OPINION: Why calls to end the war miss the real obstacle to peace – Hamas
Hamas, not Israel, is blocking a ceasefire - and prolonging Gaza’s suffering to serve its own agenda
Increasingly, there no longer seems to be any debate about the war in Gaza. There is a startling sense of urgency about the need to end the conflict once and for all. It is shared by Western governments, some 28 of whom have written a letter demanding an immediate ceasefire in the conflict and condemning Israel.
It is shared by NGOs, more than 100 of whom have spoken of the risk of imminent famine in the Strip. It is shared by liberal commentators, some well-meaning, some more hostile, who believe that we are at a moral crossroads and that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is so dire that the continuation of the war is a disaster.
Certainly, an end to the war, whether a temporary pause or a long-term ceasefire, will be a welcome relief to millions in the region. It will allow for the return of hostages, ensure that more aid reaches Gaza, alleviate suffering to Palestinians, and bring relief to a still traumatised Israeli nation, the vast majority of whom want the war to end. Moreover, one should be aggrieved at Israeli ministers who demand the expulsion of Palestinians as a war aim. Gaza must be rebuilt and deradicalised, not depopulated.
But simply demanding an end to the war misses one vital thing: the role and responsibility of Hamas. According to the Trump administration, Israel essentially agreed to a 60-day pause in fighting that could lead after negotiations to the war’s conclusion. At the same time, Hamas has clearly derailed the ceasefire talks. Indeed, so abject were the recent Hamas proposals that the Qatari and Egyptian mediators refused to share them with the visiting Israeli delegation.
Hamas reportedly demanded that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation cease distributing all aid, as well as the release of more terrorists from Israeli jails, among them the Nukhba commandos who took part in the 7 October attack. Hence, Steve Witkoff announced that the US was bringing home its negotiating team as Hamas was not engaging in serious negotiations. As he put it, ‘While the mediators have made a great effort, Hamas does not appear to be coordinated or acting in good faith.’
In other words, the terror group that is desperate to tell the world that Gazans are facing genocide is doing all it can to prevent an end to the war. That Hamas is prepared to sacrifice its own population’s well-being is hardly surprising, with Yahya Sinwar once saying that he would be willing to see 100,000 Palestinians killed for the sake of victory.
What is truly outrageous is that such inhumanity is being ignored by Western leaders. Trump certainly understands that Hamas remains just as evil, barbaric, and fanatical an organisation as it was on 7 October, when it slaughtered some 1,200 people in Israel. Other Western leaders appear to have forgotten this simple truth, perhaps in the interests of appeasing their own populations.
Hamas’s cynicism, and that of international aid agencies, extends to the question of aid too. There is no doubt that many people in Gaza are suffering from intense food insecurity as judged by the steep rise in food costs and the upward trend in children suffering from malnutrition. It is clearly not in Israel’s interests for such a humanitarian crisis to continue. When food becomes scarce, it becomes a commodity to be leveraged by Hamas for its own evil purposes.
The survival of Hamas would be a disaster for both Israelis and Palestinians alike and impose on those peoples the recipe for a permanent cycle of war
But the idea that the grave crisis affecting Palestinian aid is solely one of Israeli design is mistaken. Recent reports show the extent to which Hamas fighters have seized aid supplies and set up a black market where the main beneficiaries are their own supporters and fighters.
Earlier in the war, they relied on taxes imposed on commercial goods entering the Strip and on seizing humanitarian goods. They have also extorted local businessmen to boost their revenues, stolen fuel from gas stations, and targeted UN agencies and NGOs.
A desire to stop Hamas from controlling aid was the initiative behind the GHF. But the organisation has proven to be riddled with problems, and the amount of aid entering Gaza has been inadequate.
So, it is welcome that Israel has taken steps to increase aid with the lifting of barriers on food and medicine, regular humanitarian pauses, and the designation of safe routes for UN convoys. Deconfliction mechanisms are essential to limit impediments to the flow of goods. But part of the solution must be for UN agencies to work with the GHF to ensure that the maximum possible aid is delivered to those who need it and not to Hamas.
Nothing changes the fact that the humanitarian crisis will end most effectively with a meaningful ceasefire that involves the disarmament of Hamas and their removal as the governing force within Gaza. That requires clear thinking about the replacement authority for Gaza, one that could eventually control aid distribution, governance, and security.
The survival of Hamas would be a disaster for both Israelis and Palestinians alike and impose on those peoples the recipe for a permanent cycle of war. Much as Hamas wants to destroy Israel, they also want to continue murdering and torturing their opponents in Gaza, safe in the knowledge that their army of ‘pro-Palestinian’ supporters will ignore such appalling criminality. So, there can be no half measures here: Hamas must go.
Yet whenever Israel’s fair-weather western friends issue one-sided denunciations of the Jewish State, it causes the terror group to harden its stance. Every time these politicians condemn Israel’s war, every time they parrot Hamas’s propaganda about civilian suffering, and every time there is a UN resolution panning Israel’s conduct, it serves the terror group’s purposes.
It persuades Hamas that the more they resist, the more the civilian suffering will worsen and the more that Israel will be blamed for the impasse. That makes the prospect of an end to the war recede before our eyes and prolongs the tragedy for both peoples in the region.
- Jeremy Havardi is a freelance journalist and author
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