'Militarily speaking', momentum in Gaza 'is on Israel's side' in their military ground offensive against Hamas

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00:00 Today, the fighting is intensifying in Gaza's two biggest cities, Khan Younis and Gaza City.

00:06 In the north, entire neighbourhoods have been flattened and across the enclave, some 85

00:12 per cent of the Palestinian population has been displaced.

00:16 Around 18,000 people there have been killed since the war began, and civilians simply

00:21 say there is nowhere safe for them to go amid the battles in the streets and the aerial

00:26 bombardments as well.

00:28 Well, let's start the programme this half hour with some analysis of what's happening

00:33 in Gaza.

00:34 Joining me live is Rob Geist-Pinfold.

00:37 He's a lecturer in peace and security at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom.

00:41 Thanks very much indeed, sir, for speaking to us on France 24.

00:45 Thank you very much for having me.

00:46 It's been more than two months of war in Gaza.

00:50 Israel is using huge force from the air and on the ground, and we know the impact on civilians

00:56 has been and continues to be catastrophic.

01:00 Now militarily speaking at this time, is that strategy by Israel working?

01:05 Is it winning the war?

01:07 Well, in the short term, I think the answer is things are going quite well for Israel.

01:13 Obviously, you have to take these figures, you know, they are questionable because they

01:18 are coming from Israel, but Israel claims to have killed over 7,000 Hamas fighters.

01:22 Now, that's an organisation with a pre-war total of around 25,000 fighters.

01:28 So that is a significant blow to Hamas.

01:31 If true, it would really suggest that Israel has managed to significantly degrade that

01:37 organisation's capabilities to fight war.

01:39 Israel has reached parts of the Gaza Strip it has not had a presence in for decades.

01:44 You know, this is not just a change from recent conflicts between Israel and Hamas.

01:49 Israel has not been in Khan Yunis, for example, inside Gaza City since the early 1990s, which

01:55 was just a sustained and prolonged presence, which really suggests that Israel is not just

02:00 here for the long haul and bending down for a significant operation that isn't going to

02:04 end any time soon, but also that it has managed to maintain and entrench its presence.

02:09 There are over 100 Israeli soldiers killed.

02:12 But if you compare that to previous fighting, for example, in 2014, where nearly 70 Israeli

02:19 soldiers were killed when Israel went nowhere near as deep into the Gaza Strip.

02:23 This suggests that for the time being, the momentum, at least on the ground, strictly

02:28 militarily speaking, is on Israel's side.

02:31 And you said this war is unlikely to end any time soon.

02:35 How long do you think it's going to last now?

02:38 Because it does seem there's growing pressure from the Biden administration to bring this

02:42 to an end, whether that's in a couple of weeks or perhaps a couple of months.

02:47 That's right, and that pressure is critical, because we know in any war, especially wars

02:51 like this, asymmetric conflicts, that what goes on in the ground isn't the critical variable

02:57 here.

02:58 What matters is the political decisions at the top and indeed internationally speaking.

03:02 Now the Biden administration, in public at least, will say this is Israel's war.

03:07 They choose when to escalate, where to escalate.

03:09 They choose when to end.

03:11 Now that is not true.

03:13 The US actually has a seat at Israel's national security decision making table.

03:18 It has done since the start of the war and it will continue to do so even after the action

03:23 concludes.

03:24 Now, there have been increasing numbers of leaks from the Biden administration saying

03:27 that they expect Israel to wrap this up in around a month.

03:31 If true, this would create tension with Israel's government, who've demanded at least two more

03:35 months to continue the fighting.

03:38 So I suspect as time drags on and the civilian casualties escalate and Israel's presence

03:43 looks less and less like a temporary occupation, you will see those disagreements, which are

03:49 currently primarily private, getting moved to the public sphere as pressure against Israel

03:56 increases.

03:57 And I'm interested in your view on what Israel's post-war plan may be then for Gaza, because

04:03 you've written a book looking at Israel's occupations and exits in the past.

04:08 So I wonder what lessons from history we might be able to draw from whether that's Gaza in

04:15 the past or indeed South Lebanon to work out how Israel might behave here.

04:20 Well, what my book shows is in every instance of Israel's occupation, Israel has prioritised

04:26 something that it calls strategic depth.

04:29 Israel is a small country.

04:30 It does not have a lot of territory.

04:31 So it perceives that taking more territory outside of its borders and holding that territory

04:36 indefinitely will bring more security because it will push the fighting away from its borders.

04:41 And I think we're seeing that strategy being operationalised once again in the Gaza Strip.

04:47 Netanyahu talking about wanting to be responsible for Gaza's long-term security, high-ranking

04:52 Israeli ministers like the foreign minister saying that Gaza's territory will eventually

04:56 shrink.

04:57 That suggests that Israel intends to have some sort of territorial buffer zone around

05:01 and in parts of the Gaza Strip.

05:03 Whether it will be able to do that is another story, because the Biden administration is

05:07 adamantly opposed to that policy.

05:09 There's also the question of who will govern Gaza, who will look after Gaza's 2.3 million

05:15 civilians and the ongoing and increasingly worse acute humanitarian crisis as a result

05:22 of this war.

05:23 Israel does not like to be an in-your-face occupier.

05:26 It does not like, either in the West Bank or in Gaza or elsewhere, to be directly responsible

05:32 for education, health care, policing, all of those essential everyday services.

05:38 So the question is who will do it.

05:40 The US is pushing for the Palestinian Authority, backed by a multinational Arab-led force.

05:45 Israel so far has vetoed that suggestion.

05:48 That's come straight from the top, from Netanyahu himself.

05:51 So there's very much still an open question as to who governs Gaza the day this ends.

05:56 All right.

05:57 Huge questions, as you say, remaining and lots more I'd like to talk to you about.

06:00 But unfortunately, we are out of time, sir.

06:02 Thank you very much indeed, Rob Geist-Pinfeld, talking to us there from the University of

06:05 Durham in the UK.

06:06 Okay.

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