There has been mixed messaging on the global stage. So this isn’t about designing how Gaza will be governed when the Israelis withdraw - because they’re not talking about withdrawing,” he said. What is clear, Brown said, is that “they are defined in such a way that they suggest that Israel will have an ongoing security presence in Gaza. Predicting outcomes of this war are challenging because “Israel’s goals are still vaguely defined,” said Nathan Brown, a nonresident senior fellow of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. What is Israel hoping to achieve in Gaza? Humanitarian relief groups will probably be the only entities providing basic necessities in a decimated landscape that will require decades of rebuilding.

In the shorter term, it is unclear whether the estimated 1.9 million Palestinians who fled to southern parts of Gaza will ever be able to return to learn if their homes are now rubble. In a third, Palestinians would be displaced to Egypt or other countries - a path raised by Israeli lawmakers even though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the war in Gaza is aimed at crushing Hamas, not expelling Palestinians. In another, Arab Gulf countries would fund efforts to rebuild Gaza and an international peacekeeping force would retain oversight. In one scenario, the Palestinian Authority, which runs the occupied West Bank and is increasingly unpopular, would reassume control of the territory. Several experts told NBC News that options being discussed by diplomats and officials range from workaround solutions, which ignore long-standing failures, to the catastrophic.

Who do we think we are