From: The Times of Israel June 11, 2025
Day 614 As the IDF deepens its hold in Gaza, what exactly is meant to happen next?

1. Domestic and global criticism of the war is growing.
2. So, too, the US president’s impatience.
3. Aid supply is chaotic, often deadly.
4. The far right is bent on permanent reoccupation.
5. Netanyahu is preoccupied with his own survival

What exactly is the Israeli government, and by extension the IDF, seeking to achieve in Gaza?
The question seems absurd, 20 months into a war that began with Hamas’s invasion and massacre.

After all, we all know Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated goals:
1. war until complete victory — comprising the destruction of Hamas,
2. the return of all the hostages,
3. the elimination of any future threat to Israel from Gaza,
4. and (recently added) the implementation of US President Donald Trump’s plan for the relocation of the Gaza populace.

But this doesn’t really square with declared ministerial policy, with Trump’s current mindset, or, indeed, with the day-to-day IDF military campaign.

While Netanyahu speaks in generalities about:
1. relentless progress in the campaign to destroy Hamas,
2. insisting that absolute victory is at hand,
3. and deriding his critics

far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, without whom Netanyahu would lose power, specifically advocate:
1. the morally untenable and unworkable departure of Gaza’s population to places unknown,
2. the permanent Israeli occupation of the Strip,
3. and the renewal of Jewish settlement there.