While Hamas is using the U.S.-imposed ceasefire to shore up its brutal dictatorship in Gaza, the White House is keeping up pressure on Israel, demanding it refrain from any major attack on the Tehran-backed group whose founding covenant calls for slaughtering the Jews.
The U.S. ruling class wants to “stabilize” Gaza to deepen its ties with regimes in the Middle East that can help advance its political influence and its ability to reap huge profits off gas, oil and other resources there. This is key to pushing aside Beijing, its main global competitor.
As part of the first steps in the ceasefire, Israeli troops pulled back to the “yellow line” in Gaza. There are as many as 200 Hamas operatives trapped in tunnels in the Israeli-controlled Rafah area of southern Gaza. At first Washington pressed Israel to allow them to return with their light weapons to the Hamas-controlled area of Gaza. Israel said no.
Then Washington urged Israel to let the thugs leave without their weapons. Another option would be to require the trapped fighters to give up their weapons in exchange for safe passage to another country. But Hamas says “the concept of surrender” does not exist in its “dictionary.” And so far, no other government is willing to accept them.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a key U.S. negotiator, flew to Israel to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and push for a solution. Israel has agreed to hold off on attacking the Hamas operatives trapped in Rafah for the time being.
To monitor its “peace” plan, Washington set up the Civil-Military Coordination Center in a three-story building in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel near the Gaza border. Israeli military and intelligence personnel occupy an entire floor, with U.S. officials on another. Some 40 U.S. “partners,” including representatives of the imperialist governments of France, Germany, the U.K. and other countries and NGOs, are on a separate floor.
The U.S. government has replaced Israel in overseeing the humanitarian aid shipments entering Gaza, although they still need Israeli approval.
The Trump administration is seeking to find governments that will agree to send troops to Gaza to participate in its “International Stabilization Force” to police Gaza.
The only government that has agreed to do so is the Turkish regime, which is hostile to Israel and has longstanding ties to Hamas. Israel has said it will never accept that. Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have said they are not willing to participate.
De facto partition of Gaza
The area Israel is operating in is 53% of Gaza. A number of Gazans, at least in the hundreds, have taken refuge there. Hamas controls the rest and posts armed thugs where some 2 million Gazans are living under its tyrannical rule.
No longer worried about major Israeli attacks, Hamas is rebuilding its tunnels, trying to build up its arms supplies and making plans for future pogroms against Israel and Jews.
Its immediate aim is reestablishing its dictatorship. It has carried out frequent attacks on its opponents, using torture, beatings and killings. This is a sign of the group’s weakness, not strength.
Al Jazeera recently publicized a poll claiming most Palestinians support Hamas and 53% of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank support Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, anti-Jewish pogrom that killed 1,200 people in Israel. But Al Jazeera is bought and paid for by the rulers in Qatar and well-known for its support for Hamas. It refused to cover protests by thousands in Gaza during the war demanding “Hamas, Out! Out!”
Hear the voice of Gazans
“This is not research. It is propaganda disguised as data,” Ezzideen Shehab posted Nov. 7. “Ask anyone in Gaza and they will tell you the truth: Oct. 7 was a catastrophe. People want the weapons gone.”
Shehab is a doctor in northern Gaza who has been treating those wounded in the war there for the last two years. He is not a supporter of the Israeli government or its war against Hamas, nor a supporter of Hamas or its rival Fatah. He refuses to keep silent.
“Let any independent body come to Gaza, walk among the tents, speak to the displaced, and they will hear this voice, a voice that has no party, no flag, and no propaganda machine. It is the voice of ordinary Gazans who love life and want to live, not die for someone else’s cause,” he wrote.
Hamas leader Mussa Abu Marzouq told Drop Site News that Hamas is open to getting rid — for now — of longer-range weapons that could pose an immediate threat to Israel. But he said Hamas must keep its “light arms” to prevent a civil war and “chaos.”
Hamas needs those arms to be able to strike fear into the people of Gaza and execute its political opponents to stay in power.
With Washington’s hope for an international force to take over Gaza still little more than a wish, some Israeli officials and Palestinian opponents of Hamas have raised an alternative — clear the war damage inside the Israeli-controlled section of Gaza, rebuild and allow Palestinians without ties to Hamas to resettle there.
This was first raised in July by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz. Moumen Al-Natour, a lawyer from northern Gaza and opponent of Hamas, raised a similar idea, calling for Israel to set up “safe zones” in areas it controls.
According to the Atlantic magazine, Washington is considering a plan that would include compounds for 25,000 people.
But as long as Hamas is intact, armed and in control of any portion of Gaza — and backed by the regime in Iran and other reactionary capitalist forces in the region — it will keep preparing to carry out its central goal: to destroy Israel and kill or expel all the Jews there.