PRIOR TO October 7, 2023, most people – Jews and Israelis included – believed that atrocities like the ones perpetrated were an unimaginable nightmare.

Now we are all a little wiser. This means that any physical rebuilding of the Gaza Strip must rest on the following three essential pillars:

First, Hamas and other terror groups must be disarmed, their terror tunnels destroyed, and a new educational system firmly established.

Second, the world – and especially the US – must work to curb Qatar’s influence, as it remains the leading state sponsor of Muslim Brotherhood radical ideology worldwide.

Third, there must be an end to all forms of indoctrination and incitement against US, Israel, Jews, and other minorities in Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank.

In today’s interconnected world, hate knows no borders. Even if Gaza undergoes major reform and rebuilding, genuine and enduring change will remain elusive so long as that hatred continues to spread across the region.

Disarming Hamas

Without the full disarmament of Hamas – a condition outlined in President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza ceasefire deal – the situation would remain perilous, not only for Israelis or for Gazans but also for any external forces tasked with managing the territory’s rehabilitation.

Simply asking Hamas or other terror groups in Gaza to lay down their weapons is futile. Terrorists simply do not do such things – even if they say they do. Rather, Hamas must be forcefully disarmed by the only military force able and willing to do so: the IDF.

The terror group’s network of tunnels must also be completely neutralized. It serves no other purpose than to allow murderous terrorists to murder again.

The most crucial step toward lasting reform in Gaza is ending indoctrination in schools, media, mosques, and politics throughout the Arab world.

Only once these steps are completed can outside forces safely enter the Gaza Strip to begin the next phase: overhauling Gaza’s educational system. Newer schools must be physically rebuilt. This will be the cornerstone of de-radicalizing an intensely indoctrinated population.

Gazans unwilling to wait for this essential “cleaning process” should be invited to emigrate. The rest should be granted access to an educational model similar to that of the United Arab Emirates, which has reformed its education to promote tolerance and progress.

If the economic lure of rebuilding Gaza tempts investors to overlook the need to disarm Hamas, eliminate its tunnels, and establish a UAE-style educational framework, the entire effort will be nothing more than yet another expensive exercise in futility.

Without these foundational changes, Gaza’s reconstruction will again be reduced to rubble the next time Hamas or another extremist faction attacks Israel.

Weakening Qatar

Another vital step before the “day after” in Gaza is confronting Qatar’s duplicity.

Since October 7, Doha’s role has become unmistakably clear. Its funding of the Muslim Brotherhood’s radical ideology and its influence within the West can no longer be ignored.

This should compel Washington to reconsider rewarding Qatar with military protection or the presence of American bases.

Although relocating American forces from Qatar is costly, maintaining a military presence there will, over time, prove far more expensive – particularly in human lives.

Western governments must also take legislative measures to limit Doha’s reach. They should outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood as many Arab and Muslim states have already done.

Additionally, laws must be enacted to ensure full transparency regarding Qatari funding of Western institutions and individuals.

End to indoctrination

The final and perhaps most crucial step toward lasting reform in Gaza is ending indoctrination in schools, media, mosques, and politics throughout the Arab world.

The amount of hatred expressed in Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank is staggering. Without putting an end to such rhetoric, no meaningful reconstruction of Gaza can succeed.

After a brutal two-year war with immense human suffering and loss of life, we stand at a crossroads – a rare opportunity to effect genuine change in Gaza and across the region.

Instead of rushing into another shallow, temporary arrangement, leaders must seize this moment to craft a new and lasting legacy.

Published in The Jerusalem Post, November 19, 2025.

The debate over the fate of Hamas terrorists trapped in tunnel networks under IDF-controlled territory in Rafah may seem like a minor incident amid the constant flow of events, but its outcome could decisively shape how our enemies and regional states assess whether Israel is truly determined to dismantle its adversaries or can be appeased with superficial fixes.

Hamas’ military wing made clear early this week that fighter surrender or weapons abandonment remain off the table. Mohammad Nazzal, a senior Hamas official abroad, rejected exile outside Gaza and urged mediators to intervene.

Turkey wasted no time seizing this as another diplomatic opportunity, with sources saying it is “working to ensure safe passage for approximately 200 ‘Gazan civilians’ trapped in Rafah tunnels” – as if 200 civilians simply got stuck in underground passages.

