TEL AVIV—Israel is in the midst of the second phase of a three-phase Gaza war plan that ends with the military in full control of the strip, according to current and former officials with knowledge of the planning. The sources provided previously undisclosed details about the structure, timeline, and goals of the plan.
Phase Two began last week, and like Phase One before it, is intended to last about two months. During this time, the military aims to further degrade Hamas’s leadership and infrastructure, take control of about 75 percent of Gaza, move all civilians into three areas in the remaining 25 percent, and work with an American organization to control the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in the strip.
Four aid distribution sites secured by Israeli troops and run by the U.S. group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, began operating last week in southern and central Gaza, according to the military.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced at a May 21 press conference that Israel’s next step in the war will be to create a "sterile zone" in the Mawasi area of southern Gaza and enable the distribution of a full spectrum of aid there. In the other two civilian areas, to be built in central Gaza, only food aid will be provided, not fuel and other supplies, the sources confirmed. Netanyahu did not commit to ending international groups’ provision of aid in Gaza, which the government allowed to resume last month after an 80-day blockade of the strip.
By the end of Phase Two, Hamas should be largely cut off from nonfood aid as well as weapons that are smuggled into Gaza on aid trucks, according to the sources. But the military does not plan to clear Hamas from the two civilian areas in central Gaza until the final phase of the war. Hamas will therefore remain embedded among the population in those areas and continue diverting food aid for now, though likely with greater difficulty under the new controls.
"As long as you have Hamas alongside the population, you cannot really put a siege on them," said Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the military's Gaza Division who has advised the top brass as well as Netanyahu and his senior aides throughout the war. "Only in areas you conquer you can make sure that nothing goes in."
The phased Gaza war plan reflects belated acceptance by Israel’s leaders that they will have to wrest control of aid, territory, and the population from Hamas in order to win the war—but also continued caution, if not reluctance, to do so.
Government and military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed confidence that the new approach is working. Israel, one official said, is "closer than ever before" to achieving its goals in Gaza and across the region "now that the civilized world understands that aid that goes to Hamas is not humanitarian."
Why wait?
Netanyahu at his press conference last month rejected mounting international and domestic pressure to end the war, saying Israel is moving to take "security control" of "all of the Gaza Strip" with "decisive but measured steps."
"Why measured? Because we want to achieve this with minimal losses of Israeli soldiers," he explained, adding, "We are working as the battle goes on not to harm the hostages."
Netanyahu said Israel would agree to a permanent ceasefire only if Hamas freed the 20 living and 38 dead hostages remaining in Gaza and sent its leaders into exile. He also introduced a new condition: that Gazans who want to emigrate will be allowed to do so, as first advocated by President Donald Trump. But Netanyahu said Israel was "prepared for a temporary ceasefire to return additional hostages—and I want to emphasize temporary."
According to the current and former officials, the immediate goal of Phase Two of the war is to push Hamas to agree to such a deal on Israel’s terms. In the meantime, they said, the plan is designed to avoid unnecessary casualties and protect the hostages, who are believed to be concentrated in the two civilian areas that will not be cleared of terrorists during Phase Two.
Avivi said that ideally Hamas will surrender during Phase Two and Israel will not have to carry out Phase Three, which involves relocating all the civilians to the Hamas-free zone, laying siege to the rest of Gaza, and completely destroying Hamas.
"Let’s say in the next two months, you kill the remaining leadership of Hamas, you take almost all of Gaza from them, and you take the aid, so they are not controlling the people anymore," he said. "Then you might see a collapse before you need to conquer the last meter."
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s office confirmed that Israel had accepted a proposal by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff for a temporary hostage-ceasefire agreement. Hamas responded with new demands that Witkoff and Netanyahu separately rejected as "unacceptable" and counterproductive.
According to a leaked draft of the proposal, Hamas would release about half of the hostages, 10 living and 18 dead, in two stages during the first week of a 60-day ceasefire. On the 10th day, Hamas would provide "complete information" on the status of the remaining hostages. In exchange, Israel would immediately allow U.N. and Red Crescent-led aid distribution in Gaza, withdraw its forces to a narrower buffer zone inside the strip, and release 1,226 living Palestinian prisoners and 180 bodies of Gazans. U.S., Egyptian, and Qatari mediators would guarantee the ceasefire and "make every effort to ensure the completion" of "serious discussions" for an end to the war during the 60 days.
