Political constraints will make it difficult for Israel's government to articulate formal post-war plans for Gaza and Lebanon, which will increase the likelihood of Israel relying on open-ended military pressure on Hamas and Hezbollah; the lack of a defined policy will also enable far-right Israeli groups to resettle in Gaza and normalize expansion into Lebanon, creating friction with Israel's key international partners. In the absence of a formal post-war plan for Gaza, a group of former Israeli generals and high-ranking officials has for months pushed the ''Generals' Plan,'' which aims to end the war in the strip on Israel's terms. This plan calls for a ''total siege'' in northern Gaza, the departure of all civilians from the area, the treatment of all remaining persons in these closed military zones as enemy combatants, and the cessation of all aid. The plan also includes a post-war component that would leave the northern part of Gaza under permanent Israeli military occupation as Israel seeks a governing body that does not include the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The plan calls for such harsh tactics because, after a year of intensive military operations in the strip, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and up to 101 Israeli hostages remain at large, and the government has not articulated a post-war strategy for Gaza. Meanwhile, as Israel's invasion of Lebanon continues to advance slowly, the Israeli government has not offered a plan to maintain its buffer zone beyond a broad declaration that it will continue to use military pressure against Lebanon's political and militant group Hezbollah until the group's capabilities are significantly diminished or destroyed.

• The Generals' Plan is not official Israeli government policy, but Israeli government sources said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering it, at least in part, according to an AP report on Oct. 14. 
• The Israeli government's official goals in Gaza remain broad and include the destruction of Hamas, a goal most military and political analysts describe as impossible given the group's wide geographic dispersion, ability to regenerate and broad base of public support among the Palestinian population. This goal has come under criticism even from Israeli politicians, including former military head Benny Gantz, who left the government in June, claiming Netanyahu refused to articulate a viable post-war plan.
• In September, Israel officially declared the end of Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel to be a war goal but did not articulate a specific plan to achieve this goal. Israel previously said it wanted a buffer zone on Lebanon's side of the border in which Hezbollah and other Palestinian militant groups like Hamas could not operate, thereby securing northern Israel and ending Hezbollah's intermittent rocket attacks on northern communities.

Political constraints will likely prevent Israel's government from spelling out its specific victory conditions, leading it to instead continue implementing policy through action and defining it retrospectively. Though Israel's government leans far-right, center-right elements oppose open-ended occupations in Gaza and Lebanon, given Israel's history of long, controversial occupations in those regions. By contrast, far-right parties and their supporters increasingly favor not only open-ended occupations but also the Israeli resettlement of Gaza and the expansion of Israeli settlements into southern Lebanon to secure buffer zones. Should the government declare that it will eventually withdraw from Gaza or Lebanon, it risks losing far-right support and, by extension, its stability. However, if the government accepts the need for a long-term military occupation of these regions, it will lose center-right supporters and fuel opposition capitalizing on wartime fatigue. Based on Prime Minister Netanyahu's policies dating back to the 1990s, these limitations will likely lead the government to avoid articulating policy, aiming instead to change facts on the ground slowly in Gaza and Lebanon to prevent either side of the internal debate from feeling abandoned.

• In September, Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, a prominent Israeli religious nationalist, called for the conquest of Lebanon and the settlement of southern Lebanon in a letter, the first far-right leader to openly say so since the Israel-Hamas war began. This position remains unpopular among most Israelis, who are wary of a repeat of the guerrilla war Israel fought with Hezbollah from 1982 to 2000.
• As early as November 2023, a far-right movement called ''Returning Home'' called for the reestablishment of Jewish settlements evacuated from Gaza in 2005. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are vocal champions of these policies. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a center-right Likud minister, has stated that he opposes an open-ended reoccupation of Gaza, mindful of the security problems and international criticism that followed Israel's control of Gaza from 1967 to 2005.
• Prime Minister Netanyahu has made a long career of quietly ignoring the stipulations of the Oslo Accords and international law by approving settlements in the West Bank without overtly stating a policy of taking permanent control of these regions. This policy has been described as changing ''facts on the ground'' to influence the final settlement expected between Palestinians and Israelis.

