Israel conditionally opens to Palestinian Authority governing Gaza if 'deradicalized'

Benjamin Netanyahu's initial stance seemed immovable. Days after the war in Gaza began, the Israeli prime minister declared he would not trade one form of Palestinian rule for another—he would not, as he put it, swap Hamas for Fatah. The Palestinian Authority, governed by the Fatah faction, would not govern Gaza when the fighting ended. He rejected the two-state solution that both Washington and the European Union had begun promoting again. He invoked the Oslo Accords of 1993, calling them a catastrophic mistake, and said Israel would not repeat that error.

But five days later, cracks appeared in that position. Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel's National Security Council, published an article in a Saudi digital newspaper acknowledging what the international community and regional powers wanted: the Palestinian Authority taking control of Gaza once Hamas was gone. The condition was stark and specific. The Authority would need to undergo fundamental reform. It would need to educate new generations in Gaza, Ramallah, Jenin, and Jericho in values of moderation and tolerance, without inciting violence against Israel. This would require, Hanegbi wrote, significant effort and international assistance. Israel, he concluded, was ready to make that effort.

Israeli officials insisted there was no contradiction between Hanegbi's opening and Netanyahu's rejection. What Israel wanted, they explained, was a moderate Palestinian administration, supported by moderate countries—the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the United States, the European Union. Israel did not want Hamas. It did not want the current Palestinian Authority recycled into power. It did not want to govern Gaza itself. The war's objectives were to demilitarize and deradicalize the territory, and to establish a civilian administration that actually served the people living there.

But the current Palestinian leadership under Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli officials argued, had no interest in this vision of reconciliation. They would not be partners. When Israel provided intelligence about terrorists in the West Bank, the Authority did nothing. Worse, officials claimed, the Palestinian Authority was educating its children to become killers, glorifying militants as martyrs to be admired. Real deradicalization could not happen under the current structure. New leadership was needed—people who did not hate Israel. "I hope we achieve it," one senior Israeli official said, though the hope sounded thin.

Meanwhile, negotiations over hostages had stalled. After initially refusing to negotiate a second ceasefire, Israel's government faced mounting internal pressure. Three hostages carrying white flags in surrender had been shot dead by Israeli soldiers who mistook them for Hamas fighters. The incident forced a shift. Israel sent its Mossad director to meet with Qatar's government, which was mediating alongside Egypt. But Hamas demanded an immediate, permanent end to hostilities—something Israel would not grant. Israeli sources said negotiations had reached a standstill. "There is no negotiation," they insisted, though they added Israel remained open to a new deal to free all remaining hostages "as soon as possible."

Hamas responded that there would be no discussions about prisoners or exchanges except after a complete cessation of Israeli aggression. The group's leader, Ismail Haniya, traveled to Egypt on Wednesday to participate in talks, but a Hamas spokesman said the organization would not play Israel's game—a temporary ceasefire followed by a resumption of the offensive. During the temporary ceasefire in late November, Hamas had released 105 of the 240 hostages it took on October 7, when it also killed 1,200 people in Israeli territory. About 130 hostages remained in Gaza. An unknown number were dead.

As the two sides failed to reach agreement, more than half a million Palestinians in Gaza faced acute hunger. A United Nations report found the food shortage exceeded other recent humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and Yemen. The chief economist of the World Food Programme said he had never witnessed a crisis of this scale unfolding at this speed—all within two months. The World Health Organization warned that the combination of starvation and disease would generate more deaths, particularly among children, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and the elderly. Ninety-three percent of Gaza's population was experiencing critical levels of food insecurity. The risk of famine was growing daily. More than 100,000 people had suffered diarrhea since mid-October, half of them children under five—a rate twenty-five times higher than before the war. "While a healthy body can fight these diseases more easily, an exhausted and weakened one will struggle," the WHO explained. Aid workers reported that when they drove through Gaza delivering medical supplies, people ran toward their trucks hoping for food. It was, officials said, an indicator of desperation.