'No Nation Globally Has Expressed Readiness to Have Its Forces Directly Engage Hamas Fighters'
by Khaled Abu Toameh • November 25, 2025 at 5:00 am
The Palestinian terror groups clearly want to hold on to their weapons: they evidently see that having weapons is the only way for them to control, directly and indirectly, any new government established in the Gaza Strip.
They also evidently see that whoever is in charge of security in the Gaza Strip will control all the humanitarian aid....
For now, it seems that the Arab and Islamic countries are not enthusiastic about joining an international force in the Gaza Strip. Some of these countries, such as Qatar and Turkey, support Hamas and doubtless want it to stay in power, while others are afraid of being branded "collaborators" with Israel against the Palestinian "resistance."
Most Arabs and Muslims do not see Hamas as a threat to their national security; they therefore see no need to engage the terror group.
This leaves Israel as the only country that has an urgent interest in disarming Hamas to prevent the terror group and its allies in the Gaza Strip from carrying out more atrocities against Israel.
If the proposed international force does not want to, or is incapable of, undertaking such a task, the Trump administration and the rest of the international community should give Israel a green light to finish the job and rid the Gaza Strip of Hamas and all the terror groups.
Unfortunately, total disarmament appears the only way to ensure Trump's vision that "Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors."
More importantly, the Trump administration needs to make sure that members of these terror groups, including Hamas, are not incorporated into any new Palestinian police force that is established in the Gaza Strip. Recruiting Islamist jihadis and terrorists to such a police force would allow them to pursue their Jihad (holy war) against Israel with new uniforms and guns supplied by the international community.
Regrettably, if radicals and jihadists are expected to transform themselves into legitimate law-enforcers, the deradicalization of the Gaza Strip will never take place.
Hamas was not the only terror group that attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Several other Palestinian armed groups also took part in the assault, which resulted in the murder of 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, the wounding of thousands, and the kidnapping of 251 people to the Gaza Strip.
Some Middle East experts and political analysts tend to forget that Hamas is not the only terror group operating inside the Gaza Strip. Among the other groups: Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Popular Resistance Committees, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (affiliated with the Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas), Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, and Palestinian Freedom Movement. Some of these groups were also involved in kidnapping and holding many of the Israeli and foreign hostages in the Gaza Strip.
