While the world pressures Israel, even before its war against Hamas has ended, to turn the Gaza Strip over to the Palestinian Authority, Israeli security experts delivered the opposite message at a security conference Thursday, saying Israel must remain in Gaza for a long time.
The Israel Defense Conference 2024, which took place in Ashkelon on Jan. 25, was organized by the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF). Thursday’s conference was the third held by the organization, and the most successful, with 500 attending.
The IDSF has grown in reputation following Oct. 7 as it has been warning for years that Israel needs to reevaluate its security posture. The group, comprising thousands of former security officers, was founded in 2020 by senior retired IDF personnel concerned that Israel was entering a dangerous period.
“For two years now, we have warned that the State of Israel has been on the road to war,” said Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, co-founder and chairman of IDSF, in his opening remarks.
“We predicted that Israel was going to face a Six-Day War scenario, or a Yom Kippur scenario, in which we would find ourselves completely surprised.”
In the 1967 SixDay War Israel struck first, quickly defeating its enemies. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War Israel was taken by surprise, hesitated to carry out a last-minute preemptive strike, and suffered heavy losses.
“Unfortunately, we found ourselves in the Yom Kippur reality that we so feared, a surprise scenario that caught Israel off guard,” he said, referring to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas invasion.
A central topic at the conference was the “day after” the current war. While the United States and Europe have reiterated their commitment to the two-state solution, the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, Israelis have drawn the opposite conclusion from Oct. 7.
The United States and Europe “are really calling for Israel to destroy itself,” Avivi told JNS.
“When we talk about the ‘day after’ we need to look at it from two points of view,” he said. “One is military. The other is civilian.”
On the security front, Avivi highlighted three issues: First, Israel must control the Egyptian border “indefinitely,” he said, to prevent the flow of weapons, terrorists and money into the Gaza Strip. Second, the IDF must be able to operate anywhere in Gaza, “just like it can anywhere in Judea and Samaria.” Third, Israel needs a security perimeter to give the IDF time to act against terrorists attempting to infiltrate into Israel.
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