Vague were key details regarding the extent of Israeli concessions. Hamas and Israeli officials, speaking anonymously to the press, said the Palestinian terrorist group wants changes that would make it harder for Israel to resume fighting after 60 days, including a more drawn out timeline for the release of hostages.
Questions of resolve
The signs of diplomatic progress have intensified a fierce debate in Israel over the Gaza war, with Netanyahu's critics demanding a permanent ceasefire at almost any cost and his allies increasingly questioning his commitment to victory. Opposition leader Yair Lapid, who has called the war unwinnable, said in a Thursday speech that Netanyahu "must publicly and immediately accept the outline published this morning by American mediator Steve Witkoff." Diaspora affairs minister Amichai Chikli, a member Netanyahu’s Likud party, meanwhile was among a number of government leaders who rejected the so-called Witkoff proposal, warning it would allow Hamas to regroup just as Israeli pressure is beginning to yield results.
"Enough with this salami-slicing method," Chikli said on X, referring to Israel's stop-and-start approach to the war, which has been interrupted by two hostages-ceasefire deals in 20 months. "Let the fighters complete the mission—Hamas should raise a white flag and lay down its weapons, all the hostages in exchange for the possibility of exile for the surviving Hamas leaders in Gaza."
Ran Baratz, a former senior adviser to Netanyahu who teaches at the military’s war colleges, said the prime minister appears to be "waiting to be forced into a deal" to end the war—"maybe by Trump, maybe by Hamas."
"Maybe something surprising will happen, and Bibi will get a much better deal than I expect—but I’m skeptical," Baratz said. "I think the circumstances right now are strengthening Hamas rather than Israel."
Erez Winner, a former head of the military’s Operations Directorate and a principal architect of the war, said he believes Israel’s leaders are committed to defeating Hamas. But he said they are running of out time. He pointed to various "ticking clocks," including growing fatigue among reservists, approaching midterm elections in the United States and national elections in Israel, and, perhaps most worryingly, signs that Trump is losing patience with the war.
"We waited too long," Winner said. "Trump was more than supportive and willing to let us finish the war against Hamas three or four months ago. He sees that time has passed and Israel is not advancing—or advancing very, very slowly. So he is getting impatient, and he is looking for a different answer, for different results."
Winner’s plans, delayed
Winner, who until recently headed the operational planning team in the military’s Southern Command, internally advocated a rapid conquest of Gaza from early in the war. But he was overruled.
Former defense minister Yoav Gallant and military chief of staff Herzi Halevi, among others, opposed taking control of aid distribution and territory in Gaza for fear of being drawn into reoccupation of the strip. They were backed by former President Joe Biden, who pressed Israel to end the war almost as soon as it started in October 2023, including by withholding weapons shipments and threatening a complete embargo.
The result was that Israel pursued a strategy of limited raids for more than a year, during which soldiers fought Hamas in the same areas of Gaza over and over again without achieving decisive results.
In a statement, Gallant stood by his opposition to holding territory in Gaza, saying, "Israel must not pay the price in blood for direct military control over Gaza, particularly when such control would not be sustainable in the long run." He added, "The biggest obstacle to fully defeating Hamas is not a lack of military control but the refusal of certain political figures to advance a viable alternative to its rule."
The military, speaking on behalf of Halevi, said, "Prolonged holding of territory is a decision made by the political echelon."
Trump’s election in November marked a turning point in the war. Bolstered by renewed U.S. military and diplomatic support, Netanyahu’s government replaced Gallant and Halevi with Israel Katz and Eyal Zamir, who were open to taking military control of Gaza. In February, as a Trump-brokered ceasefire in Gaza collapsed, Israeli leaders authorized a plan developed by Winner’s team to conquer Gaza in a matter of months, as the Washington Free Beacon first reported at the time.
But days later, Winner was ordered to add a preliminary phase to his plan meant to pressure Hamas to agree to a temporary-hostage ceasefire deal. In March, Winner was dismissed from duty after misplacing classified documents. Shortly thereafter, Israeli leaders approved a more gradual plan with three phases.
"Eventually, the only way we can preserve our existence here, in this part of the world, is if we end the existence of Hamas," Winner said. "If it won’t happen now, it will happen later. The problem is the price it will cost us."