By: Prof. Dr. Mohsen Mohammad Saleh.
Recent days have witnessed a significant Israeli escalation in Gaza Strip (GS), resulting in a rising death toll, thousands of injuries, and an expanded scale of destruction. This escalation coincided with Netanyahu’s announcement that the Israeli army had increased the area designated as a “Yellow zone” from 52% to 60% of GS, while instructing military forces to expand its control further to 70%.
Netanyahu’s Strategy in GS:
Netanyahu’s strategy toward GS can be summarized as follows:
1. Continuing Israeli military operations in GS despite the ceasefire announced on 10/10/2025, while effectively expecting only the Palestinian side to adhere to its terms. Israel has treated this arrangement as a de facto entitlement, enabled by sustained US political support. Consequently, Israeli ceasefire violations have exceeded 2,200 incidents. Since the ceasefire came into effect, Israeli actions have resulted in more than 945 Palestinians killed and about three thousand wounded.
2. Establishing new facts on the ground by expanding Israel’s occupation of GS to 70%, while not excluding the possibility of extending control over the entire territory. This represents a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement.
3. Sustaining political, economic, humanitarian and military pressure on the population of GS to force the territory into submission and compel the resistance to relinquish its weapons. This strategy includes maintaining the blockade, permitting the entry of less than half of the agreed-upon aid and supplies, preventing the deployment of the technocratic committee tasked with administering GS, obstructing reconstruction efforts, and continuing targeted killings and large-scale destruction.
4. Keeping GS in a state of chronic instability and tension to facilitate a rapid return to war whenever deemed necessary, while ensuring that the Strip remains in a condition of continuous attrition and exhaustion.
5. Imposing severe living and humanitarian conditions in GS, with the aim of pressuring the population toward forced displacement.
6. Providing support to collaborationist groups, including arms and logistical assistance, so that they function as an auxiliary arm of Israel in confronting Palestinian resistance and weakening the cohesion of the social fabric in GS.
Undoubtedly, these strategies have had a profound impact on worsening humanitarian conditions in GS, where exhaustion has reached extreme levels amid continued US political cover for Israel’s actions. This is further compounded by the lack of serious US engagement in enforcing the first phase of the ceasefire, as well as the limited effectiveness of the guarantor states and the paralysis of UN bodies and international institutions.
At the same time, Netanyahu appears intent on securing a tangible “achievement” that can be presented to the Israeli electorate ahead of elections expected in October 2026. Current polling trends indicate a likely victory for the opposition and a potential defeat for the governing coalition led by Netanyahu. However, his central constraint does not lie in his capacity for killing, committing massacres, destruction and starvation; rather, it lies in his inability to subdue the resistance and achieve its disarmament. This constraint is compounded by parallel strategic failures, including the inability to disarm the resistance in Lebanon as well as the broader failure to coerce Iran into strategic compliance or submission.
At the same time, Netanyahu appears wary of the prospect of a US–Iran agreement being concluded before his government achieves its stated objectives. In this context, escalation and the sustained destabilization of the regional environment function as policy tools aimed at maintaining a continuous cycle of conflict. This approach also serves to defer an eventual political reckoning in which the outcome would likely be assessed as a failure to realize those objectives.
On the other hand, Netanyahu appears to be achieving no meaningful “gains” in GS, having largely exhausted his available tools and methods. In addition, the coercive approach and large-scale massacres have deepened Israel’s domestic and regional challenges, while further increasing its international isolation and reinforcing perceptions of it as a pariah state. At the same time, Israel now finds itself, after successive rounds of escalation in GS, Lebanon, Iran and Syria, in an increasingly fragile security environment and a more hostile regional order, shaped by open-ended conflicts that remain beyond Israel’s capacity to decisively resolve, thereby amplifying risks and strategic uncertainty.
Accordingly, Netanyahu is likely to continue pursuing the strategies outlined above in relation to GS at least until the next Knesset elections, in the hope of securing a tangible “achievement” for domestic consumption. However, mounting countervailing pressures are expected to intensify, including a gradual erosion of US political cover, growing Western pressure, stagnation in normalization tracks, and increasing signs of strain within the Israeli military establishment. In this context, these strategies are not necessarily stable or long-term. Rather, they remain contingent and subject to adjustment as Israel recalibrates its approach in response to shifting regional and international dynamics.
Al-Zaytouna Centre for Studies and Consultations, 6/6/2026
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