WHAT IS ISRAEL PLANNING FOR PALESTINIANS IN GAZA AND THE WEST BANK?

Official and unofficial Israeli actions, alongside a steady stream of statements, unprecedented in their frequency since the war in Gaza began nearly two and a half years ago, point to a coherent Israeli strategy toward Palestinians, in both the West Bank and Gaza, and toward the Palestinian cause as a whole. By tracing these actions and declarations, which together lay bare underlying intentions, this article seeks to lift the veil on Israel’s integrated approach to Palestinians at this stage.

Amid Israel’s deepening internal crisis, driven by disputes over the budget and the military draft exemption law, and by threats from coalition partners to bring down the government, Netanyahu is fighting to keep his coalition intact. “The last thing Israel needs at this stage is an election,” he has said, arguing that the country is in a “sensitive and exceptional” moment that calls for political stability, not an early vote. If the budget fails to pass or the Knesset is dissolved, elections would be brought forward. Under Israeli law, they would have to be held by the end of October this year. Netanyahu is working to shape conditions that would allow him to remain in office. At the same time, he is pressing on with conflicts on multiple fronts, most notably with Lebanon, where he continues to threaten to disarm Hezbollah; with Iran, insisting that Israel will not allow it to regroup; and with the Palestinians, against whom he is waging an open-ended campaign in Gaza and the West Bank, the focus of this article.

An Israeli bill authorising the execution of Palestinians is edging closer to passage, as the number of unlawful killings of Palestinians has surged dramatically since October 2023. The scale of violence in Gaza has risen far beyond any threshold of endurance, while killings in the West Bank have reached levels unseen at any previous moment or phase. At the same time, deaths inside Israeli detention facilities have become a recurring pattern rather than isolated incidents. Taken together, these acts amount, from the point of view of many, to crimes that meet the threshold of genocide and extrajudicial execution, carried out amid complete impunity, with no accountability or punishment. They reflect a growing disregard for Palestinian lives and form part of a fully integrated approach that targets the Palestinian issue as a whole.

Following the approval of the first reading of a new amendment to Israel’s Penal Code, mandating that Israeli courts impose the death penalty on individuals convicted of killing an Israeli “intentionally or recklessly”, the bill has now advanced to its second and third readings, with no date set for a final vote. If passed, the amendment would allow courts to hand down death sentences without the attorney general’s request. Trials would be conducted before military judges, and Palestinian prisoners, whether civilians or combatants, could be executed by hanging within 90 days of a final verdict. The sentence would not be subject to commutation, appeal, or annulment once issued. Under the proposed law, the death penalty would apply to anyone who kills a Jew “solely because he is Jewish”, as well as to those involved in planning the act, not only the direct perpetrator. Its application would be limited exclusively to Palestinians, excluding Jewish Israelis, further entrenching Israel’s dual legal system rooted in national discrimination. In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are tried in Israeli military courts, while Jewish settlers living in the same territory are subject to Israeli civil law. All international treaties prohibit the death penalty, including those to which Israel is a party, recognising it as the most extreme and irreversible form of punishment and a fundamental denial of the right to life, particularly when applied in a discriminatory manner between Palestinian and Jewish defendants. This escalation comes after years of efforts to normalise the practice of on-the-spot killings of Palestinian resisting or fighting a prolonged occupation. The proposed law codifies and institutionalises this reality, marking a stark erosion of global norms and a profound disregard for the universal system of values.

The hostage crisis in Gaza has effectively drawn to a close after the return of the final body, bringing the first phase of President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza to an end. Trump announced last week that the plan’s second phase is now set to begin. According to the proposal, this new stage is intended to address the enclave’s future governance and lay the groundwork for its reconstruction. For his part, Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that any move toward rebuilding Gaza is conditional on its disarmament, presenting what he described as two paths: an “easier” route, through voluntary compliance, or a “harder” one, by force. Netanyahu has also insisted that Israel will not allow the Palestinian Authority to operate in Gaza and that Israel will retain full security control over the territory stretching “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”, explicitly including the Gaza Strip. He has framed this control as a guarantee of Israel’s security in the period ahead. These positions are coupled with Netanyahu’s repeated insistence on blocking the establishment of a Palestinian State.

