What is Israel’s Gideon’s Chariots plan for Gaza?

The Israeli government on Monday unveiled its latest military strategy for the Gaza Strip, ominously titled ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ (Merkavot Gideon).

Approved unanimously by the security cabinet, the plan formalises what critics describe as a blueprint for permanent occupation, mass displacement, and an expansion of violence against the besieged and displaced Palestinian civilian population.

Israel has said that it will give Hamas until the end of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East, which is 10 days from now, or “Operation ‘Gideon’s Chariots’ will begin with great force and will not end until all its objectives are achieved”. 

However, the type of deal Israel expects Hamas to accept remains ambiguous, given the group has already accepted a comprehensive ceasefire plan that would see every single Israeli hostage returned in exchange for an end to the war.  

Israeli officials are framing Gideon’s Chariots as a mission to dismantle Hamas and retrieve hostages, but the operation marks a significant escalation in the logic of collective punishment and a potential permanent occupation of some or all of Gaza that has characterised Israel’s war on the enclave since October 2023.

Occupation rebranded as security

According to a senior Israeli official speaking to the Israeli media, the plan involves overwhelming force by land, sea, and air, including the use of heavy machinery to demolish any infrastructure in Gaza deemed a threat by the Israeli military.

Unlike previous offensives, Israeli forces will not withdraw after military operations conclude. Instead, the army will remain indefinitely in all areas it captures – turning swathes of Gaza into an expanded buffer zone, or as some officials have creepily described it, a “sanitised” security belt.

The official confirmed that areas cleared by the military would follow the “Rafah model” – a euphemism for the complete destruction of civilian neighbourhoods and their incorporation into Israeli-controlled zones.

Such language reflects a shift not only in tactics but in political ambition: the slow annexation of most of Gaza under the guise of security.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich left little room for ambiguity when speaking at a conference in Jerusalem.

“We are occupying Gaza to stay,” he declared. “No more going in and out. This is a war for victory.”

He went further, stating that Israelis should stop fearing the word “occupation” and claiming that “a people that wants to live must occupy its land” – suggesting, quite explicitly, that Gaza is considered part of Israel’s territory.

Forced displacement as policy

A central pillar of the plan is the mass removal of Palestinians from northern Gaza.

Though Israeli officials describe it as “voluntary relocation”, the intent and scale clearly amount to forced displacement and ethnic cleansing — a violation of international law if implemented without guarantees of return or safety. Civilians are to be pushed south and herded into tightly controlled zones under Israeli surveillance.

Humanitarian aid, already severely restricted to the point of causing the conditions of famine, will be further weaponised.

According to the plan, aid deliveries will only resume once military operations begin and the population has been displaced. Even then, assistance will be distributed only through civilian contractors approved by the Israeli military, in secured areas where recipients are screened — a move rights groups say amounts to coercion and the use of aid as a weapon of war. 

Propaganda and symbolism

In Hebrew discourse, “Gideon” invokes the biblical warrior who led a chosen few to annihilate the Midianites – an ancient Arab people – casting Operation Gideon’s Chariots in the mould of divine vengeance and ethnic conquest. It is a name freighted with historical violence, now repurposed to frame a modern military onslaught as a righteous crusade.

The term Merkavot – meaning chariots – layers this symbolism with menace. It evokes both the mythic instruments of war and the Israeli Merkava tanks that have long razed homes and lives in Gaza and the West Bank. The fusion of theological myth and mechanised warfare underscores a campaign waged with the language of holy war and the tools of mass destruction.

Some Israelis derided the name, interpreting it as a self-serving nod to Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, mockingly dubbed the “hero who saved Netanyahu’s government”. But even in jest, the rhetoric revealed darker undercurrents. According to Israeli outlet Ynet, during the cabinet’s discussion of the operation’s name, one minister reportedly quipped it should be called “Let me die with the Philistines”, an ominous reference to Gaza’s ancient inhabitants, from whom Palestinians derive their name.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is said to have dismissed the suggestion with chilling clarity: “No. We don’t want to die with them. We want them to die alone.”

The exchange, part flippant banter, part genocidal intent, exposes a mindset in which state-sanctioned violence is cloaked in scripture and sarcasm, and where the erasure of a people is not only policy, but a punchline.

A war without end?

Failing some sort of peace deal, Gideon’s Chariots represents a fundamental shift in Israel’s approach in its devastating war on Gaza – from siege to seizure and from temporary invasion to occupation.

Human rights groups, international observers, and legal scholars warn that it crosses into territory where military strategy becomes a cover for ethnic cleansing and occupation.

Hamas condemned Israel’s Gideon’s Chariots plan, accusing it of using humanitarian aid as a cover for land seizure and forced displacement. In a statement, the group said the plan exposes the falsity of Israel’s claims about aid distribution, framing it instead as part of a broader strategy of occupation and ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, families of Israeli hostages – supposedly the operation’s raison d’être – have reacted with outrage.

Many see the plan as a betrayal, sacrificing their loved ones for land and political gain. Their anger was inflamed by Smotrich’s recent remark that retrieving the hostages “is not the most important goal”.