Israel is quietly reducing the pace of its strikes in Gaza, even as it publicly rejects any diplomatic framework that would allow Hamas to retain influence over its own disarmament process.
Senior former Israeli security officials told JNS in recent days that Hamas’s “acceptance” of the Board of Peace’s 15-point roadmap is a calculated deception designed to preserve both its weapons and its grip on the territory over the long term.
Col. (ret.) Amit Assa, a former senior Shin Bet official with more than 30 years of experience in the security agency, told JNS that the Board of Peace, established by U.S. President Donald Trump, is structurally compromised from the outset.
Board seen as structurally flawed
“The Board of Peace, as it was established by Trump, already constitutes a problem for Israel. It’s ostensibly meant to be an objective body, but in practice it isn’t. Those actually driving developments there are Qatar and Turkey, Erdogan, of course, assisted by the Egyptians. For us, this means the Muslim Brotherhood,” Assa said.
He argued that the entire structure serves as cover for preserving Hamas rather than dismantling it.
“This is essentially a non-violent façade for an organization that is actually working to preserve Hamas’s power by every possible means, in a way that isn’t visible to the eye, and this whole matter, from the moment this Peace Board is established, constitutes a problem for Israel,” he said.
Assa said the plan’s central flaw lies in how it defines disarmament.
“To disarm Hamas of its weapons doesn’t mean leaving heavy or light weapons in Hamas’s possession,” he said, adding that it also cannot mean allowing the terrorist organization to retain any policing capability.
“It means disarming Hamas of its weapons and dismantling Hamas,” Assa argued, warning that any arrangement preserving a Hamas-linked administrative structure would leave the organization intact.
“Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization that cannot continue to exist after Oct. 7, and therefore any action taken today that constitutes dialogue with Hamas, or the creation of some internal body meant only to manage administration, with ostensible officials who continue to run Hamas’s control of Gaza, means Hamas continues to exist as it is. This is something we must not agree to,” he warned.
Pushing for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza before any actual disarmament is part of Hamas’s survival strategy, he added.
“This entire effort is essentially about planting an idea in the minds of Europeans and Americans that it’s logical for the IDF to be replaced by some other, ostensibly neutral security body established from within the Peace Board, which would replace Israel at the points where Israel is supposed to withdraw to something resembling the pre-Oct. 7 international lines, while they handle security,” he said.
Assa said the approach mirrors past failures.
“We know from our own experience that every time we handed responsibility to an international organization, like the U.N. or other organizations on other borders of ours, when there was some kind of buffer zone, our enemy eventually just entrenched itself there. The best example of this is Hezbollah, which settled in regardless of whatever procedures or understandings existed under which an international organization was supposed to preserve it. Israel cannot live with someone else guarding its security. That, of course, is not going to happen,” he said
He added that Israel’s intelligence grip on Gaza is now significantly stronger because of the sustained IDF and Shin Bet presence on the ground.
“We now have access to the territory, something we didn’t have when the Oslo Accords led to us not being present at all inside the Gaza Strip and behind the border lines. This relative advantage immediately shows we have greater ability today to locate terror operatives and act against them operationally.”
Assa said Israel’s pursuit of the Oct. 7 perpetrators will continue regardless of any ceasefire or diplomatic arrangement.
