It’s worth repeating the basics here. The Israeli military has clearly identified Hamas, not the Palestinian population as a whole, as the enemy in Gaza. It wants a cease-fire and a reasonable plan for governing Gaza from the cabinet. It feels overstretched in light of the threat from Hezbollah. In all of these things, it is correct.
But the government does not agree, for two reasons. First of all, Bibi knows that he faces a reckoning from the Israeli public for his failure to prevent the Hamas attack as soon as the war is over, so he has every incentive to keep the conflict going as long as possible. Second, the Israelis are traumatized and feeling very sorry for themselves. Like the government, they think the Palestinian population is complicit in October 7 and are therefore indifferent to the suffering of civilians. As to the future, they prefer to postpone thinking about it seriously until the war is over.
To the extent that there is any kind of a plan for postwar Gaza, it is that an independent civilian group of moderate Arabs will do the job for the IDF. This “plan” is pure fantasy. No Arab country is going to pay for the privilege of cleaning up mountains of rubble and being Israel’s jailer. America–even one under Trump–isn’t going to do it, either. The Israelis are facing an occupation of indefinite length, along with a significant degree of anarchy in Gaza, at their own expense.
That may not sound like a problem to the Israeli public today, but wait and see what it thinks five years from now.