As the Trump administration intensifies pressure to transition to “Phase 2” of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, potentially as early as January, observers in Israel see no sign of Hamas disarming as the terror organization reestablishes its fundamentalist, murderous regime over the 47% of Gaza that it controls.
Despite multiple reports of international stabilization force preparations and Palestinian technocratic governments, the reality inside the Gaza Strip could not be more starkly different.
Hamas is actively rebuilding its regime of terror, refusing disarmament, and testing the IDF’s forward positions along the Yellow Line, which demarcates the areas of Gaza currently under Israeli control, leading to targeted Israeli airstrikes to enforce the terms of the truce.
The dissonance between the diplomatic vision in Washington and the security reality in Gaza was exposed in recent multiple incidents where terrorists breached the Yellow Line. One recent case was on Dec. 20, when Israel Defense Forces troops identified two terrorists crossing the line and approaching forces, posing an immediate threat.
The Israeli Air Force eliminated them. The following day, three separate incidents occurred where suspects crossed the line, causing the IAF to strike again to remove the threats.
According to an IDF official, Hamas is now focused on aggressively reasserting its sovereignty. The official, speaking to JNS, detailed how Hamas is exploiting the current pause to cement its control over the population, even as Hamas’s military-terrorist chain of command remains fractured.
“Most of what we are seeing regarding [Hamas] strengthening, improving, and preserving capabilities is mainly in the political,” the IDF official stated. “That is to say, they are trying very hard to strengthen and maintain their status vis-à-vis the Palestinian population, to show that they are still the sovereign and that they can still provide them with food and make donations to the needy and collect taxes.”
The military official explained that this effort is a calculated message to both the local population and the international community. “They are trying to tell the Palestinians, ‘You will not have anything better than us,’ even though the truth is clear to all of us,” he said. “And probably also to the international community, they are trying to signal, ‘We don’t need an international force; we can do it alone.’”
This effort by Hamas includes seizing control of aid distribution, creating headquarters for its men and appointing members to political roles, while the terror group’s military recovery is still in early stages.
“There is no one really holding the organization together right now militarily, but in the political world, they are trying hard,” the official assessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment