{"id":246287,"date":"2026-08-12T14:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T14:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/246287\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T14:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T14:45:09","slug":"israeli-defense-officials-weigh-gaza-buffers-iran-threat-and-us-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/246287\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli defense officials weigh Gaza buffers, Iran threat and US pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Standing two months away from the three-year anniversary of the start of the Israel-Hamas War, The Jerusalem Post has recently interviewed and spoken to top current and former defense officials, some of whom rarely speak to the media, to provide a broader view of where Israel stands on all of the military fronts.<\/p>\n

Some major points remain under serious debate, while some points have hardened into a new consensus.<\/p>\n

Regarding the broader consensus points, from Right to Left, top Israeli defense officials believe the country must maintain some kind of security zone in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria<\/a> for years to come.<\/p>\n

\"(Illustrative)(Illustrative) IDF soldiers standing near the Gaza border, in Israel, February 4, 2026 (credit: REUTERS\/AMIR COHEN)Defense officials back long-term Gaza security zone<\/p>\n

The Post understands that this remains true despite recent deals with Hamas in Gaza and the Lebanese government, as well as rising pressure from the US<\/a> on those fronts and with Syria for Israeli withdrawals.<\/p>\n

In contrast, there is disagreement between top defense officials about how to handle US pressure and how much to bend on some related withdrawal issues in order to maintain broader American support.<\/p>\n

For example, the Post has learned that a majority of top Israeli defense officials are in favor of allowing the Palestinian Authority to take over Gaza from Hamas, and criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> for being an obstacle to this process.<\/p>\n

They would prefer moving forward with the PA more rapidly than Netanyahu has, though there is a minority that supports the prime minister\u2019s insistence on the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) as a sort of pressure point on the PA-connected officials to have to answer to the US Board of Peace.<\/p>\n

Moving forward with the PA or NCAG is preferred despite heavy doubts that they will fully succeed at displacing Hamas as the main military power in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Rather, they support giving the PA or NCAG a larger role in Gaza regardless of how much disarming Hamas succeeds and regardless of how long the process is drawn out.<\/p>\n

There are also disagreements about how much Israel should be willing to withdraw from Gaza in exchange for Hamas carrying out partial disarming and partial delegating of political powers.<\/p>\n

While a minority wish to hold on to maximum territory in Gaza, a majority are willing to withdraw to a smaller security zone, stating that the exact percentage is less important than keeping the high ground at each portion of the Strip, the Post has learned.<\/p>\n

For example, the Post understands that the area around Shejaia requires the IDF to be deep into Gaza to maintain a useful buffer zone, whereas in Rafah, the military could control much less territory than it does now and still have an excellent vantage point to foresee and prevent any Hamas<\/a> attempt to push into Israel.<\/p>\n

In northern Gaza, there are ridges and hills from Netiv Haasara on the Israeli side which straddle parts of Beit Hanoun and other areas, which need to remain under Israeli control, but whether the total percentage of Israeli-controlled territory is 70%, 53%, around 30% or closer to 15% is less important than these on-the-ground realities.<\/p>\n

If Hamas makes partial concessions, many Israeli defense officials are willing to make partial withdrawals, provided the high ground is maintained in a Gaza buffer zone.<\/p>\n

These officials would insist on keeping such a zone for many years into the future because they do not believe that Gazan society is likely to change its hostile attitude toward Israel even if Hamas does some partial disarming and the PA or NCAG gain new political powers.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials are skeptical of Lebanese army’s ability to counter Hezbollah<\/p>\n

Likewise, a majority of Israeli defense officials do not believe that the IDF needs to control the 10 kilometers or more of Lebanese territory it currently holds, but this is not because they have any faith in the Lebanese military versus Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

Rather, even those Israeli defense officials who are quicker to endorse partial withdrawals from Lebanon to a smaller security zone have little faith that the Lebanese army taking control of \u201cpilot\u201d areas is anything more than a public relations effort, the Post has learned.<\/p>\n

There is a spirited disagreement, the Post understands, about whether the daring new diplomatic engagement by the Lebanese government with Israel can have any real strategic impact on the threat that Hezbollah poses to Israel.<\/p>\n

Some believe that with the Lebanese government\u2019s public backing, Israel can reduce the Hezbollah threat, while some believe that the government is mostly irrelevant, noting that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun had been ready to meet with Netanyahu, then canceled out of fear of assassination.<\/p>\n

