What surprised me and probably most people in the country yesterday were the masses of armed and well-groomed Hamas terrorists. Suddenly the Gaza Strip was full of uniformed Hamas gunmen again, who had but rarely been seen during the Gaza war. Occasionally you saw terrorists in civilian clothes or pajamas, with RPGs and leather boots. In the hospitals the “brave” terrorists disguised themselves as nurses or doctors, otherwise they hid in the underground tunnels.
Then yesterday came the hostage exchange and suddenly the fully armed terrorists with the green headbands and bulletproof vests were on parade. Everywhere a camera could be found they stood shouting and pushing the Palestinian crowd aside as if they had everything under control.
But not only that, the so-called “civilian” population cheered the terrorists as if they hadn’t lost everything. The Gaza Strip is in ruins and the Palestinians there are shouting “Allah hu’Akhbar” and praising the slain Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif as “martyrs.” Hamas is responsible for the disaster in the Gaza Strip and the civilian population is cheering them. It looks as if the Palestinians have learned nothing.
In analyzing yesterday’s photos and clips of the behavior of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, I have to conclude that they are masochists. People who achieve full “satisfaction” through humiliation, pain, and torture. They glorify their Hamas terrorists as heroes, but in reality those terrorists are rats hiding from Israeli soldiers. During the war, Hamas stole the international aid and sold it to the poor population at exorbitant fees. And yet people dance around Hamas. Thieves and other criminals are shot in the legs by Hamas terrorists as punishment – and the Palestinians continue to dance. Everything is in ruins, and the Palestinians are being displaced from one location to another at Israel’s instruction. Even in the security zones, their heroes barricaded themselves among the civilians, which led to many deaths and injuries among the innocent locals. Their lives are miserable, and what do the Palestinians do? They applaud Hamas for their “victory.” Is this not masochism? The Palestinian terrorists are cowards and the civilians living under their rule (and who voted them into power) are masochists.
מחבלי חמאס באזור א-סאריא בעזה pic.twitter.com/RBzt6NX7st
— ספיר ליפקין | Sapir Lipkin | سابير ليبكين (@sapirlipkin) January 19, 2025
We will now see this spectacle of Palestinian terrorists boasting in front of the cameras and cheering around them every seven days for the next six weeks.
Hamas wants to buy time to recover militarily, to re-arm itself with homemade weapons, especially rockets, from smuggled supplies, and to recruit more young people in case fighting resumes. From Hamas’s point of view, every day that there is no fighting in the Gaza Strip diminishes Israel’s military successes. In addition, the increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza strengthens the terror group. Six hundred trucks of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip every day during the 42-day ceasefire will enable Hamas to stockpile additional food, water, and fuel in case fighting flares up again and to earn extra money by selling the aid packages in Gaza markets.
Sources in the Gaza Strip close to Hamas say the group’s strategy now is to buy time and try to turn the temporary ceasefire into a permanent one.
Senior security officials believe Hamas is banking on US President Donald Trump not allowing Israel to resume military operations, as he is interested in calm to implement his regional plans. Therefore, in negotiations on the second phase of the agreement, which are scheduled to begin on the 16th day of the first phase, Hamas will be willing to make concessions to buy as much time as possible. By doing so, it hopes to increase the internal pressure of the hostages’ families on the Israeli government and force Jerusalem to sign a permanent ceasefire that will perpetuate Hamas’s rule in the Gaza Strip and enshrine the image of “victory,” given that Israel will not have achieved its war goals.
Such a victory would further strengthen Hamas’s position on the Palestinian street and position it as a regional power that cannot be ignored in any political plan that the Trump administration wants to advance. According to Israeli sources, Hamas will try not to give Israel a pretext for a resumption of fighting in Gaza. Nevertheless, they do not rule out the possibility that Hamas could try to hide Israeli hostages under the pretext of not knowing what happened to them in order to have negotiating leverage in the event of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. In this way, Hamas aims to continue blackmailing Israel.
After the ceasefire agreement, Israel’s freedom of action is severely limited and it must negotiate with Hamas on the implementation of the second stage. Security sources say it is likely that Hamas will drag out the negotiations and show as much flexibility as needed to tie Israel up in a way that makes a resumption of fighting impossible. But the future of the other hostages, our soldiers and men, also depends on all this. Israel must find a creative trick to first free our sisters and brothers from captivity in the Gaza Strip and then destroy Hamas. But how?
An attack on Hamas’s military infrastructure is not enough, one must attack Hamas’s civilian and governing capacities in order to establish a temporary Israeli military government or prepare another alternative government in the meantime in cooperation with the Trump administration. Hamas’s rule cannot be overthrown without a complete military occupation of the entire Strip. The main problem will be to convince the Trump administration to give Israel the green light for this. At the moment, the chances of this seem very slim.
No Israeli government can live with continued Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army is capable of crushing Hamas, but this depends first on a political decision. Without this, Hamas will rearm and once again pose a military threat to Israel. It is already threatening new massacres, as the latest clips from the Gaza Strip show.
Israel can’t, but the Lord God Almighty can. Israel, cry out to Him and He will answer.