Why Israel’s ‘clear and leave’ strategy against Hamas isn’t working

From the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been divided by a clash of counterinsurgency visions. Israel has been determined to destroy Hamas at all costs, while U.S. officials have worried that Israel was inflicting too many civilian casualties, was not doing enough to ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid and lacked a “day after” plan to stabilize Gaza after Hamas’s defeat. As one U.S. official told me, “The Israelis are showing how not to do counterinsurgency.”