A Gaza ceasefire is the beginning, not the end, of leverage over Hamas
To push the group out of Gaza, money for reconstruction is a more potent tool than military force
In 2016, nine years and a lifetime ago, I met in Gaza with Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the founders of Hamas. At one point in our interview he tried to explain why Hamas saw its control of Gaza as an achievement—even though, by that point, its control had brought three wars and almost a decade of Israeli and Egyptian siege. In the West Bank, he said, Palestinians had to endure the daily abuses of Israeli occupation: checkpoints, home demolitions, deadly raids. “None of that has happened in Gaza since Hamas took control,” Zahar claimed.
We had this conversation in his house, which had been destroyed in an Israeli air strike during the 2014 war. On the wall behind him was a poster of his son, who was killed by Israeli troops in 2008. I pointed out the incongruity. But Zahar was adamant in his belief that Gaza had been liberated (a belief that, in my experience, was not shared by many ordinary people in Gaza).
I sometimes tell this story to illustrate how deeply Hamas is wedded to ruling Gaza. It had political reasons to hold on to the enclave, of course, since relinquishing power would have been a victory for its rival Fatah. It had economic reasons too: taxing Gaza’s 2m people was lucrative. But there was also an ideological component on top of all that. The leaders of Hamas do not want to give up Gaza—no matter what consequences might result from its continued control.
Diplomats have spent 18 months trying to figure out how to change that calculus. Much of the world wants Hamas to cede power. Israel does, of course, as do its Western allies. That is also the view of many Arab governments: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others, would all be happy to see Hamas dethroned. Most importantly, so would many Palestinians in Gaza. It is hard to do reliable polling in the middle of a war. But there is limited survey data, and a mountain of anecdotal evidence, to suggest that Hamas is now deeply unpopular with its own people.
Hamas refuses to go. It is open to various ceasefire deals: a five-year truce with Israel, a “technocratic committee” to run civil affairs in Gaza. What it is not open to is an agreement that forces it to disarm and cede real power in the territory. It is willing to let Gaza be destroyed rather than let someone else rule Gaza.
For Israel—or at least for Binyamin Netanyahu and his supporters—this is a justification for continuing the war indefinitely. When he broke the ceasefire and resumed fighting last month, Netanyahu promised this time would be different. The Israeli army would hold more territory in Gaza; it would employ even more brutal tactics to batter Hamas into submission. The war would go on until Hamas laid down its weapons and went into exile.
More than a month later, thousands of Palestinians have been killed, the World Food Programme says it has run out of food aid—and Hamas has not budged. Yet America seems indifferent, as if Donald Trump believes Netanyahu’s empty talk about “total victory” being just around the corner.
Talking to officials in Jerusalem, Washington and elsewhere in recent months, many seem to have accepted Netanyahu’s premise that continued military pressure is the only leverage over Hamas. That is a self-serving argument for Netanyahu, who wants to continue the Gaza war for his own political reasons. It also completely misreads the power dynamics.
As long as the war is raging, Hamas has no reason to give up on Gaza. It is loath to concede its rule under Israeli fire and it can postpone a reckoning with its own people. Gazans might be furious with Hamas: recent protests against its rule are just the tip of the iceberg. But most of them are busy just trying to survive.
The moment the war ends, though, Hamas will have to face the consequences of what it has wrought. A ceasefire is not the end of the group’s problems. It is the beginning. Gaza is uninhabitable: Hamas will have to deliver on reconstruction or face the wrath of 2m angry people. The former cannot happen without international help. And the international community can make clear that no help will be forthcoming unless Hamas leaves.
A proposal to push Hamas out would have to come from America. The Israeli “opposition”—I use that term loosely—is probably too spineless to propose it, and certainly too weak to be taken seriously if it does. European and Arab leaders have similar problems. But Trump is popular enough in Israel, and powerful enough in the world, to give such a proposal real weight. It would go something like this.
