On October 17, 2024, the Israeli Defense Forces killed Yahya Sinwar, the final remaining senior leader of Hamas who had not fled abroad. Sinwar survived just over a year following Israel’s pledge to destroy Hamas after the October 7 terrorist attacks, and his death is a milestone that underscores two questions: when is a permanent ceasefire possible, and what policies should Israel pursue after a ceasefire? Exploring these topics is imperative not only for humanitarian reasons, but also practical ones. Put differently, the stakes of correctly managing this moment go beyond the lives of Gazans and include the future of Israel’s security.
Ceasefire difficulties
For the past year, the argument against a ceasefire has been straightforward: another ceasefire doesn’t make sense until Hamas is unable to launch another attack. Hamas had violated countless “permanent” ceasefires since the group’s inception, including the initiation of the ongoing war, so failing to remove them from power would only lead to more attacks moving forward. Therefore, from Israel’s perspective, it made sense to finish the job at any cost, despite the extensive measures Hamas took to ensure that this cost would be extraordinarily high for the civilians of Gaza. So, what specifically does destroying Hamas entail?
Hamas still has many fighters left. Estimates vary so much that citing specific claims feels pointless, but even the most optimistic figures assert that at least another 10,000 terrorists are still in Gaza. The ideal outcome, of course, would be confiscating every rocket they stockpiled, collapsing every tunnel they built, and hunting down every fighter they recruited. However, if this absolutist goal is possible, achieving it would take substantially more time, resources, and civilian lives. Not even all Israeli military officials believe this is attainable: in June, the IDF’s top spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said that “anyone who thinks we can eliminate Hamas is wrong.” With Sinwar and the rest of Hamas’ leadership finally dead, Tel Aviv can now reasonably shift to a more productive question than the viability of this ideal outcome: instead, they can evaluate its necessity.
While Israel has by no means wiped out Hamas, it may have reached a point of diminishing returns. There is no question that Hamas is less capable of threatening Israel than it was before the war. Even primitive means of electronic communication (namely pagers) are monitored by Israeli intelligence agencies, and both top- and lower-level commanders have been eliminated. This renders the remaining fighters unable to operate in an organized fashion. October 7 required months of planning, and another attack of comparable scale would demand far more coordination, as Israeli intelligence would be more alert. Further, the past year of war has halved Hamas’ total manpower, greatly complicated underground mobility, and cut off numerous routes used for smuggling weapons and other supplies.
With these accomplishments in mind, has Israel come close enough to destroying Hamas to warrant a ceasefire? In any scenario where it stops short of fully eradicating Hamas (in other words, any realistic scenario), Israel runs the risk that surviving terrorists will eventually rebuild their strength. A return of Hamas as we knew it prior to the war, however, is not inevitable. How manageable this threat becomes will be entirely determined by the following choices: how much will Israel help Gaza’s recovery? Will Israel resist the calls to resettle the territory? And will Israel maintain a military presence?
Gaza’s recovery
The most pressing component of Gaza’s recovery is the human cost of war. As reported by sources within Gaza, the Israeli war effort has claimed the lives of 41,600 Palestinians, a figure that includes the deaths of terrorists, who are deliberately not distinguished from civilians. They estimate that another 96,000 are injured and facing extremely limited access to medical attention, as none of the 36 hospitals that Gaza had before the war remain. Directly following the end of the fighting, Israel should send a flood of humanitarian aid. If Israel recognizes the benefit of minimizing the number of civilians who are radicalized into Hamas’ next generation of recruits, it will use this opportunity to invest heavily. For those skeptical of what could be accomplished through aid, remember that the Marshall Plan was one of the most successful foreign policy initiatives in history.
Today’s circumstances are very different, but it’s certainly worth trying.
The most difficult part of providing aid might be distribution, due to the unfortunate possibility that Hamas or its sympathizers will target Israeli doctors. It’s too easy to imagine attempted suicide bombings if Israel sends healthcare workers into Gaza. A safer option is likely for Israel to help pay for aid, while the Gulf States — possibly with the UN — supply the manpower to distribute it.
