There is an agreement for a ceasefire at last in Gaza.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack when Hamas and their allies broke through the border into Israel, butchering and kidnapping Israelis along with citizens from around the world, Gaza has been consumed by a long and brutal war. It has lasted 466 days now, with the only respite being a weeklong temporary ceasefire in November 2023, during which Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners were exchanged.
The new ceasefire, brokered by international mediators that include Qatar and Egypt, also entails a return of Palestinians from Israel jails in exchange for the release of hostages. It presents an opportunity to address the horrifying humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the majority of Palestinians have had to flee their homes due to the fighting. Many are now living in tents, even during rainy and windy winter conditions. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health (run by Hamas), more than 46,600 Palestinians have been killed and more than 109,000 injured since the conflict began. The ministry does not offer a breakdown of how many of these casualties were Hamas fighters, but the Israel Defense Forces claim to have killed between 17,000 and 20,000 Palestinian combatants. During the same period, the IDF says that 400 of its soldiers have been killed by Palestinian fighters.
Regardless of precisely how many Palestinians and Israelis have died—and how many of those were combatants—this has been a devastating war for Gaza. It has trashed the Palestinian enclave’s infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and homes.
While the temporary pause in hostilities provides reprieve for the Gazan civilians, Hamas and their ideological allies are claiming the agreement as a victory. Because they did not surrender to Israel, they say, and instead reached a temporary ceasefire deal, their survival signifies a victory.
Indeed, Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayya said today in an official Hamas statement today that “the steadfastness of our people and the bravery of our resistance thwarted the enemy’s plans,” adding that “Our people have foiled both the declared and hidden goals” of the Israeli government. Israel will “never defeat our people.”
Members of Hamas believe that the land where Israel exists is Islamic land, and see the establishment of an independent Jewish state as an insult to their religious feelings.
They fight because they believe Jews and Christians are inferior to Muslims and must be subjugated and forced to live as second-class citizens under Islamic rule.
At a conference in Gaza City in 2021, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar—who was killed in battle by the IDF last year—laid out the Hamas vision for conquering Israel, and subjugating the Jewish population.
Indeed, internal Hamas documents recovered by the IDF in Gaza and Lebanon have shown that the plan on Oct. 7 wasn’t just to raid kibbutzes near the Gaza border piecemeal, it was to conquer Israel in its entirety, village by village, town by town.
Hamas fighters planned to make it 30 miles across the desert to link up with their comrades in the West Bank, while their Hezbollah allies in Lebanon struck from the north. They hoped that Muslim and Christian Israelis would riot, and that Iran, Egypt, Jordan—and maybe even Turkey—would join in, too. They believed that this could bring the Zionists to their knees and end the existence of the state of Israel. That’s why Hamas called it the Al-Aqsa Flood, after the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, the land that they wish to conquer.
The truth is that Hamas’ plan backfired on an immense scale. Rather than obliterating Israel, Gaza became the battlefield, and many innocent Gazans have paid a terrifying price for Hamas’ folly. For Hamas to try and claim victory after losing a war on this scale and at this terrible cost is intellectual and political dishonesty on the level of Saddam Hussein’s former information minister trying to claim victory for the Iraqi regime as American troops advanced into Baghdad in Iraq.
The harsh fact is that after Oct. 7 neither Israel nor the second Trump administration are going to have tolerance for Hamas continuing their reign of madness and delusion in Gaza.
The new administration’s attitude is summed up by Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary-designate, telling his confirmation hearing that: “I support Israel destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.”
To be clear, this is a temporary humanitarian ceasefire. Extending the ceasefire would require agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas to progress to stage 2, which would be a permanent ceasefire and entail the release of the final hostages. Stage 3, would involve the reconstruction of Gaza, supervised by Egypt, Qatar, and the United Nations.
For this to work, Hamas rule must end in Gaza. Whatever criticisms the international community may have of the Israeli government, or alternative Palestinian factions such as Fatah, we must recognize the absolute failure of Hamas. Their behavior has been a menace not only to Israelis, but also to Palestinians, and the end of Hamas rule in Gaza would be a wonderful thing for all of us who want to see peace, and coexistence for the region.
The settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will come not on the battlefield, but at the negotiating table. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anywhere—both sides have long and deep roots in the land.
Trying to push one side or the other out is not only cruel and unnecessary, but also doomed to failure—as Hamas discovered.
There will be no reconciliation while Hamas remains rooted in Gaza and able to continue their so-called “resistance operations” against the Israeli government. If Hamas remains in Gaza, their plan according to Ghazi Hammad—one of their few remaining leaders—is to “repeat the October 7th attack again and again and again until Israel is destroyed.”
Do you think that a repeat of the Oct. 7 attack would not lead to another war?
It obviously would.
If we want peace in the Middle East, Hamas must go.
John Aziz is a British-Palestinian musician, peace activist, and analyst of Middle East politics and history.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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