Media coverage
Powergame.gr (Greece) · 2025-10-26
An article by Zorzet Zolota on Hamas reasserting control over Gaza after the October 2025 ceasefire, and on why analysts consider its full disarmament unlikely. Drawing on Shaban's interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it reports his view that Israel's strategy of backing armed clans and factions inside the Strip to break Hamas apart is futile, because those groups are confined to small areas and lack the scale to challenge Hamas.
An article by Zorzet Zolota on Hamas reasserting control over Gaza after the October 2025 ceasefire, and on why analysts consider its full disarmament unlikely. Drawing on Shaban's interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, it reports his view that Israel's strategy of backing armed clans a…
As the residents of the Gaza Strip try to turn the page after the two-year war that leveled more than 60% of the buildings, conditions remain dangerous. Their real estate has been destroyed or seized by third parties, while the situation remains explosive. Hamas is mobilizing whatever forces it has left in order to regain control, with the issue of its disarmament still pending, while the agreement with Israel must move forward after the handover of the living hostages and most of the bodies of the dead hostages.
Hamas promises the restoration of order and invokes the rule of law, launching the pursuit of factions that were supported by Israel during the war and are said to have benefited from the war’s privations by selling basic goods at many times their normal prices. One of these, the Abu Shabab faction, received weapons from Israel, as the country’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had stated last June. Although the Süddeutsche Zeitung reveals that Hamas officials present reconstruction and the provision of aid in Gaza as a priority, these clearing operations are a reality.
A few days after the fragile ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas in early October, a video circulated showing the execution of six men who were dragged from a building and shot in the head. The Palestinian Authority condemned these summary executions, while Hamas claims that the necessary legal procedures had preceded them. In a recent interview, the 89-year-old head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, stressed that Hamas is an obstacle to peace. Speaking to Corriere della Sera, he stressed that it “must surrender its weapons” and “have no role in the government of Gaza.”
The facts show that the opposite is happening. Sources cited by the FAZ revealed that Hamas police and intelligence forces, together with armed men in civilian clothes, have set up checkpoints and carried out arrests after the ceasefire announced in early October. The German newspaper spoke of 7,000 Hamas cadres, who launched a hunt for “criminals,” who are being handed over to the justice system, as its leadership has argued. By supporting factions in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s aim was to split Hamas’s forces and cohesion. It is futile, however, as Omar Shaban, head of the research center Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, emphasizes. Originally from Gaza, Shaban now resides in Egypt. He explains to the FAZ that Israel’s rationale is not realistic because these factions are confined to small areas and do not have the scale to challenge Hamas.
## A ceasefire on a tightrope
On the one hand, the ceasefire is balancing on a tightrope because clashes continue in the southern Gaza Strip between the Israeli army and Hamas. On the other hand, the Palestinians are destitute after a two-year war that has destroyed not only their property but also critical infrastructure such as the water supply system. Under such conditions, anger and internal frictions dominate among the citizens, giving Hamas room to act again and impose its rhetoric. In Sabra, a neighborhood in Gaza City, there were battles between Hamas forces and members of the Dughmush clan. The latter were accused of having cooperated with the Abu Shabab faction during the Israeli army’s assault on Gaza City. About 60 people were arrested.
Reports suggest that Hamas is no longer popular among Gaza’s Palestinians. There have already been isolated demonstrations against it. Although it insists that it no longer seeks to exercise power in Gaza, it also maintains that it will hand over the reins to a government made up of Palestinians and not foreigners. It claims, moreover, that no agreement has yet been reached on its disarmament at a time when the Israelis and the US insist on it. As Seth Frantzman, an analyst at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), observes, the ceasefire is entering a critical stage because Hamas is returning armed to the Gaza Strip, imposing a regime of terror and persecuting dissenters.
## Trump’s Board of Peace, Blair’s role, and the chances of a compromise with Hamas
Nevertheless, the US is hinting that it would tolerate some flexibility in timing regarding Hamas’s disarmament, unlike Israel. In an interview with CBS published on October 14, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Hamas fulfill its obligations under the agreement and disarm. However, although US President Donald Trump has also stated that Hamas must disarm, he appeared more relaxed regarding the timetable, Frantzman notes. “They removed some gangs that were very bad… and killed some of their members. That didn’t bother me very much, to be honest with you,” he had said at a press conference in Washington in mid-October.
Sources cited by the Süddeutsche Zeitung reveal that Hamas officials in southern Lebanon are meeting with allied organizations to decide what the next steps will be for the “Palestinian cause.” They seem to have realized that the dire condition of the Palestinians has attracted the interest and sympathy of international public opinion. Trump made the creation of a “Board of Peace” under his leadership a condition in the 12-point plan, while one level below, a body of technocrats would govern.
Hamas knows that it will have to compromise if it is to participate in the reconstruction of Gaza and gain access to the billions that will be provided by the international community. Analysts, however, stress that Hamas has no intention of disarming, while Trump’s proposal for former British prime minister Tony Blair to participate as overseer of a new Palestinian regime is doomed to fail. As Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum, told Welt, Hamas hates Blair and calls him “the brother of the devil.” He himself maintains the belief that there will be an agreement with Hamas that will allow it to keep only its defensive weapons, namely rifles and portable grenade launchers, but not offensive weapons such as missiles and rockets. “Given that at the moment it has almost no missiles, this would not be a problem,” he stressed to the German newspaper. Pressure from Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt could also prove decisive in reaching a compromise.
Gaza: A region buried under rubble awaits reconstruction
Trump: Israel will lose Washington’s support if it annexes the West Bank
Vance: Rejects Israel’s annexation of the West Bank
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