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In-Depth Issues:
Hamas Secretly Shapes Postwar Gaza Government - Lior Ben Ari ( Ynet News)
Regional diplomatic sources said Hamas has quietly selected roughly half of the candidates for the new governing body in Gaza - individuals aligned with Hamas principles, though not openly affiliated with it, Israel's Channel 11 reported on Tuesday.
The remaining candidates were chosen by the Palestinian Authority.
Egypt and other Arab mediators were fully aware of Hamas's role in shaping the lineup.
The move is seen as a way to secure Hamas's continued influence in Gaza even after the war ends, despite international calls for its disarmament and removal from power.
IDF Sees Hamas Restoring Control over Gaza - Yaniv Kubovich ( Ha'aretz)
The Israeli army believes that Hamas has reestablished its hold over Gaza's governing institutions since the ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10.
Defense sources said they see no one in Gaza capable of taking over governance from Hamas.
The fear is that the entry of Turkey into Gaza in a supervisory role will serve to further strengthen Hamas and facilitate its effort to take control.
No protests against Hamas rule have been observed, except to a small degree on social media.
Hamas is clearing roads and repairing infrastructure, but it is struggling to begin a serious process of reconstruction that will require tens of billions of dollars.
Talks with Egypt on opening the Rafah crossing have been suspended to exert pressure on Hamas to release all the bodies of the dead hostages.
Egypt Pushing to Establish Gaza Peacekeeping Mission - Vanessa Ghanem ( The National-UAE)
Egypt is pushing for a UN Security Council resolution "as soon as possible" to establish a peacekeeping force in Gaza, Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told The National.
He said the main mandate of the proposed Board of Peace is to monitor the flow of aid funds.
However, "it will not be acceptable to have foreigners running Gaza," he said, insisting that the mission of the International Stabilization Force and the Board of Peace should be to provide support for Palestinians to run their own affairs.
Sources said that Cairo is expected to lead a four-nation Gaza stabilization force made up of at least 4,000 troops from Egypt, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Indonesia.
The force will rely mainly on light firearms and armored vehicles. It would initially be deployed in areas from which Israel's military had withdrawn under the first phase of the U.S. plan.
Palestinian Police Active near Jewish Towns in Judea and Samaria - Josh Hasten ( JNS)
On Saturday, nearly 20 heavily armed Palestinian Authority security personnel arrived in their vehicles near the Jewish community of Adam, just north of Jerusalem in the Binyamin region of Samaria, in pursuit of a wanted Arab criminal.
Uniformed PA policemen do not have jurisdiction to carry out armed patrols or pursuits in Area C, under full Israeli military and municipal control, without prior coordination with the IDF.
Nevertheless, these types of incidents occur from time to time throughout Area C of Judea and Samaria, an Israeli security chief in the area explained. "Within seconds, they can turn their guns on us."
Lt.-Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, former director of the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria,
said that since its creation in 1994, the PA, in complete breach of the Oslo Accords, has built a huge terror army, disguised as the "PA security forces," funded and trained by the U.S. and the Europeans.
Over the years, hundreds of members of the PA have actively taken part in terrorism, murdering Israelis, he said.
"At any stage the PA security forces will turn their weapons against Israel and Israelis."
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Suspends Aid Operations - Natan Odenheimer ( New York Times)
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation run by U.S. security contractors and backed by Israel has suspended operations in Gaza as a ceasefire takes hold and other international agencies race to supply truckloads of food.
Since beginning operations in May, the GHF handed out millions of boxes of food to people in Gaza.
Qatar and Turkey Do Not Have Israel's Best Interests at Heart - Zina Rakhamilova ( Israel Hayom)
Israel must confront the troubling geopolitical reality of who is shaping the next phase of the conflict with Hamas and what that means for Israel's long-term security.
The chaperones of the ceasefire agreement, Qatar and Turkey, do not have Israel's best interests at heart.
Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, Qatari funding bankrolled the terror group and bears responsibility for the two years of devastation we have endured.
Israel's military strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar appears to have alarmed Doha, bringing the Gaza war to their own soil.
This pressure ultimately forced Doha to push Hamas to release all the hostages at once.
Did Qatar have this ability all along to force Hamas's hand? Think about how many lives could have been saved if Qatar had done this sooner.
