As the war in Gaza enters its fourth year, calls for Hamas to give up administrative authority and leave the Strip are growing louder. An opinion article argues that removing the group’s political and military wings alone will not create a viable future for the territory, which has been almost entirely destroyed.
The author contends that Hamas’s fate is an important question but not the only one. Any meaningful route to recovery, the piece says, must address the conditions that gave rise to the group, which it describes as a movement rooted in a much longer conflict.
Gaza’s crisis and the historical roots of the conflict
The author argues that Hamas did not exist in 1948, when hundreds of Palestinian villages were depopulated and destroyed during the Nakba, the catastrophe that accompanied the creation of Israel. Villages including Naj and Huj are named, and the article says Sderot, Or HaNer and other Israeli communities were later built on their ruins.
The group also had not been formed when the 1967 Arab-Israeli War led to Israel’s military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank and its annexation of East Jerusalem. The author says these steps helped set the stage for the expansion of Israeli settlements.
According to the article, the occupation deeply affected Palestinian society over the following decades. It points to a rise in religious influence, with the number of local mosques growing from 200 to 600 between 1967 and 1987, and to a leadership vacuum after secular nationalism faded. The First Intifada, which began in 1987, is described as the political turning point that directly led to the creation of Hamas.
The piece names three of the group’s founders and traces their own displacement. Ibrahim al-Yazouri was born in Bait Daras and was eight when soldiers of the Haganah killed members of his family, and Abdulaziz al-Rantisi was born in Yibna and was a year old when his family was expelled. Ahmed Yassin was born in al-Jura, and his family fled to the al-Shati refugee camp when he was 12.
The author stresses that this history is not meant to excuse Hamas. The article calls the group’s decision to launch the October 7, 2023 assault on Israel fatal, but argues that the movement remains above all a product of a long history of suffering, oppression and the struggle for self-determination. It also distinguishes Palestinian factions from groups such as ISIL, which the author says lack deep roots in local societies.
What polling and civilian casualties reveal about Hamas and Gaza
The article argues it is a mistake to equate Hamas’s actions with the will of the Palestinian people. It notes that nearly 50 percent of Gaza’s population is under 18, and that more than half of current residents had not been born when Hamas won the 2006 elections.
The author cites an Arab Barometer survey conducted in the West Bank and Gaza between late September and early October 2023. Its findings, as reported in the article, include:
- Only 29 percent of Gaza respondents said they trusted the Hamas-led government.
- Most respondents blamed poverty on internal factors, and 31 percent pointed directly to Hamas authorities.
- A majority, 54 percent, supported a two-state solution.
- 73 percent favoured a peaceful resolution, while just 20 percent favoured military action.
The author says the presence of Hamas in Gaza cannot justify the wholesale destruction of the Strip or the crimes committed against civilians. The article notes that Israeli officials face accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity over these events.
The piece gives two examples. It says Hamas was not present at al-Nasr Hospital in November 2023, when, according to the author, Israeli forces left newborns to die in incubators after caregivers were evacuated and prevented from returning. It also says Hamas was not in the car carrying the young Palestinian girl Hind Rajab when Israeli forces fired 335 bullets into it in January 2024.
Diplomatic deadlock over disarmament and Israeli political leadership
The author argues that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long found Hamas useful in claiming there are no moderate Palestinian partners to negotiate with. The article links this approach to a 2017 framework titled “Israel’s Decisive Plan”, which it calls the Subjugation Plan and attributes to the far-right politician Bezalel Smotrich. The author says that plan explicitly rejected Palestinian national aspirations.
The article contrasts this stance with the pragmatism that Israeli General Moshe Dayan is described as having articulated, namely that making peace requires negotiating with enemies. It also says Palestinian factions have faced strict preconditions for international legitimacy, such as recognising Israel and renouncing violence, while Israeli authorities have faced no comparable demands.
To illustrate the point, the author notes that the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, and the Lehi, led by Yitzhak Shamir, carried out operations that targeted civilians. Both leaders later entered mainstream politics and became prime ministers, the article says.
The piece argues that this imbalance is visible in the current ceasefire talks, which remain deadlocked over Israel’s demand for the complete disarmament of Hamas. By making the elimination of the group’s military capability a precondition for a lasting truce, the author says, Israel’s leadership effectively rules out a negotiated settlement.
In closing, the author writes that removing Hamas will not end the Palestinian demand for freedom or meet the legitimate security needs of both peoples. The article quotes the Peruvian Indigenous jurist Dionisio Inca Yupanqui, who warned two centuries ago that “a nation that oppresses another ultimately forges its own chains”. The article notes that its views are the author’s own.