In Gaza, Israel will continue to lean toward an open-ended military occupation that includes Israeli control of the Egypt-Gaza border and central Gaza, as well as recurrent military operations with brigade-sized forces — making a formal post-war transition to Palestinian control in the strip difficult. Rather than putting Gaza under the formal control of Israel's military authority (the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT), which controls the West Bank, Israel's government will likely focus on de facto control of key transportation routes between northern and southern Gaza and the Egyptian border in a bid to squeeze off supplies that might reach Hamas. In the meantime, Israel will likely continue its raid-and-withdrawal strategy using brigade-sized forces of approximately 1,000-4,000 troops, rather than smaller units that characterize its military operations in the West Bank. Though this strategy will resemble Israel's occupation of the West Bank, the government is unlikely to define it legally as an occupation and will instead claim it is maintaining combat operations against an ongoing insurgency that is expected to retain strength in the long term. However, this strategy will make a post-war power transition in Gaza difficult, as Hamas will be unlikely to agree to a cease-fire without expanded freedom of movement in Gaza, while the Palestinian Authority will not agree to govern Gaza without a pledge for Israel to reduce combat operations and negotiate a two-state solution under which Israeli forces would leave Gaza. 

In Lebanon, Israel's government will also avoid spelling out a comprehensive strategy for ending Hezbollah's attacks, instead leaving open-ended military pressure against the militant group as its primary policy. Wary of Israel's failure in 2006 to destroy Hezbollah and mindful of the government's inability to maintain its previous buffer zone, Netanyahu's administration will likely keep its war goals in Lebanon broad, focusing on difficult-to-measure goals like degrading Hezbollah's ''capabilities'' rather than on territorial control. This goal will accompany the widespread destruction of military and civilian infrastructure in southern Lebanon to render the area uninhabitable for these forces. Such a strategy will also give Israel's government flexibility in potential diplomatic negotiations with Hezbollah over the status of the border and avoid alienating key elements of its coalition. However, it also commits Israel to an open-ended military conflict in southern Lebanon with Hezbollah until either a diplomatic solution is found or one side's morale collapses.

Without a defined policy, Israeli extremists will attempt to advance their agendas to resettle Gaza and normalize building settlements in southern Lebanon, further straining Israel's relations with the United States and Arab countries. As Israel's government will not clearly define its settlement policy in Gaza or Lebanon, far-right partisans and ministers are likely to individually advance the goal of settlements in both places. Illegal settlements will most likely emerge in the Gaza Strip, particularly in closed military zones like northern Gaza, where scorched-earth tactics would be employed. Settlement partisans may set up illegal outposts in these areas, and without a clear government policy to remove them, they will normalize the return of Jewish settlers to Gaza, possibly leading to the permanent displacement of Palestinians from these areas. While settlements in southern Lebanon will likely remain unpopular among most Israelis in the near term, partisans will try to normalize southern Lebanon as a future target of conquest and settlement in public discourse, especially as the war in Lebanon drags on. Though it may take years for even far-right partisans to attempt to set up illegal settlements in southern Lebanon, such settlements will become more likely in future conflicts between Israel and Hezbollah. Regardless of the pace, the potential for new settlements in Gaza and Lebanon will cause diplomatic tension between Israel and its partners abroad, which will stridently oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements. This tension will manifest in more U.S. sanctions against Israeli settlers and a further slowdown of normalization between Israel and Arab states like Saudi Arabia. 

• Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza took years to normalize in Israeli society., as many Israeli politicians and citizens initially assumed that such settlements would be dismantled or traded away in exchange for final peace treaties with Arab neighbors. Only after decades of expansion and a shift in public ideology did most Israelis conclude that settlements, particularly in the West Bank, would be permanent and part of Israel in any final agreement with the Palestinians.
• Israeli extremists have already attempted to break into Gaza to set up outposts, but Israeli troops have so far removed them, partly due to intense combat operations there. However, Israeli forces have been more lax in halting the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank under the Netanyahu government.
• In addition, Israel's government has repealed parts of the 2005 evacuation law that led to the withdrawal of settlements from the West Bank and Gaza, allowing the reestablishment of previously dismantled settlements in the West Bank.