See also Expert Warns Against Involvement of Qatar and Turkey in Gaza - Dean Shmuel Elmas ( Globes)
Dr. Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University, says that with the involvement in Gaza of both Qatar and Turkey, within the framework of the U.S. ceasefire agreement, "things are moving in a bad direction."
"Turkey has an antisemitic leader in every sense of the word, who aspires to lead the Middle East. Israel should not allow any Turks to enter Gaza."
PA Paid $70 Million to Terrorists Freed in Hostage Deal - David Isaac ( JNS)
In the context of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire, Israel released 250 Palestinian terrorists who were serving at least one life sentence for murder.
Some 160 of them were paid over 1 million shekels during their imprisonment, according to Palestinian Media Watch. These terrorists collectively received at least 229.5 million shekels ($70 million) from the PA.
"The Palestinian Authority ensures that it very much pays to slay," PMW stated.
"Any government that spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year rewarding terrorists should be designated for what it is - a terror organization," said PMW founder and director Itamar Marcus.
Instead, "many European countries partner with the PA by paying its civil servants' salaries - a scheme that frees up the PA's other funds to pay monthly salaries to imprisoned terrorists."
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- As Hamas Sows Fear in Gaza, the Western Appetite for Involvement in Demilitarization Is Decreasing - David M. Halbfinger
Two Israeli soldiers were killed and another was wounded when Palestinian militants launched an anti-tank missile at an army vehicle in Rafah on Sunday, the Israeli military said. Israel called it a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement. Hamas officials were quick to disavow the attack.
Hamas distanced itself from the Rafah attack, even divulging that it had lost contact with its fighters in Rafah in March and did not know whether any of them were still alive. That admission laid bare the ceasefire's fragility: If Hamas is indeed unable to control one of its fighting units, it may be unable to fully enforce its side of the ceasefire, making it less likely that Israel will fully withdraw.
The return of all the living hostages has also freed the Israeli military to retaliate against Hamas harder, whenever and wherever it chooses to strike, with no more fear of harming its own citizens, said Tamir Hayman, a former head of Israeli military intelligence who now leads the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Hayman said that Hamas was trying to sow fear and reestablish its dominance in Gaza, pointing to the executions by Hamas militants of eight rivals on a crowded Gaza City street last week. "By doing that, they're stronger, and it creates much more difficulties when you're trying to demilitarize them. The appetite by Arab or Western countries to be deeply involved in demilitarization is decreasing by the hour." (New York Times)
- Israel Allows Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh's Family Members to Leave Gaza after Turkish Request - Ragip Soylu
Israel allowed 14 Turkish citizens and 40 close relatives of Turkish citizens to leave Gaza earlier this month following the Gaza ceasefire after a request from Turkey. The group included 16 members of the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's family, 5 of whom were relatives of Turkish citizens. Haniyeh headed Hamas's political bureau until Israel targeted him in July 2024 in Tehran. (Middle East Eye-UK)
- Growing Criticism of Hamas in the Arab World and Calls to Hold It Accountable for Gaza Tragedy
Around the second anniversary of Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre, the Arab press published numerous articles sharply criticizing Hamas and its decision to carry out the terror attack, which led to extremely severe consequences for the Palestinians. The writers accused Hamas of carrying out a horrific massacre, including against women, children and innocent civilians, and of embarking on an irrational and reckless "military adventure." Some even claimed that Hamas had brought a "second Nakba" upon the Palestinians.
The articles criticized Hamas's attempt to claim victory. Saudi journalist Abdulrahman Al-Rashed wrote in Asharq al-Awsat that Hamas exaggerated the gains of the war, noting that the Palestinian cause has returned to the spotlight, that squares all over the world thronged with protesters, that Western media is criticizing Israel. But "these achievements are small and temporary compared to the harm caused by the war to the [Palestinian] people and the political losses that have changed the map in Israel's favor."
The articles called on the Palestinians and the Arab world to hold Hamas accountable for the disaster, and to disarm this movement and prevent any possibility of its remaining part of Gaza's political future.
(MEMRI)
See also Tens of Thousands of Gazans Have Perished Because of Hamas - Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
Of course, Hamas is to blame for the tragedies. First, its attacks were a massacre of massive scale by Palestinian standards, with children, women and civilians among the targets. It is also to blame for prolonging the tragedy, since it could have made the same concessions it is making today more than a year ago, sparing the blood of tens of thousands of Gaza residents who have perished because of Hamas.
