The Future of Hamas Movement in Gaza and the Political Scene Generally

In July 2024, we wrote an article titled (To Prevent a Civil War in Gaza After the Israeli Genocide War) and after Hamas accepted Trump's initiative which stipulates the disarmament of Hamas, we hoped in a published post that Hamas would reconcile with the people of Gaza to prevent the situation from descending into civil war, as we had previously warned, especially since Hamas has lost the majority of its popular support in the Gaza Strip and has created animosities with the majority of the people.

However, the opposite occurred, as it attacked some families like the Mujayyidah, Daghmash, and Abu Wardah, resulting in dozens of casualties on both sides. It also suppressed and threatened its political opponents and carried out field executions of dozens under the pretext of them being agents for Israel.

Although we called early for the disarmament of Hamas and transforming the Strip into a demilitarized zone after the weaponization of this arm in the coup against the authority in 2007, linking it to an external agenda with the axis of resistance and the unity of arenas led by Iran and after the Al-Aqsa flood operation that the enemy used to wage a genocide and ethnic cleansing war in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We even called for considering the movement an outlaw group in Palestinian law... yet, the disarmament of Hamas, and in the manner laid out in Trump's initiative, is a thorny and complex issue that is open to various interpretations.

Trump's initiative was essentially concerned with accomplishing the first phase, which is the release of the kidnapped Israelis, and this has been achieved and celebrated at the Sharm El-Sheikh summit. The implementation of the rest of the phases depends on Hamas's and Israel's goodwill and the secret clauses of the agreement. Today, Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk stated in an interview with Al Jazeera that Hamas agreed only to the first phase of Trump's initiative!

Disarming Hamas in a manner that achieves civil peace, which is more important than ensuring Israel's security, requires a vision and a national, Arab, and international working strategy on how to deal with over a hundred thousand of its combatants and civilian employees linked to its government and their families. If Hamas's weapons are disarmed, what about the weapons of individuals and families?

The scene we observed yesterday and repeated today of Hamas militants executing dozens of citizens on charges of collaboration with the enemy and gathering dozens of supporters to chant and cheer for the execution scenes is a dangerous indicator of the horrors that Gaza is about to face, which will not be less severe than Israel's wars against them. Israel and its supporters in the West will exploit these execution visuals in an attempt to improve their ugly image in the world and claim that they are justified in rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state. This also keeps the Gaza Strip attracting global attention, diverting eyes from what is happening in the West Bank with the accelerated expansion of settlement projects, demolishing camps and villages, and tightening the lives of citizens and the Palestinian authority so that Israel no longer needs to announce the annexation of the West Bank.

We understand Hamas's state of terror and fear, and the extent of its concerns about Palestinians in Gaza turning against it, but it had many opportunities to respond to the initiatives of the Palestinian leadership and the authority and Arab and Islamic countries that urged it to stop being obstinate and accept handing over governance and all negotiation files to these entities, especially the Palestinian authority and Egypt. However, it continued to hand over the reins of its affairs to Qatar, which manipulated them to prolong the war, and it also succumbed to encouraging enthusiastic supporters from Islamist political groups and emotionally supportive groups with the idea of resisting the occupation without knowledge of what is truly happening in the Gaza Strip to continue the war until liberating Palestine and clearing the prisons! They were also deceived by the mercenaries of TV networks, especially Al Jazeera, and all of these misled them into thinking they could achieve victory over the enemy and that Israel was on the brink of collapse (and victory is nothing but patience for an hour).

We had previously expressed our concerns about the intentions of Israel and America in accepting the continued presence of Hamas's authority in the Strip, not out of love for it, but to maintain the state of division and to instigate the civil war they desire, as there is no guarantee of success in what is stated in Trump's plan for managing the Strip by a local Palestinian committee under the supervision of the World Peace Council led by Trump and Tony Blair, along with the entry of Arab and international forces, particularly in the near term.

We believe that Hamas would not publicly redeploy its forces and carry out these executions and settle scores with its political opponents unless someone promised it that it would continue to exist in the political scene and govern the Gaza Strip in the transitional phase. What reinforces this possibility is that when Trump was asked about the situation in the Strip and the spread of Hamas fighters and the return of Hamas authority institutions to work, he stated that he had given Hamas approval to do so to ensure security!

It is true that some of those executed may be thieves, but it is dubious whether they were spies, as it is unreasonable to execute spies with American and Israeli approval.

The continuing political division between two camps: one consisting of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, and the National Initiative, and the other the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority and the State of Palestine, even with the ongoing ambiguity among them. This division and the absence of genuine national dialogue and even a lack of national and Arab interest in reconciliation dialogues, all of this will lead to what we warned against in an article in June 2021 titled (Beware of Fragmenting the Issue and Multiple Negotiation Tracks), putting us in front of three negotiation tracks:

The first American-Israeli path with Hamas and resistance factions in Gaza regarding the future of Gaza.

The second negotiation track between Israel and Washington on one side and the authority, the donor countries, and those supporting the Palestinians on the other regarding the future of the authority in the West Bank and its powers.

The third negotiation track, which so far does not involve Tel Aviv and Washington and is the most important, is the negotiation path led by the State of Palestine to gain more recognition as a state under occupation, then the more challenging goal of reaching an independent Palestinian state. Progress in ending the division will be a contributing factor to advancing the first two tracks.