It took mere minutes—quite literally—after the Gaza ceasefire agreement was signed, on October 10, for armed Hamas members to reassert control in Gaza City.
Amid the well-warranted euphoria born of the living hostages’ release three days later, and of President Trump’s visit to Israel and address to the Knesset—where he declared the day as one of “profound joy…soaring hope [and] renewed faith”—the import of the return to the streets of the evil that spawned the war may not have been fully appreciated.
Soon enough, though, we were reminded. Video emerged showing Hamas fighters aiming guns at the heads of a group of eight restrained, kneeling and blindfolded fellow Gazans whom they considered enemies—and pulling the triggers. The executioners left the bodies of their victims lying in the dirt. This was in front of a large crowd, including at least one child.
Par for the course—“curse” would be a better word—for Hamas.
The authenticity of the video was confirmed to The New York Times by a Hamas security official who insisted on anonymity since he had no authorization to speak to the media. And perhaps since he may have envisioned that, were he to identify himself, he, too, might find himself bound and kneeling with a gun aimed at the back of his head.
Israeli soldiers at post-agreement observation posts have also reported that armed Hamas members are shooting at Palestinians who have tried to resist them—or whom they suspect have assisted Israel. The soldiers have orders not to intervene, likely to avoid being accused of violating the ceasefire.
“It’s beginning to look like a massacre there,” one IDF officer told Haaretz, “dozens of dead and hundreds of wounded from clans suspected of assistance to Israel.”
President Trump and his team—especially his son-in-law Jared Kushner and friend Steve Witcoff—deserve every credit for engineering the multi-stage plan that yielded the hostages’ release.
And Hamas deserves every castigation for waiting so long to release those it kidnapped; its refusal to do so until now was the ultimate cause of all the casualties it cynically blames on Israel.
Somewhat concerning, though, was Mr. Trump’s response to a reporter’s question about the Hamas post-ceasefire show of strength. He seemed unperturbed by it, asserting that “They’ve been open about it, and we gave them approval [to do what they wish] for a period of time.”
And a day later, he characterized the videoed execution as Hamas “tak[ing] out a couple of gangs that were very bad,” adding: “That didn’t bother me very much, to be honest.”
Still and all, Hamas’ resurgence may not dissipate after “a period of time.” The terror group’s determination to murder and maim Jews persists as always. And expecting it, as the Trump plan has it, to surrender its weapons and hopes to govern Gaza again is something on the order of expecting a scorpion to surrender its sting.
Tellingly, after the execution of the eight unfortunates, their murderers fired their weapons into the air and shouted, “Long live the al-Qassam Brigades!”—Hamas’s military wing.
President Trump’s superpower, so to speak, lies in his mercurial sudden shifts of tone and attitude. Shortly after his “we gave them approval” comment, in another venue, he warned that if the internal bloodshed persists in Gaza, “we will have no choice but to go in and kill them.”
“If they don’t disarm,” he said, “we will disarm them, and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently.”
It wasn’t clear who the “we” would be—it’s unlikely that the president would put American boots on the Gazan ground—but it was, all the same, a clear threat.
And threat, after all, is what got Hamas to come this far. The fearless terrorists in fact experience intense jitters when it comes to an American leader who time has shown to be unpredictable and assertive.
To me, the most memorable line in Mr. Trump’s speech before the Knesset came at its very start, when he gave “our deepest thanks to the A-mighty G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
In service to our Benefactor, may he stand firm on enforcing his plan’s disarming of Hamas, and its purge from power.
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