Israel’s goals for the divided Gaza: The Four partitions and the New Settlement Plan

By Elijah J. Magnier –

Israel has achieved some of its publicised military objectives in Gaza, specifically by creating conditions intended to prevent future attacks of the scale launched by Hamas on October 7 and by working to weaken Hamas’s operational capabilities. However, its undeclared ambitions, including the partition of Gaza and the establishment of settlements within it—similar to the pre-2005 situation—remain unrealised.

Despite Israeli advances, the operation in Gaza carries significant risks, as Palestinian resistance forces refuse to surrender, inflicting casualties on Israeli occupation forces across multiple areas in the Strip. Consequently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has adopted increasingly aggressive tactics, breaching international laws and the “ethics of war” to pursue these aims. One such strategy involves targeting resistance fighters during family visits to maximise civilian casualties, which has led to widespread deaths under the pretext of pursuing fighters in densely populated areas. This tactic has parallels in previous conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, where high civilian tolls were a byproduct of operations targeting resistance elements in non-combatant status.

Netanyahu’s Ambitions and the Undeclared Agenda