Israel’s government is tying the launch of any reconstruction efforts to the presentation of plans for disarming Gaza and regulating how reconstruction would be financed. It has previously stated that it will neither fund nor carry out the rebuilding itself, a position that deliberately sidesteps responsibility for the devastation inflicted on the enclave. At the same time, Israeli forces have spent the past two months flattening and sweeping land in the southern Gaza Strip, continuing large-scale debris removal, particularly in eastern Rafah. Last July, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed that he had instructed the military to prepare a camp in Rafah to house Gaza’s population. These moves come amid growing discussion of Israeli plans to establish a large camp for Palestinians in the south of the Strip, equipped with advanced surveillance technologies, alongside repeated Israeli statements signalling a desire to see as many Palestinians as possible leave Gaza. Netanyahu recently addressed the Rafah crossing, saying it would be “open in both directions“, stressing that there would be no intention to prevent any Gazan from leaving the enclave. At the same time, he made clear that there would be no “open access” into Gaza: Palestinians would be subjected to stringent Israeli screening, while the Israeli military maintains full security control over Rafah.

As for conditions on the ground in Gaza, despite a ceasefire decision that took effect in October of last year, bombardment, assaults, killings, and destruction have continued across the Strip, most of which remains under Israeli control. According to figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded in Gaza since the ceasefire was announced. Palestinians in Gaza, already devastated by two years of Israeli attacks, are facing severe restrictions on their movement, alongside surveillance of their online activity and phone communications by Israeli intelligence services. UNRWA has warned that a large-scale humanitarian crisis persists in Gaza, with additional deaths recorded daily and widespread damage to essential services.

Israeli forces are deployed across both the northern and southern parts of the Gaza Strip, in areas including Beit Hanoun and Rafah, as well as along its eastern zones, forcing civilians to abandon their homes and concentrate in western areas, toward the coastline. This has occurred either under sustained bombardment and destruction or through evacuation orders, as in Bani Suheila east of Khan Younis, where residents were instructed to leave through leaflet drops. According to a document released by the White House last week, the Trump administration is seeking to disarm Gaza, requiring the immediate withdrawal of heavy weapons from use and the registration or confiscation of personal firearms, while providing for personal security through police forces operating under a temporary technocratic administration in the Strip. Trump has warned of “severe consequences” should Hamas fighters and other factions fail to lay down their arms, a stance Netanyahu has echoed, saying it would be enforced either the easy way or the hard way.

Gaza is bracing for a period of profound hardship and complex schemes, one that demands a unified Palestinian decision-making framework and a clear-eyed understanding of what is being engineered against the Palestinian cause under the Trump era. The push to funnel Gaza’s population into a narrow western strip of the enclave and confine them there, the continued paralysis of any return to normal life, the completion of land leveling in Rafah in preparation for receiving displaced Palestinians, and the steadily emerging conditions governing the reopening of the Rafah crossing all suggest that a decisive phase may be unfolding, one aimed at determining the future of Gaza’s Palestinian population. This is taking place amid the expanding territorial control of Israeli forces and efforts to lock in future security dominance over the Strip, in line with Netanyahu’s statements and Trump’s long-established posture toward the Palestinians. Next week’s article will turn to the West Bank, tracing a parallel set of statements and measures which, while differing in form, point toward the same objective pursued in Gaza.

Dr. Sania Faisal EL-HUSSEINI

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Dr. Sania Faisal El-Husseini is a Professor of political science and International Relations at the Arab-American University in Palestine, and a writer and researcher who has published numerous political articles and research papers. El-Husseini worked with the Palestinian National Authority for more than two decades in information and diplomatic roles. She has been a lecturer at several universities in Palestine since 2008, including Birzeit University and Al-Quds University. She was invited as an academic visitor by the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in 2013-2014 and Georgetown University in 2017-2018. Recently, El-Husseini became a faculty member of the Department of Conflict Resolution and the Department of Diplomatic and International Law at the Arab-American University.