When will we know the ‘day after’ Israel-Hamas War has arrived?

Everybody is talking about “the day after.”

The day after the Gaza war. The day after Hamas.

Much is dependent on when the “day after’ arrives, and not only in terms of what this means regarding who will administer, control, and rehabilitate Gaza.

Rather, the “day after” is also important regarding when the Israeli post-mortem can begin.

When can the investigations into what went so tragically wrong on October 7, and what led up to it, be investigated? When can the State Committee of Inquiry that must be set up begin its work?

The country has agreed to put all that off until “the day after,” until after the war, realizing that first you defeat Hamas, and then you deal with how you allowed Hamas to grow to the monstrous dimensions that it did. The time for a domestic reckoning will come, the nation agrees, but not until the day after.

The same with domestic politics.

National Unity Party head Benny Gantz, grasping the gravity of the hour and the need for unity, entered the emergency government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 11.

He made clear at the time that this was not a political marriage but rather a short-term relationship for the duration of the war. Or, in Gantz’s words, “Ours is not a political partnership but a shared fate.”

Gantz clarified that he had no intent of remaining in a unity government led by Netanyahu for the long term, and his stipulation for joining the government was that it only dealt with matters concerned with waging the war. On the day after, he made clear, he would leave the government.

So when is that? 

After 74 days of fighting, it is becoming increasingly clear that there will not be any one ah-ha moment when everyone realizes that the war is won. Few are harboring any illusions that there will be any one event or incident that will mark the end of the war. Hamas head Yahya Sinwar is not going to emerge from a tunnel in his pajamas waving a white flag. And even if he is captured and killed, it is unlikely this will put an end to sporadic fighting with remaining Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.

A war in stages

Both defense and political officials are not talking about a clean end to the war: it ends on a Tuesday, and the “day after’ begins on Wednesday. Rather, what is being discussed is a war in stages.

The first stage was the recovery from the shock of October 7 and pushing Hamas’s terrorist army back across the border into Gaza. The second stage was the aerial bombardment of Gaza and drawing up new plans for a ground invasion that would take Hamas by surprise. That was stage three, which began on October 27 with a ground invasion of northern Gaza.

Then came the week-long ceasefire – stage four – followed by stage five: a resumption of the ground invasion, though this time with an emphasis on the south.

This intensive phase of the fighting is expected to last for another few weeks – though the Americans are reportedly trying to limit the time – with some defense officials saying that it will go on until the end of January.

But then the war will not necessarily end. Then lower intensity fighting to clear the remaining terrorist infrastructure out of Gaza will continue. And that could go on for months, even years.

For the sake of comparison, the IDF moved into the Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria for the first time in late March 2002 to clear out the terrorist infrastructure that had developed there under the Oslo Accords. It took some two-and-a-half years to do this, however, and effectively bring an end to the second Intifada.

The infrastructure that has been built in Gaza is far more extensive and advanced. To clean it out might take long, if not longer.

So when does the “day after” begin? Does it begin when the stage of intensive fighting ends, sometimes – perhaps – toward the end of January? Is this when discussion about the establishment of a State Commission of Inquiry should begin?  Is this when Gantz will leave the government, signaling open political season?

Or does the “day after” begin much later, after the sweeping up process inside Gaza is well underway?

Netanyahu would like the “day after” to begin later. It is in his interest to say that the time for politics and investigations is not when soldiers are still fighting inside Gaza.

But soldiers are now likely to be fighting in Gaza for months if not years. Perhaps not tens of thousands of reservists, along with the regular soldiers, but still, there will be fighting. So does the country wait that long to investigate the catastrophe of October 7 and perhaps make political changes?

When does the “day after” start? To a large extent, when Gantz says it does. When Gantz feels that there is no longer a need for a unity government and he leaves the government: that will be the signal – as sure as the blooming almond trees signal that spring is around the corner – that the “day after” has arrived.

When Gantz leaves the government, then the calls for new elections, the calls to replace Netanyahu, and the calls to hold those responsible for the mistakes that led to October 7 will grow louder and louder.

“All citizens of Israel share a common fate, and together we will shape our fate and reality. At this time, we are all soldiers of the State of Israel. This is the time to come together and win,” Gantz said when joining the government two months ago. “This is not the time for difficult questions; it is the time for crushing responses on the battlefield.”

Gantz’s leaving the government will be a signal that the time for “difficult questions” – the “day after” – has arrived.

That is on the domestic level. In Gaza, there will be other signs.

There is a debate – rather public – taking place right now between the US and Israel as to what the Palestinian Authority’s role should be in Gaza on the day after, with the US envisioning a starring role for the PA,  and Israel saying it should have a bit part, if any at all.

Meanwhile, inside Gaza, ensconced deep inside a tunnel in the bowels of the earth, probably surrounded by hostages serving as his human shields, Sinwar is making it clear by continuing to fire missiles into Israel, and by making demands for an end to the war before he negotiates any more hostage releases, that he intends to be a part of that “day after.” Sinwar is putting everyone on notice that the day after he has in mind is not the day after Hamas, but rather the day after the war – and on that day after, he and Hamas will still be standing.

If so, if Hamas remains a significant factor when the guns fall silent, then Israel is in deep, deep trouble. Iran is one actor who realizes this, and it is employing its proxies – from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen – to ensure that Hamas does not fall. Iran wants to forestall the destruction of Hamas because if Hamas is destroyed, Tehran loses an important asset and agent.

Moreover, if there is no day after Hamas, if the war ends and Hamas remains standing, then all the countries in the region who wanted to have a relationship with Israel because of its perceived strength and military and technological superiority – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, even Saudi Arabia – may reassess things. And that is something very much in Iran’s interest.

If Israel hopes to continue thriving in this region, it needs to ensure that there will indeed be a day after when Hamas is no longer in control of Gaza.

And when will we know that? What will be a harbinger of that day?

One early sign will be when trucks bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza are not commandeered by Hamas terrorists, and when Gazans do not have to loot those trucks out of fear that if they don’t do so, the food, water, and medicine on those trucks won’t reach them but will rather be seized by Hamas along the way. If what happened so far this week – where footage emerged of Gazans looting trucks and Hamas hijacking them – is any indication, then that “day after” remains a long way away.