Hamas has been weakened but could recover, concerned officials admit.
Israel i officials signaling they are considering whether they can reach a diplomatic agreement with Hezbollah or expand their offensive into Lebanon.
Multiple Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have signaled that Israel will begin to draw down forces in Gaza as it enters into what it has called "Phase C" of its war, with a significantly reduced number of troops focusing on what one official described as "fighting Hamas hotspots and hunting high-value targets."
Hamas' continued influence in Gaza has not fully mitigated lawlessness there. with European and Israeli officials warning for months that the Gaza Strip could turn into "Mogadishu on the Mediterranean," a reference to the decades of internecine fighting and instability in Somalia's capital. The "board of directors" would be coupled with a new a "bottom up" force that the U.S. would train and that would include contingents from the Palestinian Authority to lend it legitimacy, though not so many Palestinian contingents that Netanyahu, who has publicly dismissed any Palestinian Authority role in a future Gaza, would reject the plan, a senior Israeli official told ABC News.
To that end, the officials said, Israel should muster forces and conserve ammunition for an impending confrontation with Hezbollah, which has boasted of tens of thousands of Iranian-trained fighters, many of them seasoned from fighting in Syria's civil war, and further thousands of missiles and rockets that could well overwhelm Israel's air defenses.
But Hezbollah also has signaled that it wouldn't agree to the U.S.-brokered deal until Israel ends the war in Gaza. The Israeli sources told ABC News that Hamas was stalling on committing to terms on the internationally brokered cease-fire knowing that a potential war with Hezbollah would significantly weaken Israel.
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