The deteriorating relationship between Ankara and Jerusalem, sparked by Turkish arrest warrants and Israel’s response, combined with Israeli opposition to Turkish participation in Gaza’s multinational force, will feature in Jared Kushner’s discussions with Netanyahu, though not as the central focus.

Washington’s primary objective is stabilizing the ceasefire. Meeting this goal requires advancing to stage two of the Trump plan and generating implementation momentum. With everyone occupied by processes and mechanisms, reality on the ground will shift toward non-combat, enabling Trump to pursue his broader diplomatic ambitions.

From Israel’s perspective, however, the ceasefire is not the end goal. Particularly not now, after recovering living hostages and most deceased remains. Eliminating enemy capabilities and removing weapons from the territory remain Israel’s core objectives, which cannot be sacrificed to ceasefire demands or satisfied through cosmetic arrangements.

Furthermore, Israel’s approach in Gaza will directly impact Hezbollah arrangements (and the reverse), leaving no room for creative half-measures that sound good but deliver nothing.

Even without this consideration, regional discourse is already showing such formulas emerging. Examples include attempts to limit disarmament definitions to offensive weapons only – excluding tunnels, personal arms, and other capabilities from discussion. Another involves establishing an “administrative committee” for civilian Gaza governance, supposedly without Hamas participation, when the terror group already influences personnel selection and will clearly control such governance as the Strip’s dominant force.

Returning to the besieged in Rafah – their number remains unclear. Media reports citing Israeli sources estimate 150 to 200. Foreign press mentioned lower figures, while Hamas websites simply stated the military wing withholds information due to sensitivity, describing them as “Qassam elite” facing high risk “while contending with medical supply shortages, electricity deficits, and the need to secure tunnels after extensive war damage.”

Hamas spokesmen have raised no claims about broken commitments on this matter. They frame the connection to recovering IDF soldier Hadar Goldin’s remains through humanitarian considerations and stability interests.

Given these circumstances, Israel possesses every advantage to transform this incident into a powerful symbol of its Hamas dismantlement commitment. Time favors us here, and provided our forces can block attacks from the besieged or other directions, no rush exists. Regardless, this event’s conclusion must be decisive – mass surrender, detention or terrorist deaths. Images and publicity carry value. This is how regimes fall. Exile, as some mediators suggest, while not inherently rejected, should only acceptable as a post-surrender, post-arrest step, never as a replacement.

A Al-Resalah Hamas website editorial characterized the besieged issue as testing Hamas’ capacity for post-war challenges. “It combines military, diplomatic, and humanitarian aspects and conveys an important message to the Palestinian public and the world regarding Hamas’s ability to protect its people and manage humanitarian crises, in an extremely complex environment and under international supervision.” This equally tests Israeli determination, providing further reason Israel cannot accept any solution Hamas would claim as an achievement.

Published in  Israel Hayom, November 11, 2025.

The international command for the Gaza Strip, the – Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) – rapidly established in Kiryat Gat, is becoming a pilgrimage destination for American officials visiting Israel and sparking interest through the diverse composition of nations represented within it. Yet it remains completely unclear how this facility is meant to assist in achieving Israel’s primary objectives concerning Gaza.

One can reasonably estimate that its primary preoccupation will involve coordinating civilian aid entry into the Strip and preventing escalations that threaten the ceasefire. In both domains, Israel will probably be the principal address for pressure. Conversely, it’s challenging to envision this headquarters accomplishing anything beyond declarations concerning the more crucial areas for Israel: stripping Hamas of weaponry, preventing smuggling operations, and demilitarizing the Strip.

During a weekend interview with Al-Jazeera, Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader, referenced the international forces’ role as providing separation and border supervision, along with managing ceasefire monitoring. He indicated his organization seeks elections leading to unified government, and presently doesn’t dismiss transferring “administrative control” to a mutually agreed committee and managing the Strip through “a national figure residing in Gaza.” One needn’t be an expert to comprehend which options this criterion eliminated.

Al-Hayya proceeded to lament Gaza’s humanitarian conditions and stressed it requires 6,000 aid trucks each day, plus entry of specific materials Israel currently prohibits. One can anticipate this message will reach mediating nations and every international actor. Winter’s approach will likely bring an accompanying “Gaza is freezing to death” campaign.

Hamas refuses to disarm

Concerning Hamas disarmament? Al-Hayya responds diplomatically, “The matter remains under discussion with factions and mediators,” and lest we harbor false expectations he clarifies, “Hamas’ weapons are connected to occupation and aggression’s existence. Should the occupation conclude, the weapons will transfer to the (Palestinian) state.”

