Any plan for Gaza must guarantee Hamas can't reconstitutehttps://en.majalla.com/node/324566/politics/any-plan-gaza-must-guarantee-hamas-cant-reconstitute
Any plan for Gaza must guarantee Hamas can't reconstitute
One idea is to create humanitarian zones where Palestinians —excluding Hamas—can live safely. Israel would then give Hamas leaders the choice of leaving Gaza or facing Israelis outside of these areas.
Bashar TALEB / AFP
Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, flanked by Palestinian Hamas fighters, smiles after being released along with two others as part of the seventh hostage-prisoner exchange, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, on February 22, 2025.
Any plan for Gaza must guarantee Hamas can't reconstitute
The Israeli military has succeeded in defeating Hamas as a military; decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and destroyed most of its ballistic missiles and military infrastructure; and taken out Iran’s strategic and air and missile defence and 90% of its ballistic missile producing capability.
With HTS seeing there was an opening in Syria, it was able to end the Assad regime within literally 10 days. Taken together, Iran has suffered a strategic setback in the region. Its axis of resistance has been dramatically weakened and the Islamic Republic’s huge investment in Syria and Hezbollah has largely been lost; it militarily has never been more vulnerable, even as it has never been closer to having a nuclear weapons capability.
Meanwhile, its domestic economy and overall governance remain very poor. Not only has the currency lost much of its value, but a country producing natural gas and oil is being constantly forced to close down schools, government offices, and businesses in much of the country due to a lack of electricity.
So the Israeli military has changed the balance of power in the region. But its achievements, though significant, are more tactical than strategic because it has not translated any of its gains into enduring outcomes. That said, the potential exists to turn this new regional balance of power into a different alignment—one that creates greater unity and integration among a coalition of states that seek to modernise their countries and turn them into digitally run economies with good governance.
What needs to happen to create such an outcome? There are two imperatives in 2025 if this is the aim. First, end the war in Gaza with Hamas no longer in control. Second, make sure that Iran needs to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons even as it is allowed to have civil nuclear power. Achieve these two imperatives and the prospect of Saudi normalisation with Israel will also become far more likely. But none of this will simply happen on its own.
Egypt's plan to create a technocrat administration with neither Hamas nor the PA in its ranks, frankly does not go far enough
Take the lead
The Trump administration should take the lead in trying to achieve these strategic imperatives and promote the likely result of producing them. Starting with ending the war in Gaza, it can exert leverage on Israel and the Arab states. The ceasefire-hostage deal that President Trump claims credit for producing has three phases, with the second one supposed to produce a permanent ceasefire, an Israeli military withdrawal and the release of all the remaining live hostages.
Steve Witkoff, President Trump's negotiator, says the second phase of the hostage deal is "absolutely going to begin," the president "wants to see" it happen and he vowed that: "We are not leaving anybody behind." He added phase two contemplates an end to the war, "but it also contemplates Hamas will no longer be in government and being gone from Gaza. So, we've got to square those two things."
What makes that difficult is that Hamas may be defeated as a military force without real units, but it still has several thousand people with arms. Israel never employed the David Petraeus "clear, hold and build strategy," nor did it ever offer a credible day after strategy, and Arab states at this point have not explained how to ensure Hamas won't still call the shots. And, the reality is that so long as Hamas is a force in Gaza, even if in the background, it will seek to reconstitute itself, divert materials from reconstruction, and plan to fight again even if it will take years. Who will invest in Gaza in such circumstances?
President Trump's call for relocation of Palestinians out of Gaza so it can be rebuilt is rejected by most Arab leaders because the answer to the Palestinian conflict cannot be transfer and evacuation. But there is an old saying, you cannot beat something with nothing.
Egypt is reportedly preparing a plan for reconstruction designed to garner broad Arab support. It is reportedly talking of creating a technocrat Palestinian administration with neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority in its ranks. But that frankly does not go far enough.
People erect tents amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings as displaced Palestinians return to the northern areas of the Gaza Strip in Jabalia on January 23, 2025, during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached.
Guarantees needed
What will be done to be sure that Hamas cannot reconstitute itself, seize humanitarian and reconstruction materials, and coerce from the shadows? Any Arab plan must provide for that or it will not be credible and it will not gain the kind of Trump administration support that will be needed to get it to apply its leverage on the Israelis.
Israel is right to insist that Hamas cannot be in control in Gaza and the war will not end if it is. So there has to be a real answer to Hamas. It is profoundly unpopular in Gaza, with a Zogby poll done for the Blair global institute showing 93% of the public do not want it to be in control.
The answer is probably an interim administration run by a combination of Arab governments with local Palestinian management, stabilisation forces designed to permit rehabilitation to proceed, impose law and order, prevent smuggling, and protect the public from Hamas or criminal gangs. After 18-24 months, assuming real reform in the Palestinian Authority—which the Arab Quintet can insist on—the PA would take over in Gaza.
There is an alternative if the Arab states are not willing to be responsible for preventing Hamas coercion directly. Create different zones in Gaza where Palestinians (excluding Hamas) can leave to safe, humanitarian zones in which rehabilitation will begin, pre-fab housing will be provided, security will be the responsibility of Arab forces, and these areas can be slowly rebuilt.
Israel would give Hamas leaders the choice of leaving Gaza or facing the Israelis in the non-humanitarian zones. There are variations of this and with over 100,000 Palestinians from Gaza in Egypt now, some relatively small voluntary departure of Palestinians would be permitted with the assurance of being able to return.
This aerial photo shows displaced Palestinians walking toward Gaza City on January 27, 2025, after crossing the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip.
Realistic alternatives
The Trump massive relocation is not feasible, but the alternatives must be realistic and probably reflect the options noted here. That is one of the strategic imperatives for 2025. The other must be definitively resolving the Iranian nuclear weapons programme. The Iranians are enriching 30 kilogrammes a month of near weapons-grade uranium—by this summer, they are likely to have as much as 15 bombs' worth of highly enriched uranium. That will make their ability to produce a bomb increasingly real.
President Trump is interested in reaching a deal with the Iranians, and that should be the preferred path. But it cannot be a deal that leaves the Iranians with a nuclear weapons option. It is time to change the character of their nuclear infrastructure to the point where Iran can have civil nuclear power but no longer can retain a nuclear weapons option. It is no longer acceptable to defer the option but not give it up.
Trump should be clear about what the Iranians can gain by pursuing this path in terms of genuine economic benefits, but if it insists on preserving a nuclear weapons option, and diplomacy, therefore, fails, the consequence will be that the US will destroy the entire Iranian nuclear weapons infrastructure.
Those who think that it will be easy to rebuild are mistaken. Diplomacy should be the answer, but the Iranians must understand they can no longer play a double game, designed to get economic benefit without giving up acquiring a nuclear weapon at some point.
Should President Trump help produce the end of the Gaza war with Hamas not in control, with a pathway for reconstruction for demilitarisation launched, and with diplomacy that produces Iran agreeing to giving up a nuclear weapons option, we are likely to see a very different Middle East.
Expanding the Abraham Accords will become much more likely. So will the creation of a genuine pathway for Palestinian statehood—one where the Palestinians have responsibilities and also demonstrate they are building a state based on coexistence and not resistance. All this may seem beyond our collective grasp, but it starts with ending the war in Gaza without Hamas and ending the Iranian nuclear weapons option.