To this day, we still cannot understand why Hamas carried out such a large-scale attack - one that would entirely predictably provoke an Israeli frenzy and the destruction of Hamas and everyone who stood with it.
The writer is chairman of Al Arabiya's editorial aboard and former editor-in-chief of Asharq al-Awsat.
(Arab News-Saudi Arabia)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Two IDF Soldiers Killed in Gaza as Hamas Violates Ceasefire
IDF Major Yaniv Kula and Staff-Sgt. Itay Yavetz were killed and one reservist was seriously wounded on Sunday by anti-tank missiles fired by militants who emerged from a tunnel in Rafah in southern Gaza, breaking the ceasefire agreement.
918 soldiers have been killed on or since Oct. 7, 2023; 470 were killed since the start of IDF ground operations on Oct. 27, 2023. (Jerusalem Post)
See also IDF Strikes Gaza after Hamas Attacks Israeli Forces in Rafah
In response to Hamas attacks on Israeli forces in the Rafah area of Gaza on Sunday, the Israel Air Force launched airstrikes and artillery fire to neutralize the threat, destroying several operational tunnels and military structures harboring terrorist activity. A senior Israeli official said, "We're responding with overwhelming force to what happened in Rafah. We knew they would violate the deal and had prepared in advance with a target bank. They're getting hit hard and will continue to be hit hard."
Reports from Gaza said the IDF had shelled the eastern part of Gaza City. At the same time, Israeli Navy vessels reportedly opened fire on the western part of the city.
(Israel Hayom)
- Hamas Is Stalling on the Release of Additional Deceased Hostages - Danny Zaken
Hamas has yet to hand over the bodies of 16 deceased hostages. Israeli officials maintain that Hamas has access to at least eight more bodies and is intentionally delaying their release to allow Turkish experts, key Hamas allies, into Gaza.
Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday to discuss the details of the next phase of the U.S. plan, including the composition of the multinational force slated to enter Gaza, the transfer of governance from Hamas, and the disarmament process.
One proposal being considered is to turn the Israeli-controlled area of Gaza into a pilot reconstruction model, where schools, clinics, public facilities, organized tent encampments and mobile housing, and essential infrastructure - sewage, water, electricity - would be built, funded by countries such as the UAE. The expectation is that many residents of Hamas-controlled areas will seek to move to this reconstructed zone.
Development work is already underway in the quiet southern parts of Gaza. Additional families and clans from both the south and north have reportedly approached Israel and Emirati representatives, requesting similar efforts in their areas. The practical outcome of this is a de facto division of Gaza into two zones of control.
An Arab diplomatic source said a significant disagreement exists over who will lead the reconstruction efforts. Egypt seeks to take the lead, partly due to the lucrative contracts involved. However, Gulf states - Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia - oppose this, each for its own reasons. The Saudis have made it clear that they will not engage until Hamas begins disarming. (Israel Hayom)
- Hamas Hands over Body of Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Tal Haimi, Slain Defending His Kibbutz on Oct. 7 - Emanuel Fabian
Hamas on Monday handed over the body of Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Tal Haimi, 41, who was the head of Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak’s civil defense squad. He was killed while defending his community on Oct. 7, 2023, and his body was abducted to Gaza. Haimi was born and raised in Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak, a few kilometers from the Gaza border. He and other members of the rapid response team battled the invading terrorists at the entrance to the kibbutz until he was shot dead.
Tal was survived by his wife and their four children, including a son born in May 2024, seven months after Tal was killed. (Times of Israel)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
The Gaza War
- The Gaza Ceasefire Is Cracking. Hamas Is to Blame. - Editorial
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have threatened to withhold reconstruction funds so long as Hamas stays in power. Given the continued barbarity of Hamas, a happy future for the people of Gaza is probably out of reach in the near term.
The central problem is that Hamas's political legitimacy still hinges on violent confrontation with Israel. But Hamas has been severely degraded and won't pose an existential threat to Israel again for years.
Indeed, Hamas is so weak right now that it faces challenges to its control of Gaza and can likely cling to power only by massacring its Palestinian enemies, just as it did in 2007 with its political rival Fatah.
Hamas enforcers emerged from their underground dens, fresh-faced, well-fed and clad in clean uniforms. Hamas declared war on at least four Palestinian clans.
(Washington Post)
- No More Ceasefire Excuses for Hamas - Editorial
Of course Hamas violated the ceasefire. Breaking up peace processes is what Hamas does, from its suicide bombings of the 1990s and early 2000s through its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre designed to thwart the expansion of the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia. Hamas leaders continue to say they won't disarm, and their actions tell the same story.
