Israel has already agreed to the U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff’s Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal framework, which reemerged Monday at the center of public debate. Hamas sent back a positive response: agreeing to a partial deal with the option of a broader agreement.
The details are known and the ball is again in Israel’s court. As Israel prepares its reply, it is worth remembering that Hamas has a strategy. It cannot defeat the IDF. On the contrary, it defeats Israel diplomatically. This is not an opinion but a fact. Israel’s international standing has never been worse. The danger is that it can still sink further. There is no need to let it reach that point.
Above all, illusions must be avoided. It was not Israel’s threat to invade Gaza that shifted Hamas’ position. Quite the opposite. That threat is of no concern to Hamas. What exactly are we threatening with? Destroyed buildings? The forced transfer of populations who will not leave willingly? Soldiers pushing out the elderly, children or pregnant women by force? More death? That is precisely what Hamas seeks.
The change in Hamas’ position came from Arab pressure, not Israeli threats. It is no coincidence that by Monday most of Hamas’s public messaging was aimed at Arab media outlets.
What now? If Israel says “no,” it will fall into the trap Hamas has set. If mere talk of a takeover of Gaza City has already triggered mounting calls for sanctions, then an actual ground entry will bring a far greater collapse.
And if such an operation—with all its horrors of destruction, devastation and death—was already to spark such a collapse, then seeing it through after Hamas has said “yes” to the Witkoff framework and Israel has refused will bring an even deeper one. Once again it becomes clear that Hamas’s strategy is more sophisticated than Israel’s.
With a bit more foresight, it should have been Israel that laid a trap for Hamas: declaring a unilateral ceasefire while simultaneously demanding the release of hostages and the demilitarization of Gaza.
If Hamas had accepted, Israel would have gained. If Hamas had refused, the Israeli initiative would have spared at least part of the diplomatic collapse, while granting Israel a measure of legitimacy if further fighting proved necessary.
How deeply has Israel clung to the wrong concept? Last weekend, Channel 12 aired recordings of former Military Intelligence chief Aharon Haliva. He is a serious man—talented and responsible. He took responsibility and resigned.
Yet he still insists that Hamas can be deterred through revenge. “The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations,” he argued. “For each one killed on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die.” He still believes this will deter Hamas.
Leave aside, for the moment, the moral issue—though it is crucial. This is not the path of Zionism. Here is a former intelligence chief, the man meant to know everything, still failing to grasp the core logic of jihad, of the Muslim Brotherhood, of Hamas. He still imagines that destruction and death deter them.
But jihadist ideology, as its founder Hassan al-Banna described, is built on a “culture of death.” Does Haliva truly think death can be used as a threat against those who see death as their highest calling?
When Hamas leaders launched their massacre, did they not know the result would be devastation? Is this not the very pattern of jihad wherever it rises? What, then, is Haliva offering them? Exactly what they desire. It did not deter them before October 7. It does not deter them after.
Haliva is no longer in office. He took responsibility and stepped aside. But the concept he embodied has not retired. It dominates Israel’s political leadership today. Israel continues to threaten Hamas with more destruction through a takeover of Gaza City.
What will be the outcome? Yes, another Nakba. That is the punishment of those who rise to annihilate us. But Nakba is not an Israeli objective. It is a consequence, not a goal. It is jihadist ideology, not Israel’s.
One truth should be clear to decision-makers: the concept that Hamas leaders tremble at threats of more destruction and death, and that this alone will deter them, has collapsed. Hamas yearns for Israel to press the gas pedal. More death, more devastation—this is what it welcomes.
Hamas is not afraid of an Israeli refusal. It may even hope for one, since that would only deepen Israel’s damage: more academic boycotts, more cultural boycotts, more arms embargoes, more victories for the BDS. Israel now has a chance to halt the collapse. It must not miss it.