For Gaza’s postwar future, settlement means security

Photos: Flash90

Retired Brigadier General Amir Avivi, chairman and founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF, widely known in Israel as “the Bit’chonistim”) has long been familiar with the Gaza Strip. Before becoming the righthand man of IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, Avivi served as commander of a regional brigade in the Southern Command, and later as deputy commander of the Gaza Division. He had warned against carrying out the 2005 Gaza Disengagement.

After his 2017 retirement from active service, in 2020 he founded the IDSF, an organization of mainly high-ranking former IDF officers that is known for its hawkish orientation. He paid a visit to the Gaza Envelope just before last Simchas Torah and came away with a feeling of unease, which he shared with his former colleagues in the defense establishment. Now, as he observes the progress of the war, the lack of evident Hamas capitulation again has him feeling that something isn’t right in.

Avivi sat with Mishpacha to discuss the dispute over the Philadelphi Corridor, share his views on when the war will end, and what the day after in Gaza should look like.

You warned about the buildup of Hamas forces. Did October 7 take you by surprise?

On Chol Hamoed Succos, I visited the Gaza Envelope region with my family. The skies were clear, the weather was pleasant, and the timing seemed perfect. We were walking in the area of Kibbutz Mefalsim, and a close friend who’s a member of the Bit’chonistim and a senior reserve officer in the Gaza Division invited us to join his family for a barbecue at their place on Kibbutz Sa’ad.

When we arrived, I found another colleague there who’s also a senior officer in the Southern Command. As we were eating, I asked him, “Nu, what’s with all the demonstrations on the fence? What kind of trouble is brewing with that?”

He didn’t seem very bothered by the question and remarked casually between bites, “Leave it, Avivi, they’ll stop with it. Nothing’s happening there. They’re deterred.”

Seventy-two hours after that meal, the gates of Gehinnom opened.

Yes, and the central thing that brought October 7 upon us is the fact that our leadership made a serious error in how they conceived of security for the State of Israel. More than any intelligence or diplomatic failure, what brought upon us the inferno of October 7 was the mistaken defense assessment — or conceptzia  — of the senior officials in the security echelons.

Your group, the IDSF, drafted a security assessment in 2022 that was presented to the political echelon, including Binyamin Netanyahu, who was then the opposition leader, and the heads of security agencies. Was that an attempt to break this mistaken security concept?

We sat in my garden one night, and after each of us gave his overview of the situation, we realized that we all shared the same overriding concern and we needed to raise a hue and cry about it.

The document we produced was also presented in the Knesset, and ten senior reserve officers came to each such meeting — and today these people are members of our movement. We explained that the next war will be either the Six Day War or the Yom Kippur War.

We said there are only two options on the table. Either we attack first and gain the upper hand, or we wait and “contain” them until we’re taken by surprise.

Did anyone listen to you?

They listened politely, asked a few perfunctory questions. But of course they didn’t act on our suggestions.

You have to understand, these systems were completely invested in this flawed defense doctrine, and they refused to see the reality.

What did you see that they did not? You don’t have Military Intelligence or the Unit 8200 signals division.

They have the intelligence resources, but they did not have the ability to step back from the concept of containment. They really and truly believed that they could tolerate the rocket attacks and demonstrations at the fence, containing the violence instead of rooting it out, and that would keep the peace.

When you cling to a certain concept, if you are confronted with contradictory facts, you will filter them to fit the concept.

You met with everyone you could, but the attack was not prevented. Do you worry that you could have done more?

There’s always a feeling that we could have shouted more to alert the country to the danger at hand. But I’m not sure that was really possible. They were so sure that Hamas was deterred. No one around the chief of staff said otherwise. There was complete unanimity. What they interpreted as deterrence, we perceived as the quiet before the storm.

How do you differentiate between dangerous quiet and deterrence?

First of all, the enemies in Gaza challenged us every year or two. The Air Force and intelligence agencies were not able to prevent terror organizations from shutting down life in the Gaza Envelope. In 2021, when Hamas fired at Jerusalem during Operation Guardian of the Walls, Israeli intelligence only learned of it a short time before it happened. That failure should have shown us that our intelligence was missing crucial information about what was happening on the other side, about what the enemy was planning.

As to what happened on October 7, it followed from plain logic. No terror organization invests in building an underground city and amassing tens of thousands of rockets and training hordes of terrorists if it’s not planning to do anything.

