It has been a difficult week for those who hoped the brutal war in Gaza had come to an end. Continued Hamas attacks have killed three Israeli soldiers since the US-backed ceasefire came into effect. Israeli retaliation has killed more than 100 Gazans. As the truce comes under increasing strain, the future of the Palestinian enclave looks increasingly uncertain, with both Hamas and Israel trying to shore up their position.
While the ink was still drying on Gaza’s fragile peace plan, Hamas wasted no time in exploiting the ceasefire to reassert its grip on the territory. The most shocking example was filmed footage of Hamas fighters publicly executing Palestinians the group deemed “lawbreakers” and “collaborators”. But the organisation’s re-emergence extended beyond brute force. Its uniformed police quickly reappeared on Gaza’s streets and its bureaucrats are involved in tentative reconstruction efforts.
By violently asserting control, Hamas is contravening the 20-point peace plan’s stipulation that Gaza become a “deradicalised terror-free zone”. Such actions also stand in stark contrast to Hamas’s backing of the peace plan, a deal that effectively calls on the group to agree to disband. This is why Israel backed the deal, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could claim that diplomacy would deliver what two years of military force had failed to do: Hamas’s total destruction and defeat.
Regardless of what the group’s leaders agreed to under diplomatic and military duress, this is not the end of Hamas. The group wants what any actor or institution wants – to survive. Hamas may evolve but it will continue to pursue its goals and seek to shape Gaza’s future. As it did routinely during the two-year war, Hamas will exploit Israel’s short-sighted policies to do so.
Indubitably, the peace plan puts Hamas in a difficult spot. It mandated that the group release all its Israeli captives, alive and dead. The US and Israel have made it clear that Hamas must also disarm. But doing so would deprive the group of all its leverage. Once conceded, there is no going back. Israel, on the other hand, can always reoccupy Gaza, or re-arrest any released Palestinian detainees.
What makes the peace plan so unique is that it front-ends Hamas’s concessions. Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday Agreement, by contrast, gave the Provisional IRA a two-year window to surrender their weapons. In the end, it took them seven years to do so. Further, the IRA’s disarmament took place only after its political wing – Sinn Fein – was fully integrated into Northern Ireland’s governance structures. In contrast, the Gaza peace plan essentially says that Hamas must disarm first and surrender all its political power.
This is exactly why the group is creating its own facts on the ground. It is doing what it has always done, exploiting power vacuums to consolidate its authority. Hamas remains the only credible player that can provide for Gazans’ welfare and safety needs, things that are essential for normal life to resume. Its recent brutal shows of force are a win-win for the group. They allow Hamas to demonstrate that it remains the only sheriff in town and that it can protect Gazans from “lawbreakers”. It also provides an excuse for Hamas to settle scores with political rivals. Furthermore, it gives Hamas an excuse not to disarm. Even US President Donald Trump has seemingly accepted the group’s claim that someone has to oversee public order in the interim.
If the ceasefire holds, Hamas will likely continue to publicly back the peace deal, while unilaterally undermining it. Ironically, Israel will do exactly the same. Several Israeli ministers and journalists close to Mr Netanyahu have repeatedly stated that the country’s armed forces will not withdraw fully from Gaza, which would be a clear breach of the peace deal. Both sides are claiming to uphold the deal, whilst hoping that the other will breach it first.
The exchange of fire on Tuesday was the latest violent iteration of this strange strategic convergence. Israeli officials were outraged when they discovered that Hamas staged the discovery of a hostage body, whilst the news that an attack had killed a solider that same day was the final straw. Israel responded with the deadliest and most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire came into effect. Together, these events pushed the truce to the brink of collapse. Only at the last minute did both sides step back from the brink. Predictably, Israel and Hamas continue to blame each other for the breakdown.
This is a dynamic that could go on indefinitely and ensure that the emerging status quo in Gaza becomes the new normal. Observers fear that Israel will indefinitely occupy the 53 per cent of the territory it currently controls, whilst ceding the remainder to Hamas. This is a far cry from either Hamas’s “total defeat” or the peace deal, which envisions an indivisible, reconstructed Gaza ruled by an “apolitical Palestinian committee”. But Israeli hopes are that – with the international community’s help – they could rebuild the parts of Gaza they control, while besieging and blocking all aid to the territory still under Hamas’s rule.
There are, however, several hurdles to this short-sighted approach. The first is that it contradicts what many in Mr Netanyahu’s far-right coalition want: the annexation, ethnic cleansing and re-settlement of Gaza. Accordingly, to justify this, Israel would likely have to create such a dire humanitarian situation in Hamas-ruled Gaza that it would bring back the worst deprivations of the recent war and make a further round of conflict inevitable. Israel would also continue its descent into becoming a global pariah.
The second issue is that Israel’s record of governing Gaza is even more abysmal than that of Hamas. Israel has long sought to eschew any duty of care for the territory’s Palestinian residents. This is why, during the two-year war, Hamas militants, police and bureaucrats kept returning to parts of the territory that Israel had previously cleared. Hamas reappeared after Israel’s military withdrew, leaving behind a power vacuum and a destitute population in need of aid and security. This counter-productive strategy gave Hamas a vital lifeline. It will likely do the same again in the parts of Gaza Israel still controls.
This is linked to the third issue. Given its record and lack of perceived legitimacy, Israel will need someone else to oversee civilian governance and meet Gazans’ everyday needs in the parts of Gaza that it still controls. But the regional actors who gave the peace plan their full-throated backing are now understandably balking at contributing funds, troops and bureaucrats to an open-ended mandate of policing and indefinitely managing Gaza in Israel’s image.
The final and most important issue is that the emerging status quo would suit Hamas. It would leave the group as the sole authority in about half of Gaza, maintaining a monopoly of violence and on social welfare provision – the twin pillars from which it draws legitimacy. Israel’s occupation of the rest of Gaza would, in turn, give Hamas an excuse to continue its campaign and refuse to disarm. Similarly, any Israeli blockade would allow Hamas to blame someone else for the territory’s dire humanitarian situation.
In short, Israel’s plan for Gaza looks very similar to the enclave’s pre-war status quo. It was the same status quo that laid the groundwork for the October 7 attacks and Israel’s brutal yet ultimately failed military campaign in the territory. If Gaza’s recent dichotomisation becomes permanent, Hamas will be weaker than it was before the recent conflict. Yet it will be neither destroyed military nor politically neutered. Without a pathway to a rehabilitated Gaza free of both Hamas and Israeli rule, the territory’s next chapter will look less like the one envisioned in the peace plan and more like an intermission before the next war.