Similar statements have been audible throughout recent periods from the organization’s spokespeople and senior officials. They’ve consistently emphasized: Our weapons are legitimate, we won’t disarm . Admittedly, in formal announcements they carefully stress their commitment to the agreement and avoid provocative declarations that might antagonize President Trump and his administration or mediating nations, but regarding the disarmament provision they leave no ambiguity about their stance.

While the Kiryat Gat headquarters continues taking shape and determining its functions and operational approaches, Hamas in Gaza has regained its footing. It operates efficient command and control systems, is restoring order throughout Gaza’s devastated streets, suppressing opposition, deterring and dominating. It allows everyone to debate agreement details’ interpretation and drafters’ intentions while concentrating on fundamentals: strengthening its position, replenishing forces, securing supplies, planning reconstruction.

It presumes Gaza remains lodged like a bone in Trump’s and other regional leaders’ throats, who seek to dispose of it as swiftly as possible to advance implementing major regional initiatives. Its expectation is that under these conditions they’ll accept a formula offering the semblance of resolution and permit it to capitalize on the “gaps” within it and the exhaustion from interminable debates regarding its interpretations.

Despite the intense desire to advance peace visions, we cannot compromise on critical matters for us in the Gaza Strip. We must eliminate the vagueness concerning headquarters and mediation and coordination entities, and also explain to the public what these will ultimately contribute toward accomplishing Israel’s objectives.

The rearming issue under humanitarian aid and reconstruction means’ cover demands particular Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee oversight and public reporting, preventing us from burying our heads in the sand and exploiting the secrecy veil typically covering this activity.

MK Amit Halevi’s public announcement about intensifying rules of engagement for IDF forces regarding Strip suspects requires IDF response and clarifications. It’s completely inappropriate to heighten risks merely from ceasefire collapse fears. Even those concerned about this should recognize that harming our soldiers could similarly cause that, beyond the immediate price paid.

Furthermore, rather than awaiting agreements and mechanisms, we should shape reality. Hamas tunnels should face attack not solely responding to harm against us. If avoiding casualties is desired, we can provide advance warning. We must leverage Hamas’ weakened position and all living hostages already being in Israel. Such an approach could enhance Israel’s and mediators’ negotiating position regarding weapons disarmament.

Concerning the international headquarters for the Gaza Strip, we must acknowledge this mechanism’s risks and also that participating in it might constrain the IDF and direct it toward preferring dialogue channels as default over operational activity. We need to establish what Israel gains from this mechanism, and concurrently determine rules now for our conduct within it, in ways that diminish its risks.

Published in  Israel Hayom, October 27, 2025.

Prof. Kobi Michael: Hamas showed every sign of racing to redefine the reality on the ground in post-war Gaza so as to make them impossible to dislodge, whatever the Trump plan says.

Every day they are making lots of progress. Hamas has not changed its DNA; they do not intend to disarm themselves. They do not intend to leave the Gaza Strip and not be part of the day after.

I don’t think they take it too seriously because they understand President Trump. They see that he is mainly interested in the first phase, the end of the war, and he will leave the details of the second and third stages to the professionals, to the clerks.

Published in The Telegraph, October 25, 2025.

Prof. Kobi Michael: The deal is not really fleshed out enough to be called a plan. It is a framework, principles that pave the way toward a general vision of President Trump to create a new regional architecture.

Published in Ami Magazine, October 21, 2025.

Main Points

• Israel neutralized Hezbollah’s missile threat but failed to dismantle its ground forces or Hamas’s rule in Gaza.
• The IDF lacks a coherent concept of operational maneuver – the coordinated use of ground forces to destroy enemy capabilities and achieve strategic goals.
• Brilliant air and intelligence operations were not matched by decisive ground campaigns, leaving enemy forces largely intact.
• Operations in both Gaza and Lebanon unfolded too slowly, allowing the enemy to recover and denying Israel strategic momentum.
• The IDF repeatedly fought over the same areas instead of seizing and controlling critical ground to deny Hamas sanctuary and supply.
• These operational shortcomings weakened Israel’s deterrence and may embolden regional actors, notably Egypt, to reassess Israel’s military credibility.
• The IDF must relearn the art of operational maneuver – integrating speed, initiative, and decisive ground action – to transform tactical superiority into strategic victory.