The best part of the Trump deal is that the U.S. and Israel don't have to play Hamas's game or accept its excuses. With all living hostages ransomed and free, Israel was able to respond with force to Hamas attacks on Israeli troops on Sunday. (Wall Street Journal)
- The Implications of Hamas's Public Executions and the World's Silence - Khaled Abu Toameh
After the ceasefire went into effect, Hamas terrorists began rounding up dozens of Palestinians as part of a massive crackdown on critics and opponents. At least 32 Palestinians have been publicly executed and many more otherwise killed by Hamas thugs. Hamas's brutal crackdown shows that Gaza is posing a threat to its own people: Palestinians.
As Hamas drags Palestinians to the streets to face its firing squads, the international community appears to be looking the other way. Hamas is not going after criminals and suspected collaborators, as it claims. Instead, Hamas is targeting Palestinian clans and individuals who dared to publicly challenge its atrocities against both Israelis and Palestinians.
Hamas's actions also demonstrate its determination to exploit the current ceasefire to reassert its control over Gaza. The silence, or apathy, of the international community, including so-called pro-Palestinian groups, only encourages Hamas to proceed with its crackdown on its own people.
In the eyes of Hamas leaders, the Trump peace plan is just another temporary ceasefire that should be used for rearming, regrouping, and preparing for massacring more Israelis. On Oct. 16, the first anniversary of the killing of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Hamas announced: "The ember of the Al-Aqsa Flood [the name Hamas uses for its Oct. 7 massacre] will remain burning and the banner of resistance will not fall until comprehensive liberation and the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."
No transitional government or "Board of Peace" will ever be able to enforce law and order as long as Hamas terrorists feel free to murder any Palestinian who wants peace and coexistence with Israel. Deradicalization will happen only after Palestinians see that Hamas has been totally defeated, disarmed and removed from power.
The writer, a veteran Israeli journalist, is a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. (Gatestone Institute)
- Why Are We Still Surprised by the Hamas Executions in Gaza? - Amihai Attali
In the videos emerging from Gaza, a man being beaten on his legs with a hoe cries and begs for mercy, yet his attacker keeps swinging until both legs are beyond repair. No doctor or prosthetic will ever make him walk again. This is Gazan culture; these are the values.
Why should anyone be surprised? On Oct. 7, they committed far worse atrocities against us - cheering as they shot a teenage girl, letting her bleed to death before her parents and siblings, and broadcasting the scene live on Facebook to their jubilant brothers in Gaza. They carried out horrific sexual assaults on young women, then murdered them.
Alongside the systematic limb-breaking, there's now the execution genre. Armed Hamas militants are seen dragging a group of condemned men. Even more chilling are the dozens, maybe hundreds, of civilians forming a circle around the scene. At least half the crowd are children and teenagers. They cheer as the gunmen force the victims to their knees, and when each is executed with a bullet to the back of the head, the excitement erupts into ecstasy.
Hundreds of thousands of Gaza civilians celebrated live as their sons and brothers massacred Israelis on Oct. 7. They rejoiced at the sight of slaughtered children. Even those Gazans who do not belong to Hamas revel in violence - especially against Jews, but also against their own.
Gazans do not fear blood or death. They are unafraid to kill and unafraid to die. Gazans bring their children to the town square to watch, to smell, and to hear death - to enjoy the sight of a bullet fired into another person's skull, often someone from a rival clan. The other side lives by a completely different code - of good and evil, of life and death, of right and wrong, of how to raise their children.
The writer is Knesset correspondent for Yediot Ahronot.
(Ynet News)
- Hamas Isn't Acting Like a Defeated Force - Lazar Berman
No one seems to have informed Hamas that it has been defeated. Only two of the 20 clauses in the Trump ceasefire plan have been fully carried out, both of them concessions by Israel. It released thousands of Palestinian prisoners and gave up any potential plan to push Gazans to emigrate.
Hamas is not trying to hide its weapons or its determination to violently eliminate any opposition in Gaza. It has carried out public executions, and its operatives have put uniforms back on, riding around Gaza in pickup trucks brandishing rifles. This is not the behavior of an organization that is about to hand over power and give up violence.
