The aftermath of the war with Israel will shape Palestinian life

For more than a decade, life in the Palestinian territories was painfully static. The occupied West Bank was ruled by the corrupt nationalists of Fatah, and blockaded Gaza was run by the corrupt Islamists of Hamas. Residents of the West Bank endured the daily abuses of occupation. Those in Gaza suffered occasional short wars, and longer periods where life was calm but miserable. There was no progress towards a two-state solution—nor any reconciliation between the two estranged Palestinian factions.

Everything changed in 2023. Even before October 7th, it was the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the West Bank. Then, on a quiet autumn morning, Hamas militants crossed the border into Israel and massacred more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians. Israel declared war immediately. Thousands of air strikes and, later, a ground invasion have laid waste to Gaza and killed more Palestinians than any war since 1948.

The coming year will reshape Palestinian life in a way unseen since 2007, when Hamas seized control of Gaza. How it will turn out is impossible to predict, but three important factors will do much to shape the outcome.

The first is when, and under what circumstances, Israel will end its war in Gaza. The army says it will stop when it has removed Hamas from power. It will certainly hope to kill the group’s leaders. But Hamas has tens of thousands of militants and even more supporters. Israel could find itself stuck in a long guerrilla war, and the residents of Gaza stuck in a long displacement.

The second is what will follow the war. America and Israel hope the Gulf states will step in with money for reconstruction and, perhaps, troops for an international peacekeeping force. They would probably do the former; the latter is a harder sell. Arab leaders will, in turn, urge the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls parts of the West Bank, to return to run Gaza.

That is a best-case scenario. But the PA might not want to return to Gaza with the help of Israeli tanks. And even if it did, it might find that it is unable to govern the territory (it has already lost control of bits of the West Bank). That would leave Israel in charge of security and basic services, perhaps with the help of a jerry-rigged government of local notables. Instead of reuniting the Palestinians, the war could reinforce their split.

That points to a third question: the fate of the PA and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. Half of Palestinians want to dissolve the PA, which they see as hopelessly corrupt, and 80% want Mr Abbas, who will soon start the 20th year of his four-year term, to resign. He is unlikely to listen, and he lacks a clear successor. Various apparatchiks hope to replace him, such as Majed Faraj, who heads the PA’s intelligence services, and Jibril Rajoub, a former security chief, but none is popular.

Optimists hope that there might be a silver lining in a blood-soaked 2023: that the PA (flawed, corrupt but much more moderate than Hamas) could emerge strengthened, and a shocked Israel could re-commit itself to peace talks. But these days, optimism is in short supply. ■

Gregg Carlstrom, Middle East correspondent, The Economist, Dubai