STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
All right, what's really going on here? Aaron David Miller is going to help us try to find out. He is a former State Department and Middle East analyst and negotiator, has been a regular guest on this program. Aaron, welcome back.
AARON DAVID MILLER: Thanks for having me, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, so let's just clarify in our heads the map, the geography. So this is a strip of land. We've seen maps of that. It's along the Mediterranean, fairly crowded. Although, when I've been there in past years, there are some semirural areas and fields. And then there's Gaza City. Where does Gaza City fit in, in normal times, and what shape does it seem to be in now?
MILLER: Well, Gaza City is really the cultural, political and economic capital, figuratively speaking, of Gaza Strip, which is roughly, Steve, as you know, twice the size of the District of Columbia. It's capital of the Gaza governate, it's located on the Mediterranean, it's Gaza's only port. And right now, the estimates are unclear. Anywhere from 800,000 to 1 million people, which is roughly half of the population of Gaza. So Gaza City is the central hub, also for Hamas operations, which is one of the reasons I think the Israelis are so focused on it.
INSKEEP: I am presuming from aerial photographs and other information that most people have been driven out of Gaza City to refuge somewhere else and that a large part of this city has already been destroyed. Am I right?
MILLER: I think that's true. Although, it's extraordinary to me, given the horrors of the last almost two years now this October, that there are still so many residents of Gaza City living in the old city and in its environs.
INSKEEP: So the Israeli military chooses to go in, or rather the cabinet chooses to send the military in. They put out this statement saying what they want to do. And they also say a decisive majority of security cabinet ministers believe that the alternative plan that had been submitted to them would not achieve the defeat of Hamas or the return of the hostages. We didn't know exactly what that alternative plan, the alternative to taking over all of Gaza City was. But what is another way the Israelis could approach this?
MILLER: I think it was an operation that would deal with encircling Gaza City, maybe pressing a good part of the population to move south, but not actually operating in the city, launching raids against Hamas cells, trying to preempt Hamas' resurgence, production of rockets and military equipment. But again, it's rare for a chief of staff to be so publicly at odds with the prime minister. And many speculate of course that if Zamir were to resign, which I think is unlikely right now, it really could spark tremendous dissension within the IDF, and on top of everything else, a significant political crisis in Israel.
INSKEEP: And you're, of course, referring there to news reports that NPR has not independently confirmed that the military chief of staff was himself opposed to going in. And I guess we should specify why a soldier might have a problem with going into a significant city. Does that make your own soldiers targets of a potential guerrilla campaign?
MILLER: It does. And Hamas has now morphed and evolved, Steve, from a military organization which was capable of carrying out the horrors of October 7 to what exists now, which is an insurgency. And a good deal of the 500- to 600-kilometer infrastructure, tunnel structure - which is roughly, what, half the New York subway system? - is still intact. And that allows Hamas to appear and disappear, ambushing Israeli forces and planting IEDs. I think since May, since Operation Gideon Chariots was launched, you have almost 50 Israeli soldiers killed.
And if, in fact, you're operating within a densely populated area, and Gaza is probably among the most densely populated areas on the planet, the likelihood of significant Israeli casualties - which I think is only one of the factors that Zamir referred to. The other is the fact that reservists, you know, Israel, its main force is not a standing army. It relies on its reserves, particularly for the air force, intelligence. But in Gaza, you have reservists serving hundreds of days beyond normal expectations. So that's also fraught. Plus, you need an enormous number of forces in order to occupy. Fewer if you were just focused on Gaza City, but an enormous number of forces to occupy the Gaza Strip.
INSKEEP: There's a line here in this statement from the Israeli cabinet about the establishment - this is one of their goals, the establishment of an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. They're talking here about what happens after the war, something that the Israeli government has been extremely vague about. What, if anything, do you learn?
MILLER: I mean, in almost two years, the Netanyahu government has done almost no postwar planning. And since Hamas obviously is not an alternative for governance - in fact, the Israelis seek to destroy its civil responsibilities. That's part of this operation, I think. And the Israeli logic is, yes, you've hollowed out Hamas as a military organization. But if in fact you don't get at its capacity, they continue to minister and intimidate the population. And that means destroying what civil and political authority the Israelis have.
So they're looking for a magical sort of technocratic government, which frankly may be tied to the Palestinian Authority, although that's not what the prime minister wants. It's conceivable, Steve, if you had rational postwar planning, an end of the war, the introduction perhaps of Palestinian security forces or Arab state boots on the ground, some sort of bridge built to a negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians. All of that is fanciful right now. But the key, the sine quo non is ending the war, and the Netanyahu government is about to expand it.
INSKEEP: And just in about a sentence or two, it sounds like Netanyahu wants to keep security control of Gaza no matter what. They want to find somebody to take care of day-to-day governance while keeping control of security.
MILLER: He talks about an Arab force, Steve. But I think it's clear, in the wake of October 7, no Israeli government is going to surrender the right to preempt, prevent and probably, probably deploy its forces in a permanent buffer zone.
INSKEEP: Aaron David Miller is a former Middle East analyst and negotiator at the State Department. Always a pleasure talking with you, sir. Thank you.
MILLER: Great to be here, Steve. Thanks so much.
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