The Israel-Hamas ceasefire brokered in Qatar with backing from the Trump administration is progressing slowly and with predictable difficulty. The details of the ceasefire, including multiple phases and the slow release of around 100 hostages, were in the works for a year. The outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations were able to hammer out a deal that began a day before Trump took office.
Peace in Trump’s Administration
President Donald Trump praised the ceasefire deal. He invited families of hostages to one of the inauguration events. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, played a key role in making the deal happen. Now that the ceasefire has begun, there are many questions about how it will play out. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel could return to fighting in Gaza. He faces pressure from right-wing national religious members of his government to keep his promise to keep up the fight. Even Trump says he is not confident that the ceasefire will continue through all three phases, which are supposed to end the war.
After fifteen months of war, Israel now has the time to look back at the Gaza war and how it unfolded and consider what went right and what went wrong. At the beginning of the war, when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and massacred more than 1,000 people, and took 250 hostages, Israeli officials compared Hamas atrocities to ISIS crimes. If Hamas was like ISIS, then it should be destroyed like ISIS. When the world decided to fight ISIS after 2014, it was rolled back in Iraq and Syria until the group was defeated and left to hide out in a few spots in the Syrian and Iraqi deserts.
The fight against Hamas in Gaza was not like the fight against ISIS. The Israel Defense Forces went into Gaza beginning on October 27, 2023 and fought a long, slow campaign against Hamas. The IDF never entered some neighborhoods in Gaza, perhaps because of concerns for the lives of hostages. This left Hamas in power in many areas of Gaza. When the IDF did clear areas in Gaza, such as Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the IDF usually left after several months of fighting. Hamas would then return. Hamas emerged on January 19 in Gaza, when the ceasefire began, parading around with armed men and white pick-up trucks, showcasing the fact it had not been defeated. This would be akin to the Iraqi army ending the battle of Mosul against ISIS and letting ISIS return to most of Mosul.
Israel Faces Challenges
The challenge for Israel today is whether it can get the Hamas threat right this time. Hamas emerged in the late 1980s, seeking to take advantage of Palestinian protests against Israeli rule. The group grew in power, especially in Gaza, in the 1990s. It opposed the Oslo Peace Accords and sought to sabotage them through bombings and terror attacks. After Israel left Gaza in 2005, removing 7,000 Israelis from the area, Hamas was able to take over in 2007. Hamas carried out a coup against the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Hamas built up a substantial arsenal in Gaza, with backing from Iran. Hamas has also had support from Qatar and Turkey, and Hamas leaders have traveled to both countries. Many Hamas leaders reside in Doha. This support by two Western allies means that Hamas has much more support than groups like Hezbollah, which do not enjoy backing from Western allies. The support for Hamas has not made it more moderate. October 7 clearly shows that it became more extreme over time.
The Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza eliminated many of Hamas’ commanders, including its Gazan leader Yahya Sinwar, and also destroyed Hamas tunnels. However, Israel has often underestimated Hamas in the past and overestimated the destruction of Hamas tunnels. In May 2021, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz claimed Israel had “military achievements unprecedented in their power, precision, and strategic significance” against Hamas. Israel claimed to have eliminated 25 Hamas “top operatives” and destroyed 60 miles of Hamas tunnels. However, the May 2021 war appears to have had little effect on Hamas; the group became even more powerful by October 2023.
Can Israel learn from the past and not underestimate Hamas next time? If the ceasefire continues, Hamas will rebuild its forces and continue to use Gaza as a cash machine to fund its war. Hamas controls the aid that enters Gaza and finds ways to build tunnels and missiles. It will be difficult for Israel to prevent this, short of endless airstrikes and ground raids.
Building a Strategy
Israel can do other things to prevent Hamas from growing stronger again. For instance, Israel can make sure to make the prevention of kidnapping a national priority. When Hamas attacked on October 7, it wanted to kidnap Israelis. It uses kidnappings to wring concessions from Israel. In the old days Israel used to try to prevent kidnapping by conducting raids to free hostages by force. The view was that it is preferable to risk soldiers’ and hostages’ lives rather than end up being forced to make concessions to terrorist groups. This changed in the 1990s and 2000s when Israel began to do more deals to return hostages and bodies of soldiers. Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier named Gilad Schalit in 2006 and held him for five years. In 2014 Hamas held the bodies of two soldiers killed in the 2014 war in Gaza. One of their bodies was recovered by Israel on January 18, 2025. The other remains in Gaza. Hamas has also held two Israeli civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham Sayed, since 2014.
President Donald J. Trump, joined by White House senior staff, speaks on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United Arab Emirates about their agreement to establish full normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020, in the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian).
Israel will need to prevent hostage-taking in the future and send more forces to defend the border. It will also need to put in place a kind of approach akin to a “broken arrow,” as depicted in the film We Were Soldiers about a battle in Vietnam. The approach would mean having a kind of tripwire that calls on large numbers of IDF forces to prevent a kidnapping if an area is overrun by terrorists, as happened on October 7. Furthermore, Israel will need more quick response forces and more reserves in place near Gaza. However, it’s not enough to just prepare for another October 7. History rarely repeats itself exactly, so Israel must prepare for Hamas seeking to take over the West Bank, and prepare for other threats. The overall lesson of October 7 is that Israel must prepare for so-called “Black Swan” events, where something extremely unique can happen and cause an existential crisis for the country. Ignoring the Hamas threat is no longer an option for Israel.
About the Author: Seth Frantzman
Seth Frantzman is the author of The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza (2024) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a Senior Middle East Analyst for The Jerusalem Post. Seth is now a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor.
