Yaakov Lappin | BESA | March 13, 2025
By SpinnerLaserzthe2nd – Own work, Public Domain
Perspectives Paper No. 2,336, March 13, 2025
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Hamas seeks to end the war while maintaining its military control over Gaza, mirroring Hezbollah’s pre-war dominance in Lebanon. Israel must not allow this to happen, even if Egypt pushes for it.
Hamas’s primary goal at this time is to secure a ceasefire in order to survive the war, rebuild its terror army and cement its political control of the Gaza Strip.
To accomplish this, it has signaled its willingness to create a governance model in Gaza similar to Hezbollah’s pre-war control of Lebanon: an internationally recognized government providing a façade of authority, while Hamas retains full military-terrorist control on the ground and de facto political power.
This would allow the jihadist organization to regroup, rearm, and ultimately restart its war against Israel at a time of its choosing, with the added ability to claim to Palestinians that it was able to launch the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust and live to walk away.
All proposals that have been floated in the region – that of Egypt, which suggests that the Palestinian Authority take political control through a government of technocrats; as well as ideas floated, including in Israel, of a Gaza ruled by a regional coalition – would result in this dangerous Lebanon-like situation. This is because Israel has not yet completed its military campaign against Hamas.
On March 4, during a summit in Cairo held to present an Arab alternative to President Trump’s plan for Gaza, Egyptian President Fateh El-Sisi stated, “Egypt objects to the eviction of Palestinians and supports their right to remain in their land. We will not take part in these plans. Egypt supports a continuation of the ceasefire and the setting up of an independent Palestinian state. Egypt supports setting up an administrative committee based on independent technocrats who will manage the Strip temporarily and supervise the aid – until the return of the Palestinian Authority.”
According to a Reuters report on March 3, Egypt has drawn up a roadmap for Gaza that proposes “an interim rule by a coalition of Arab, Muslim and Western states.” The plan does not provide details on how Hamas would be sidelined, who would pay for Gaza’s reconstruction, or how governance would be structured.
Most notably, Hamas has, according to multiple reports, already claimed that it accepts such arrangements. This is a clear indication that the terror group sees it as a means to maintain its grip on power.
On February 17, Arab media reports said that Hamas had allegedly agreed to transfer control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Sky News Arabia reported that Hamas made this decision under Egyptian pressure, in the context of negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage deal with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri rejected the notion outright, writing on X: “Not going to happen.”
Similarly, Anadolu Agency reported on December 5, 2024, that Hamas had “accepted an Egyptian proposal to form a joint Palestinian committee to run the Gaza Strip after the ongoing Israeli war.” Hamas stated that it had held talks with Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and other Palestinian terror factions to discuss “implementing previously agreed frameworks to achieve Palestinian unity.”
Despite these vague formulations, the underlying reality is that Hamas has no intention of relinquishing its control over Gaza, and would obviously waste no time in exploiting fig leaf administrations in Gaza to reassert control and entrench itself militarily once again.
There have been numerous “agreements” between terror organizations and so-called governments with regard to Judea and Samaria and between the PA and Hamas west of the Jordan River. They were all facades never accomplished anything except to give the UN, the EU, the USA and many other countries a curtain to hide behind while coercing Israel to help the poor “Palestinians” achieve the Two State Solution or rather the One State Solution. None of these obvious lies worked on anyone except those willing to be duped or those who knew and understood exactly what was going on but were happy to go along with it as long as it was detrimental to the Jews.
This new thrust to achieve exactly the same thing will, if allowed to go on, achieve exactly the same thing. It is incumbent on Israel to shout this from the rooftops and from the podium at the UN and everywhere else. The very least that Israel must do is to make sure that there will be no such solution, irrelevant of the number of “agreements”, signed or merely declared.
Additionally, the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip through Egypt would be “proof” of the “peace agreement, signed and sealed, with Egypt.
The two points towards the end of the article, while absolutely necessary from Israel’s point of view, will not be seen as important by the international community and in this case, will not receive any support whatsoever internationally. Thus, the final statement regarding a moderate autonomy have no substance. As they would say all over the world, Chaloimes!