‘There is no day after’: What US, Israel want for Gaza after Sinwar’s death

Within moments of the confirmation that Israeli forces had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, officials in the United States hailed the killing as an “opportunity” to turn the page on the war and move on to a “day after” for Gaza.

While offering no clear vision of what the future of the ravaged territory might look like, White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described Sinwar’s killing on Thursday as a chance to “bring about a better day for the people of Gaza, the people of Israel, the people of the whole region”.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris echoed that assertion in their own statements.

Israeli leaders, however, had a drastically different message. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war is “not over” and pledged that Israeli forces would operate in Gaza for “years to come”.

But with no details about Washington’s vision for the future of Gaza and no indication that the Biden administration would meaningfully pressure Israel towards a political resolution to the conflict, Israel is likely to proceed with – if not intensify – its military onslaught, analysts say.

And amid the widespread destruction and carnage in Gaza, any post-war plan will face monumental difficulties in conception and implementation.

H A Hellyer, a geopolitical analyst, dismissed US talks of a “day after” in Gaza as “laughable”.

“There is no day after,” said Hellyer. “We all need to recognise that the Israelis have made it very clear that they’re not leaving Gaza, that the military presence will remain, so the idea of any sort of political horizon here is just very, very unrealistic.”

He added that while Washington is talking about the future of Gaza, Israel is pushing on with its occupation of the territory along with the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Syria’s Golan Heights, while also invading Lebanon.

Israel “is not showing the slightest interest in leaving any of these places anytime soon”, Hellyer told Al Jazeera.

The real obstacle

While US officials spoke of Sinwar as an “obstacle removed” this week, it’s unclear how his killing will affect negotiations for a ceasefire deal that would see the release of Israeli captives in Gaza, which has failed to materialise for over a year.

Hamas has stressed that it backs an agreement that would lead to a permanent ceasefire, while Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged to continue the war until total victory.

“Sinwar was not the only obstacle to a ceasefire or indeed the main obstacle to a ceasefire. That was Netanyahu and that remains Netanyahu,” Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.

“What this really comes down to is: Will the Biden administration at long last be willing to put real pressure on Netanyahu both to end the war and to commit to a day after that is not simply permanent Israeli occupation?”

US officials say they want the war to end as quickly as possible. However, they have been unwilling to exercise any of the leverage available to them, and it is unclear whether Sinwar’s killing will change that.

The US supplies Israel with billions of dollars worth of weapons that are essential to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza and Lebanon. Biden and Harris have rejected calls for an arms embargo against Israel.

“This is the constant missing piece, not just during the course of this war, but historically in the US management of the peace process and their policy toward Israel and Palestine,” said Duss.

“All along, consequences and costs are imposed on one side and one side only – the weaker side, the Palestinian side. The Israelis have complete impunity to do whatever they want. And that is part of what led us to this catastrophe.”

US officials have floated various post-war scenarios since the beginning of the war –  including turning Gaza over to a “revitalised” Palestinian Authority – which have been flatly rejected by Israel. More recently, according to an Axios report, the US considered an Emirati plan for a transitional authority to be created in Gaza.

But US hopes for a ceasefire or a political resolution keep falling short amid continuing, unconditional support for Israel.

“For the war to end, the US’s main ally in the region, the state of Israel, would have to change quite significantly what it is doing, and the US has not shown at any time in the past year a willingness to use the leverage that it does actually have to force that change in behaviour,” said Hellyer.

“In fact, it’s done the opposite: When the Israelis are given a red line by DC and they cross it, there are no consequences. I don’t know why anybody would expect that’s going to change in the next few weeks or few months.”

For example, earlier this year, Biden warned Israel against invading the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been crammed.

Israel ignored the US calls and launched a massive bombing campaign and ground invasion against the city. Washington responded by insisting that the offensive that all but depopulated and destroyed the city was not a major operation.

What day after?

Even if a ceasefire is reached against the odds, planning for Gaza’s future is a momentous task in light of the devastation brought by a year of war.

“Gaza has just been demolished – its infrastructure, its villages, its towns, its buildings, its cities. It lies in ruins,” said Duss. “How do you empower a credible governance structure?”

In addition to the staggering death toll of more than 42,500, another 10,000 or more are feared dead under the rubble. One in every 23 people in Gaza has been injured over the last year, a quarter of them with life-altering injuries that require longterm treatment.

Some 114 hospitals and clinics have been rendered inoperable; 150,000 homes have been destroyed, and 96 percent of Gaza’s population is facing a severe lack of food and no access to clean water, according to Palestinian officials in Gaza.

“What day after? What is a day after when you have destroyed more than 70 percent of Gaza and rendered most people homeless and five percent of the population has been killed?” Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s very hard to hear US officials talking, almost celebratory, about a day after for Gaza as though the guns have gone silent, which they have not, and with the scale of what’s happened.

“How do you even begin to think about how to rehabilitate and remediate what has happened?”

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have sought arrest warrants for Sinwar as well as Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yaov Gallant over possible war crimes in the ongoing conflict.

Hassan noted that while Sinwar is dead, there has been no talk of justice or accountability in US discussions about the future of Gaza. “Where is justice, and accountability for the mass atrocities and likely genocide that we saw in Gaza?”

The US has forcefully opposed the ICC investigation of the Gaza conflict, and some lawmakers have called for sanctions against the court’s prosecutor. It is unclear whether US pressure has delayed the issuance of the arrest warrants, which are yet to be approved.

“The situation is just catastrophic,” Hassan said. “There are just so many questions and not any answers that you’re getting from the US government.”

Forever war

Whatever US wishes for turning a page on Gaza may be, unless the US is willing to shift its approach to Israel, nothing is likely to change there, experts say.

Ori Goldberg, an Israel-based political analyst, said that Israeli officials appear to have no clear objective beyond the consolidation of their military presence in Gaza – and little interest in what their US counterparts may prefer.

“Israel is doing what it has always done: It’s bombing and it’s killing and it’s assassinating, but there’s no plan, there’s no progression, there’s no sense of anything happening except death,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We really don’t have any kind of end game or any kind of real political plan on where this goes and most particularly on where this ends.”

He added that Israel wants the conflict to be a “forever war”.

So far, timid US and international criticism has proven largely irrelevant for Israel.

“Never has a country so flagrantly and so bluntly violated every single rule in the book. Never has a country done exactly what it wanted regardless of various attempts to intervene by its friends and allies,” Goldberg said.

“The US is along for the ride.”