only eight are accepting patients. More than two-thirds of its schools are damaged. More than half of all roads, the World Bank found, have been damaged or destroyed. Some 342 schools have been damaged, according to the United Nations, including 70 of its own schools.
It is still unknown how effective the military assault has been at disabling Hamas, though Israeli officials claim to have dismantled its military capability in northern Gaza. Mr. Biden is right to press Israeli leaders on the steep human toll in any case. More than 22,000 Palestinians have died, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, a part of Gaza’s Hamas-controlled government that international groups nevertheless say has provided reasonable estimates in previous conflicts. About 85 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced, concentrated in the south of the strip. Even with trucks bringing in supplies, the United Nations reports, hunger is now common.
Before the war, 500 or more trucks a day entered Gaza. During a pause in fighting, there were about 200 daily. On Jan. 3, only 105 trucks carrying food, medicine and supplies entered the strip, and 187 trucks on Jan. 4. The supplies are less than the humanitarian situation requires, according to U.N. officials.
Israeli officials say they are scaling back the fighting, though military operations could be fierce in central and southern Gaza — places to which Palestinians fled. For its part, Hamas still holds more than 100 Israeli hostages, whose release, along with an end to Hamas rule in Gaza, would be preconditions for any realistic truce. In the meantime, Mr. Blinken and Israeli leaders need to prioritize getting in more aid trucks, as well as ensuring their safety inside Gaza — a critical task, as aid trucks have been raided as they transit the strip. U.S. pressure has already moved Israel to allow aid to cross its border with Gaza, in addition to crossing on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.
But these are short-term measures. In the long term, Gaza will need to be rebuilt — physically, yes, but also politically and socially. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for Palestinians to leave the strip, a repugnant policy of ethnic cleansing that the Israeli government has not embraced and that Israeli President Isaac Herzog has publicly disavowed.Israel should recognize now that there is no reasonable, long-term settlement with the Palestinians that does not involve the creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has opposed a two-state solution; the Biden administration must make clear that Oct. 7 has changed the picture, and Israel’s policy must change, too. Alternative approaches — direct Israeli occupation of Gaza, blockade, various forms of limited Palestinian self-rule — have all failed.
The obstacles are evident, as are the failures of past peace talks. But Mr. Biden, Israel, Arab states and all other actors should seek to offer Gazans hope that something better can be made of the ruin. Otherwise, what emerges from the despair will be ugly indeed.