‘War between wars’ remains part of Israel’s defense strategy<\/p>\n

Another broad area of consensus is for Israel to maintain a \u201cwar between wars\u201d on all fronts, regularly performing attacks when necessary, which will prevent all enemies bordering Israel from increasing their strategic capacity to threaten Israel, the Post understands.<\/p>\n

There is a debate within the defense establishment about how far to go with such attacks, and whether to dial back such attacks during periods when the US believes it is making diplomatic progress.<\/p>\n

Some defense officials worry more that pausing the war between wars could make it harder to restart it when necessary, while some are more worried about losing American support when support for Israel globally has hit historic lows.<\/p>\n

Defense establishment resists major Syria withdrawal<\/p>\n

Regarding Syria, almost no one in the Israeli defense establishment wants to withdraw much from Syria, despite a recent push by Washington on the issue, the Post has noted.<\/p>\n

Despite zero attacks by Syria on Israel since Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa took power in December 2024, Israeli defense officials see how he has treated and massacred some of his own Syrian minority groups and believe he remains a product of al-Qaeda.<\/p>\n

They mostly believe that his reluctance to attack Israel is an extended tactical delay because he has not yet fully taken control over his own existing territory.<\/p>\n

Many of them regard Syria as a serious potential future danger since there is no formal mechanism for preventing the new Syrian army from growing its heavy weapons, including tanks and fighter jets.<\/p>\n

Recent reports have suggested that Turkey will help Syria rebuild much of what Israel bombed in December 2024 when the Assad regime fell.<\/p>\n

Defense officials reassess Israel’s strategic position on Iran<\/p>\n

Moving on to Iran, a majority of Israeli defense officials believe Israel\u2019s strategic position was better off after the June 2025 operation than it is now after the early 2026 operation, the Post has learned.<\/p>\n

While initially current IDF officials talked about high achievements in destroying Iran\u2019s military capacities in terms of missiles, drones, and rebuilding its threat capacities, many are aghast that Tehran now has the US deterred due to the Straits of Hormuz crisis.<\/p>\n

Further, they are worried about America preventing Israel from attacking Iran in the future if needed, whereas there was no such question after June 2025, since Washington was less involved.<\/p>\n

Also, following the early 2026 operation, the Islamic Republic succeeded in reestablishing a connection between the Iranian and Hezbollah fronts, which Jerusalem had succeeded in cutting off in June 2025.<\/p>\n

In addition, Iran has now had months to recover from the attacks, and Israeli defense officials are critical of US President Donald Trump for failing to attack sufficiently to maintain pressure on Tehran.<\/p>\n

Israeli defense officials split over future Iran nuclear deal<\/p>\n

Besides those consensus issues, there is a split about any future deal with Iran.<\/p>\n

Some Israeli defense officials insist that there be no deal unless Iran gives up uranium enrichment for an extended period of years.<\/p>\n

Others believe that Trump has made it clear that he will not enforce this position, and believe that Jerusalem must be more realistic, pushing for some least bad scenarios compared to worse ones.<\/p>\n

For example, some Israeli defense officials would support a deal with Iran, given that Trump seems very committed to such a deal, which allowed a significant volume of centrifuges as long as the amount of enriched uranium was close to zero.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, they could live with a small amount of enriched uranium at low levels if there were close to zero centrifuges.<\/p>\n

The key would be that Iran would not be able to have significant amounts of centrifuges and enriched uranium at the same time, because one without the other makes a nuclear bomb impossible in the short and medium term.<\/p>\n

They would also insist, the Post has learned, on much tougher nuclear inspections than under the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, such as anytime, anywhere inspections, as well as a ban on nuclear metallurgy weapons group activities.<\/p>\n

None of this would eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat, but it would push back the threat farther than the JCPOA did and farther than the current situation.<\/p>\n

Most Israeli defense officials are currently scratching their heads about how to prevent Iran from manufacturing a large new volume of ballistic missiles, since this is not even on Trump\u2019s radar, but they at least believe the 2025 and 2026 operations bought Israel some time on this issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Standing two months away from the three-year anniversary of the start of the Israel-Hamas War, The Jerusalem Post…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[2254,903,423,37,5878,5539],"class_list":["post-246287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hezbollah-iran","tag-idf","tag-israel","tag-israel-defense-news","tag-israel-hamas-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117083080443147589","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}