Combined with the insanity on the Israeli street, the chaos of the election campaigns, the calls for refusal to serve, and the terrible divisiveness, our enemies saw it was an opportune moment. None of this should have been a surprise, we knew all these things the whole time but just refused to see them. Our enemies were able to take advantage of it.

In recent weeks, the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor has been in the headlines constantly. As someone familiar with the region, can you tell us if the importance of keeping control of this route outweighs the cost of leaving hostages in captivity?

The Philadelphi Corridor is one of the most significant sites in Gaza, and the first reason that we must not leave is to prevent Hamas from rearming. It’s not only a conduit for weapons to flow through, it’s also a potential transit point for, chalilah, thousands of Nukhba terrorists. The significance is clear: If we withdraw, everything we’ve done until now was for naught, because Hamas will become strong again very fast.

Besides that, even if Hamas doesn’t smuggle hostages to Iran, Israel has to hold on to the Netzarim Corridor that bisects the Gaza Strip and the Philadelphi Corridor simply because of their importance to Hamas. By exerting pressure there, we can move the deals forward that will ultimately bring all the hostages home.

There are those who claim that we can leave the corridor for a month, and then return to it immediately if it becomes necessary.

I don’t agree with the claim that we will be able to return to it immediately. Who says there won’t be international pressure to keep us from doing that?

Earlier in this war, when the State of Israel entered Rafah, the whole world was slamming us. We’ve already seen the diplomatic tsunami at its strongest. I’m not sure we’ll be able to overcome it if we want to go back to Philadelphi after a month. It’s not something we can take for granted.

When you look at the way the war has been waged until now, what are the mistakes that have brought us to where we are?

Two main things should have been done differently. First, we should have applied continuous military pressure. There actually was considerable pressure at the beginning of the war, and that led to the first deal. But as the days went by, it slackened. When the IDF eased its foot off the gas pedal, Hamas was less willing to release hostages. If we had been stronger and more determined over the course of this war, our situation today would be much better.

Second, one of the most important tactics in war is laying siege to the enemy. True, we can’t withhold humanitarian aid from civilians. But we have to do everything possible to prevent Hamas terrorists from getting their hands on this aid. It’s a question of logistics, but the distribution of aid could have been handled differently.

The problem is that the defense establishment has a policy to refrain from using this tactic. They are trying to win without using one of the most powerful tools of war. It’s impossible to topple Hamas as a ruling entity if the State of Israel won’t step into this vacuum. Until that policy changes, we can’t create the conditions to bring the hostages home.

If that’s the case, how much longer will this war last?

This war won’t be won in a day, but rather over a longer-term process. There’s the first stage, which is the capture, and then there’s the second stage, which is longer and more complex, and that is the cleansing of Gaza. The second stage can last years, and in this sense, it is very possible we’re only at the beginning.

In Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank in 2002, it took a month to take control of the cities, and then five years to stabilize the situation. The fighting in Gaza could continue for years, unless we apply such strong pressure that it leads to Hamas’s surrender, and the picture of thousands of terrorists giving up their weapons. Given the way the IDF is currently fighting in the Strip, it’s hard to see this happening.

What’s the best way to guarantee the permanent removal of the threat from Gaza?

The disengagement, as we’ve already learned, was not relevant as a solution. Military control is probably a good option, but at some point, that will need to end. It always does. And what will happen the day after that? We won’t be able to leave our soldiers there for decades with no clear purpose. The fear is that one day Gaza will revert to its former state.

Another option is the combination of settlement and military rule, like in Yehudah and Shomron, and that is probably the best way to preserve security. Right now, the discussion about settlement seems irrelevant, but in principle, wherever there is settlement, there is security.

I’m not only talking about an ethical or a spiritual imperative, but also from a military and security standpoint. If there is no settlement, the IDF could quickly lose legitimacy for its presence there, which is what happened in Southern Lebanon. When there is settlement, that forces the IDF to protect it, and there is legitimacy for an IDF presence in the area.

In order to really control large swaths of territory, the IDF needs civilian settlement. Someone who served in the IDF during the time we were in Lebanon remembers what it was like to drive from one outpost to another — the constant fear of ambushes and explosive devices. In Yehudah and Shomron, even in the most dangerous times, the travel through the main intersections and between army bases was done each day by thousands of Israelis. This also makes it possible for the IDF to move relatively freely with a small force presence and deal in a pinpointed way with terror threats.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1030)