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.

When Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Australia rushed to recognize a Palestinian state, they did not advance peace; they rewarded terror. They handed political and legal legitimacy to the same movement that, two years ago, committed the most barbaric massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

If these governments, including Canada, now insist on treating “Palestine” as a state, they must also accept the consequences of that recognition: bringing “Palestine” before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the charge of genocide.

For the past year, Israel has faced a grotesque inversion of justice at The Hague, accused by South Africa and others of genocide for defending its citizens after Hamas’s October 7 slaughter. Even though Israel has gone to unprecedented lengths to follow the laws of armed conflict, the ICJ has allowed that political stunt to proceed, giving moral cover to Hamas and ignoring its own explicit statements of genocidal intent.

If Palestine is indeed a state, as these governments now claim, professing their commitment to international law, that commitment must be tested in practice. The law cannot be applied selectively, nor can recognition be treated as a symbolic act divorced from its legal effect. Recognition carries not only diplomatic weight but enforceable responsibility under international law.

It follows that “Palestine” must bear legal responsibility for the actions of Hamas on October 7 and for everything that has followed, including the ongoing torture and captivity of hostages.

This is where the absurdity of these recognitions becomes clear. Western leaders proclaimed support for Palestinian statehood, yet in the same breath insisted they do not recognize Hamas, which governs Gaza. So who exactly are they recognizing? The Palestinian Authority, a corrupt, unelected body that has no control over Gaza, whose president is now in the twentieth year of a four-year term and continues to pay salaries to terrorists? Or Hamas, which still boasts of the “fruits of October 7”?

Under the Genocide Convention, a state is responsible not only for acts committed by its agents, but also for failing to prevent or punish genocide committed on its territory or under its control.

What makes this even more striking is that the Palestinian Authority acceded to the Genocide Convention in 2014. By doing so, it accepted the duty to prevent and punish genocide. Having claimed the benefits and status of a state party, it cannot now evade the responsibilities that come with it.

The acts of October 7, which Hamas vowed to repeat “again and again” until Israel was annihilated, satisfy every element of genocidal intent described in Article II of that Convention.

If the act of recognition is to mean anything, it must bring with it the same standards of accountability applied to every state under the Genocide Convention. Otherwise, recognition becomes performative — a political indulgence that undermines the very rule of law it claims to uphold.

You simply cannot have it both ways. Either the Palestinian Authority is the governing representative of this so-called state, in which case it bears responsibility for the genocide carried out from the territory it claims, or Hamas is the ruling authority, in which case these governments have legitimized a terrorist organization.

Either way, the consequence of this recognition is that “Palestine,” as a self-proclaimed state, must bear legal responsibility for the crimes committed from its territory, including the genocidal massacre of October 7.

This legal logic is unavoidable. Recognition is the act that transforms a political claim into a juridical reality. Once that threshold is crossed, obligations arise. A state recognized as such must answer for the actions of those operating under its flag or from its territory. Anything less would hollow out international law and render the Genocide Convention a political tool rather than a binding instrument.

This would force an uncomfortable reckoning for those same governments that so eagerly joined the diplomatic campaign against Israel. It would compel them to face the legal and moral implications of their decision, and to acknowledge that recognition carries responsibility as well as rhetoric.

Recognition means owning that record. It means accepting that a state must answer for its crimes, and that the victims of October 7 — the murdered, the raped, the burned and the still-held captive — deserve justice as much as any other victims of genocide.

For too long, the international system has indulged the hypocrisy that Palestinians are eternal victims without agency, while Israel alone bears responsibility for every tragedy in the region.

Recognition of Palestine cannot mean impunity for terror cloaked in sovereignty. It must mean responsibility. Either international law applies to all — or it applies to no one.

That starts with holding the Palestinians accountable before the International Court of Justice to answer for the real genocide on October 7 — the one committed with merciless, salivating glee by Hamas.

The credibility of the international legal order depends on consistency. Those who claim to uphold it cannot invoke the law for political expediency to condemn Israel, while shielding the Palestinians from accountability for the atrocities of October 7.

The article was written together with Alan H. Kessel is the former Assistant Deputy Minister Legal Affairs and Legal Adviser at Global Affairs Canada and is a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

Published in National Post, October 12, 2025.

The following policy paper does not address the plusses and minuses of the hostage release agreement, which is now a fait accompli, nor does it address the ongoing mechanisms within the framework of the deal. Rather, its purpose is to recommend ways to cope with the security challenges that the new reality is likely to pose for the State of Israel.

Five Challenges:

1. Policy on use of military force: It is critical to adapt and clarify the policy for use of military force in the Gaza Strip at the different stages of implementation of the agreement. The sharp transition from a state of combat to a ceasefire while Israel’s forces are still deployed in areas of the Strip may create a lack of clarity, disrupt the forces’ ability to respond to various scenarios, and also endanger our soldiers. It is important to decide and make clear to IDF forces that in every situation, the leading consideration is the security of the IDF troops on the ground.

 Israel should determine ahead of time the responses to the following plausible scenarios: how to act when armed Hamas operatives, tunnels, or weapons are detected; how to respond to “rogue” rocket fire; and how to react to Hamas activity aimed at repairing or reestablishing military capabilities.

2. Protecting the security zone and preventing its erosion through creeping attrition: The rules of engagement must be set so as not only to prevent a direct risk to IDF soldiers, but to protect the security zone and prevent its erosion through a Hamas strategy of creeping attrition. Hamas or other terrorist elements are likely to attempt to gradually erode the enforcement of this zone by habituating our forces to the arrival of children, women, or the elderly into these areas under various pretexts. This must not be allowed to happen.

3. Preventing the rehabilitation of Hamas’s military capabilities under the cover of humanitarian efforts: Among the hundreds of supply trucks entering the Gaza Strip will be weapons as well as dual-use materials and equipment needed to produce weapons and ammunition. The claim that goods will be transferred to Gaza only after inspection and verification, even if true, does not address dual-use materials. Fiberglass sheets, electrodes, adhesives, etc., will be presented as intended for legitimate civilian use but will be used by Hamas and other terrorist groups for military ends.

The challenge is even more complex regarding tractors and heavy mechanical equipment, whose entry is ostensibly required for clearing rubble and road repairs. It is clear that such equipment will also be used to prepare tunnels. Effective oversight in this domain will not be feasible given the reality that will prevail in Gaza. All that can be achieved is to slow and complicate the enemy’s efforts by limiting the types of equipment that may be brought into Gaza.

4. Israeli civilian policy toward the Gaza Strip: Israel may quickly find itself facing a flood of requests from Palestinians in Gaza, encouraged by the mediating countries, to enter Israel for medical treatment in hospitals or to transit to Judea and Samaria (West Bank.) The Israeli political echelon should decide now in a manner that leaves no room for interpretation that under no circumstances will Palestinians from Gaza be permitted to enter Israel. In this context, there is reason to be concerned that members of Gazan clans who fought against Hamas will seek refuge in Israel. The solution for them should not lie within the territory of the State of Israel.

5. Terrorism trends in Judea and Samaria (West Bank): Given that the war is ending with Hamas still standing and with the release of numerous Palestinian terrorists, support for Hamas is expected to increase, and the potential for terror attacks originating in the West Bank, already on the rise, is expected to grow even further. Against this background, an immediate hardening of Israel’s security policy in this arena is required. Israel should continue the offensive approach adopted at the outset of the war, including the use of targeted prevention measures. The Shin Bet has a key role in monitoring each of the terrorist prisoners who will be released. No tolerance should be shown toward any attempts by them to return to terror activity in any form.