Gaza: The Project of Reshaping and the Requirements of the Palestinian Home

The situation in the Gaza Strip is no longer merely a humanitarian crisis; it has become an expression of an advanced stage of the Israeli war of extermination, which takes multiple forms of killing, bombing, and assassinations, extending to starvation, suffocating siege, and reduction of humanitarian aid. At the same time, Israel continues to impose new realities on the ground by expanding the so-called “buffer zone” or “yellow line,” which now includes approximately 70% of the Strip’s area, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to threaten to prolong the war and refuse any clear commitment to ending it.

In contrast, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are awaiting the results of ongoing discussions between Palestinian factions and mediators, amid increasing pressure to reach a ceasefire agreement that redefines the political and security future of the Strip, especially concerning the issue of weapons, civil administration, and security arrangements.

However, what is happening today cannot be reduced to ceasefire negotiations; rather, it appears to be part of a broader attempt to produce a new political, geographical, and demographic reality in Gaza, making the war's outcomes a starting point for a different phase, not its end. Here, a question arises that goes beyond the details of negotiation to the nature of the phase itself: Are we facing the end of the war, or a re-formulation of Gaza's shape and future?

In this context, international pressure becomes part of the political landscape accompanying the war. The international community, along with Arab parties, continues to pressure Palestinian factions to fulfill their commitments according to the American plan, while any similar pressure on Israel to fulfill its commitments is absent.

The recent American-Gulf statement clearly reflected this paradox, as it emphasized the disarmament of factions and linked the reconstruction of Gaza to security and administrative arrangements, without any demand for Israel or the United States to fulfill their commitments outlined in the ceasefire plan and Security Council resolution. This disregard reflects a continued international approach that places the burden of commitments solely on Palestinians, while exempting Israel from any political or legal accountability.

This imbalance extends to the Arab and Islamic positions, which have so far failed to exert effective political pressure on the United States to compel Israel to stop the war, lift the siege, and guarantee Palestinian rights. Nor have Arab political and economic tools been utilized to restore balance to the Gaza file, making it part of a broader regional equation instead of remaining an arena where conditions are imposed unilaterally.

Thus, the problem was not limited to the inability to stop the war; it took a deeper form of providing international and regional political cover for its continuation, transforming it from an open military war into a political process managed with the aim of reshaping the reality of the Gaza Strip in line with the Israeli vision.

From this perspective, the American plan does not appear to be a response to the war's outcomes, but rather a political extension of it. What Israel failed to achieve by military force, it seeks to impose through long-term political, security, and administrative arrangements that make control over the Strip less costly and more sustainable, without ending the occupation or recognizing Palestinian national rights.

Therefore, the current phase is not a “post-war” phase, but a phase of transition of the war from its direct military tools to more subtle political, security, economic, and administrative tools, which are no less dangerous. The battle is no longer just about a ceasefire, but about who sets the rules for the day after, and who determines the shape of Gaza, its inhabitants, its administration, and its future.

This is clearly evident in the realities on the ground: the expansion of buffer zones, the tightening of restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid, the control over its distribution mechanisms, the prevention of reconstruction, and the continuation of daily targeting are not separate measures, but interconnected links in a single project aimed at reshaping Gaza demographically, geographically, and politically. In this sense, what military war fails to impose by force is being worked on to be established through the management of populations and resources and the control of living conditions, thereby transforming the “transitional phase” into a permanent reality.

Moreover, the focus on the imbalance of power between Palestinians and Israel, while true, conceals a deeper imbalance related to the absence of a genuine international will to impose mutual and equal commitments. Experience has shown that the international community has not only failed in oversight and implementation but has practically adopted a logic that obliges Palestinians to their commitments immediately and bindingly, while Israeli commitments are treated as issues subject to postponement, reinterpretation, and negotiation.

Thus, pressure on Palestinians is no longer merely a reflection of the imbalance of power; it has become part of a conflict management mechanism, where they are seen as the party most susceptible to pressure and concessions, while the stronger party is left to impose facts on the ground and then renegotiate them later. In this sense, international pressure is no longer separate from the Israeli project; rather, directly or indirectly, it has become one of the tools for solidifying its results.

This is not limited to Gaza alone; the proposed model extends beyond the Strip's borders. Linking reconstruction to security considerations, linking humanitarian rights to political conditions, and reshaping the Palestinian administration to align with Israeli requirements are all indicators of an attempt to redefine the relationship between Palestinians and the occupation on new foundations, where the occupation becomes less costly, while Palestinians become more dependent on external arrangements that determine their political and economic lives.

In this context, prolonging the transitional phase becomes a means of gradually entrenching realities on the ground, so that temporary measures become a permanent reality, and crisis management becomes an end in itself, not a phase leading to a just political solution.

However, this reality, despite its harshness, does not mean that its outcomes are predetermined. The success of any project to reshape Gaza does not depend solely on international and regional power balances, but is also affected by the Palestinians' ability to build a unified national stance that limits Israel's ability to exploit division and impose its new realities. The greater the division, the greater the occupation's ability to transform temporary realities into permanent arrangements.

Despite all this, Palestinians face a central challenge: their ability to rebuild their internal home, restore a minimum level of political unity, and formulate a common national strategy capable of protecting the Palestinian people, preserving the land, preventing displacement, and thwarting projects to reshape Gaza, thereby restoring the initiative to the Palestinian cause instead of merely reacting to what the occupation imposes.

Ultimately, the question is no longer how the war will end, but what reality it will leave behind. The real battle is no longer purely military; it has become a battle over the shape of Gaza, over the future of the Palestinian cause, and over the Palestinians' ability to prevent the catastrophe from being transformed into a permanent political system that reshapes their existence, rights, and future.