Press here to read the full publication

As the world turns its attention to Gaza’s ruins and the growing calls for reconstruction, a familiar cycle threatens to repeat itself. The guns fall silent, aid convoys roll in, diplomats speak of “political horizons” – and within a few years, or sometimes even less, rockets once again rain on Israel.

If the war that began on 7 October, 2023 is not to become yet another round in this endless loop, one lesson must be faced with honesty: what Gaza desperately needs is deradicalisation.

No amount of reconstruction will bring peace if the ideological foundations of Hamas – and of Palestinian society more broadly – remain untouched. The massacre of October 7 was not an aberration born of despair; it was the logical outcome of an idea that has animated Palestinian politics for a century: the refusal to accept Jewish sovereignty anywhere between the river and the sea. Until that changes, no peace plan will succeed, and no ceasefire will hold.

For decades, Western diplomats have misdiagnosed the conflict as a territorial dispute – about borders, settlements, and security arrangements. Yet at its core, for the Palestinians, it is about legitimacy: Israel is viewed not the homeland of the Jewish people but an alien colonial implant. Jews are viewed not as an indigenous nation returning home but as foreigners who imposed themselves through force. Like the French in Algeria, they are expected to leave. At best, they might be tolerated as a religious minority under Muslim rule – never as a nation entitled to self-determination.

This ideology has not only survived for more than a century but been institutionalised and sustained – through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or Unrwa. Created in 1949 as a temporary body to assist the roughly 700,000 Palestinians displaced during Israel’s War of Independence, Unwra has become a permanent agency with a single overriding purpose: to perpetuate the refugee status of Palestinians indefinitely. Whereas the role of the international community should be to create the circumstances for enhancing peace, in this case it did the exact opposite.

Unlike the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which resettles refugees and ends their statelessness, Unrwa enshrines it. Only in the Palestinian case is refugee status permanent and passed down to descendants for eternity. The result: the number of Palestinian “refugees” has swelled from 700,000 to some six million (Palestinian leaders routinely claim eight or nine million). In reality, more than 95 per cent of them were never displaced from anywhere. They were born in Gaza, Ramallah, Amman, or Beirut.

Unrwa has become a symbol, in the eyes of Palestinians, of their desire to “return” – in space, to their previous homes inside Israel (most of which do not exist any longer), and in time, to an era before the creation of the Jewish state. Given the demographics, such a “return” would mean the end of the Jewish state. Under the auspices of the international community, Unrwa has become the political vehicle through which the number of Palestinian “refugees” has been exponentially inflated, to serve the political goal of “return” and, ultimately, of undoing Israel’s existence.

This political mechanism has devastating consequences. It teaches generation after generation that their homes lie not in Gaza or Nablus but in Haifa and Jaffa – that their birthright is to “return” to cities inside Israel, and that Israel’s very existence is a temporary injustice waiting to be undone.

In Unrwa schools, textbooks glorify “martyrs,” maps erase Israel, and pupils are taught that “return” – meaning the destruction of Israel – is not a dream but a duty. Unrwa has become part and parcel of Palestinian rejectionism.

The leaders of Hamas, including Yahya Sinwar, spoke openly in the days before October 7 of an imminent “return” – a chilling reminder that the concept is not a metaphor but a call to violent action.

If Gaza is to have a future different from its past, Unrwa must be dismantled and the very concept of a “Palestinian refugee” in Gaza must disappear. One cannot be a refugee from the place one was born.

The message should be clear: you can live next to Israel in peace, but not instead of it.

Gaza’s reconstruction must be explicitly conditional. Any new governing authority – whether local Palestinians, a joint Arab body, or an international trusteeship – must adhere to a few non-negotiable principles: recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and a formal end to the state of war against it; renunciation of claims inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders; acceptance that Gaza’s residents are not refugees and that they do not possess a “right of return”; and a firm commitment to demilitarisation, with all aid monitored to prevent its diversion into weapons or tunnels.

These are not maximalist demands but the bare minimum for any sane policy. Without ideological surrender, military defeat is meaningless. Israel can destroy Hamas’s arsenal, but if children are still taught that Jews have no right to be there, a new Hamas – or any other organisation different only in name – will rise from the rubble.

For too long, Western diplomacy has tiptoed around these truths, preferring to pour concrete and hope for moderation. But real hope for a different future will come only when Palestinians choose life over grievance, reality over myth, and coexistence over the dream of “return” and erasure. The war will end only when the ideology that caused it ends.

Published in The Jewish Chronicle,  October 16, 2025.