First, Trump would publicly outline his plan. He would insist on a permanent end to the war: a cessation of hostilities, the release of all remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza, and a guarantee that Israel would not simply resume fighting once the last hostage was freed.
At the same time, he would insist that there be no large-scale reconstruction of Gaza until Hamas agrees to relinquish power. There would be humanitarian aid, of course, to deliver food and medicine and temporary shelter. But there would be no donors’ conference or “day-after plan” while Hamas remains. America and its allies would have to decide what that means in practice: Who needs to go into exile? Who needs to relinquish their weapons, and how, and to whom?
Second, he would compel Netanyahu to accept the ceasefire. The prime minister would obviously resist, since ending the war might be the beginning of his political downfall. But Trump has levers he can pull: Israel cannot continue the war without America’s military and diplomatic support. Netanyahu has spent years portraying Trump as Israel’s greatest defender in the West. It would be nigh impossible for him to turn around and defy the president.
Third, in parallel, Trump would compel would-be donor countries to accept his strictures around reconstruction. All are American allies; many would be receptive. Saudi Arabia was already projecting a deficit for 2025 (and that was before oil prices sank below $70 a barrel). Will it really want to borrow money to fund projects in a Hamas-run Gaza that might be blown up in a future war a few years hence? The UAE, which loathes political Islam, will need no convincing to sit idle. Qatar is far more sympathetic to Hamas but will not want to risk Trump’s wrath by defying him.
The UN estimates it will take $53bn over the next decade to rebuild Gaza. It cannot raise even a fraction of that sum with America standing in its way.
Yes, Hamas would try to claim victory after a ceasefire. There would be rallies and speeches and a whole propaganda effort aimed at portraying it as the winner. In reality, though, the group would be on the horns of a dilemma. It could continue to rule over a devastated Gaza, with no prospect of rebuilding and without the daily atrocities of the war to keep people quiescent. Or it could admit defeat and cede power.
This may sound callous: it holds 2m people hostage to the political calculations of Hamas. It is. But is it more callous than the alternatives?
The Gaza war started with three main goals: removing Hamas from power, returning the hostages to their homes and restoring a sense of safety for Israelis living in the towns and kibbutzim on the Gaza border. For more than a year, however, the war has made no progress toward any of those goals.
The war will not free the remaining hostages: only eight hostages have been freed by Israeli troops, compared to 139 who were released through diplomacy.
The war will not achieve the enduring military defeat of Hamas. The group lost most of its strategic capabilities in the first weeks of Israeli bombardment and ground operations. It cannot mount another attack on anything close to the scale of October 7th, and its arsenal of rockets has been largely spent or destroyed. What remains is a ragtag militia—and a continued war means a continued supply of angry young men willing to take up arms.
The war will not bring normalcy back to the Gaza envelope. Some families have gone back, but many others have stayed away: a conflict raging a few hundred meters away does not give people the calm they need to start rebuilding their lives.
The war that had broad support in Israel ended more than a year ago. What remains are other wars: the one Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival, and the one his hard-right allies are fighting to pursue their dreams of rebuilding Jewish settlements and ethnically cleansing Gaza. If America allows the war to continue, it is supporting these unsavory outcomes.
What if America demands a permanent ceasefire now with no preconditions? Even if Hamas allows a facade of “technocratic” governance, it would remain in power. That would put off plenty of would-be donors. They already have competing priorities: Lebanon needs help, and Syria, and Ukraine. A Hamas-ruled Gaza would be an unappealing destination for investment even if America does not threaten penalties on donors.
Trump has three options before him. All are callous—but only one offers the prospect of a better future in Gaza. He can allow Israel to continue with an endless war that no longer has any attainable, defensible goals. He can force an immediate ceasefire, without preconditions, that will leave a shattered Gaza in a netherworld between war and peace.
Or he can recognize that reconstruction aid, not military might, is the world’s greatest leverage over Hamas, and he can act accordingly.