The White House is clearly determined to maintain the ceasefire, and has taken the position that keeping Israel from responding in force will make it more likely for Hamas to be disarmed and toppled by other means. But that fundamentally misreads what Hamas is and what it responds to. If there is not a vigorous Israeli response to ceasefire violations, and a clear message from Trump that the IDF is free to respond to further violations, Hamas will continue pushing the bounds of the deal until it falls apart.
(Times of Israel)
Israel and the West
- Birmingham, England, Bars Israeli Soccer Fans rather than Police Islamist Radicals - Editorial
On Thursday authorities in Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city, prohibited the fans of an Israeli soccer team from attending a match next month, even though the threats to cause trouble are coming from locals. It comes barely two weeks after an Islamist terror attack on a synagogue in Manchester.
What is unusual is that these fans are being barred not as likely perpetrators of violence but as potential victims. The police cite a 2024 riot in Amsterdam after a match between that city's Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, in which Muslim cabbies and others hounded and assaulted Jewish fans. Asrar Rashid, a local Muslim scholar, said this month of Maccabi fans: "We will not show them mercy in Birmingham."
Birmingham appears to have a radical Islamist problem, and authorities are bowing to it rather than policing it. It's a shocking statement about antisemitism in Britain if officials can't guarantee the safety of a relatively small number of peaceful soccer fans backing an Israeli team.
(Wall Street Journal)
- Ireland Has Fallen to the Cult of Israelophobia - Brendan O'Neill
If the polls are to be believed, Ireland is about to get a president who is more extremist on Gaza than the Palestinian Authority. Where the PA at least says Hamas should "have no role to play" in post-war Gaza, Catherine Connolly, who looks set to be Ireland's next head of state, says Hamas is "part of the fabric of the Palestinian people" and Israel and its Western allies should not have "any say about Hamas." Hamas should not be ruled out from a government role, she said.
Can we pause to reflect on how flat-out mad it is that this once great republic looks set to get a president who thinks Hamas is a democratic organization. Connolly has become the patron saint of Ireland's cult of Palestinianism. It is difficult to overstate the extent to which Ireland has been consumed by the religious fervor of Israelophobia. The Palestine flag flies everywhere. The Dublin elites are fixated on Gaza to a demented degree.
They yap about it constantly in the national parliament.
They are hell-bent on seeing that dastardly Jewish nation be arraigned for "genocide" - so much so that the Irish government proposed that the International Court of Justice "broaden its interpretation of what constitutes the commission of a genocide" in order that Israel might finally be found guilty of that crime. Truth, decency, even the basic meaning of words, is gleefully flung on the bonfire of convicting the Jewish State of evil. No wonder Israel closed its embassy in Dublin.
Israel has become a Satan substitute for post-Catholic Ireland, the new devil against which godless moralists measure their decency. And if Connolly wins, Israelophobia will be all but institutionalized as the new state religion. (Spiked-UK)
Observations:
- Trump’s 20-Point Plan Offers Both Opportunity and Risk. President Trump's 20-point plan could establish long-term stability and prosperity in Gaza and the broader Middle East - but only if backed by an explicit, enforceable U.S. commitment. Without sustained American and Israeli enforcement, it risks becoming a symbolic gesture rather than a transformative peace framework.
- Hamas Remains the Central Obstacle. Hamas, as an ideologically driven jihadist organization rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood, will not disarm voluntarily. Its shift from overt governance to a covert "ghost" network allows it to infiltrate society and manipulate future governments while evading accountability - a far greater long-term threat.
- International and Arab Forces Are Ill-Equipped to Disarm Hamas. Statements from U.S. officials such as Vice President J.D. Vance reveal that no capable international or Arab security forces exist to enforce disarmament. The IDF remains the only force with the proven will, intelligence, and operational capability to neutralize Hamas's decentralized terror network.
- Regional Actors Complicate Implementation. Turkey and Qatar - both aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood - continue to finance and politically support Hamas under the guise of humanitarian aid. Without robust transparency and verification mechanisms, these states could undermine any international or Egyptian-led enforcement effort.
- A Strategic Realignment Is Underway. The Trump-MBS-Netanyahu vision represents a pragmatic realignment of U.S., Israeli, and Gulf Arab interests. Focused on countering Iran, promoting Arab-Israeli normalization, and advancing economic modernization, this partnership has redefined Middle East geopolitics by prioritizing security, stability, and shared economic growth over ideological concerns.
The writer is president of the Jerusalem Center.
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