The other side of helping Gaza recover is physically rebuilding, which will take years. According to findings from the UN, even with five times as much construction material as was previously allowed into Gaza, rebuilding destroyed homes would take until 2040. That was published before another six months of bombardment and excludes homes that were damaged but not destroyed. This is another chance for Israel to attempt to develop some degree of goodwill with its neighbors.
Resettlement
The notion of reintroducing settlements to Gaza has loomed over discourse about its post-war future. Last May, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on CNN that resettling Gaza “was never in the cards,” and he’s repeated this claim on several occasions since then. I’ll let you decide how much confidence you can justifiably have in Netanyahu. I’ll also remind you that he oversaw the single largest expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and that officials in his party attended a conference advertised with the declaration “Gaza is ours. Forever. Victory is settlement” less than a week after Sinwar’s death.
Regardless of the likelihood that Netanyahu turns on this promise against resettlement, he shouldn’t. To say nothing of why settlements are wrong for moral and legal reasons, even from a strictly political standpoint, they’re regressive toward the goal of peace and stability. The settler project is regularly blamed for turning Palestinians away from normalizing relations, and was cited by Saudi Arabia as preventing them from finalizing a coalition with Israel — a diplomatic achievement that would have marked the beginning of the end of Iranian influence in the Middle East. Flatly, it would be a mistake for Tel Aviv to resettle Gaza.
Maintaining a military presence
This is by far the most complex and important factor of Gaza’s future. When deciding the best path forward, Israel has no shortage of recent history to learn from, and one of the most critical takeaways is that power vacuums are unacceptable. Think back to the maddening cycles of instability throughout the War on Terror. After the U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003, his absence created a power vacuum that was filled by insurgents, including Al-Qaeda cells.
Realizing that “fixing” Iraq was not as straightforward as removing its dictator, we mobilized troops, slowly crushed the insurgency, and withdrew. In doing so, we left another power vacuum that enabled a takeover from ISIS, which promptly established a caliphate the size of Ohio. Predictably, the U.S. launched another offensive, defeated ISIS, and out of unwavering refusal to learn from our mistakes, withdrew again. As our soldiers left the territory conquered by ISIS, it was seized by Iranian and Russian forces who saw an easy opportunity to expand their regional influence.
The ridiculous back-and-forth caused by power vacuums is by no means limited to Iraq. The US repeated the same mistake when we helped end Gaddafi’s reign in Libya, and when our withdrawal from Afghanistan allowed the Taliban to return to power nationwide. Israel has also made these missteps in the past: it used to control Southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah grew immeasurably stronger when Israel withdrew; similarly, Israel previously occupied the Gaza Strip, and its departure was followed by Hamas ascending as the territory’s governing power.
Clearly, it would be shortsighted for the IDF to abruptly disappear from Gaza after dislodging Hamas. Inconveniently, keeping troops on-site is hardly a more appealing option. Reflecting on Israel’s past occupations, this approach would prolong disdain from residents and guarantee years of sporadic ambushes and riots, possibly resembling the Intifadas. The already-radicalized Gazan population would be even less inclined to moderate, as their surroundings would only feel like more of a police state — a sentiment that would be further worsened by resettlement. Both Israeli soldiers and resentful Palestinians would inevitably die, making this outcome difficult to picture as the long-term peace that should be aspired to.
If Israel exclusively considers military action, rather than political, they’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The only compelling path forward is partnering with a local authority to replace the terrorists. If Israel withdraws from Gaza without helping to establish a moderate regime, dismantling Hamas is doomed to achieve nothing. Such inaction will open the door for an equally vile organization to step up, as countless other insurgencies have before.
We’ve reached a turning point
Counterinsurgencies require more than military success. Every single battle that the US fought in Afghanistan ended with enemy forces surrendering, retreating, or dead. It still wasn’t enough to win the war. After finally killing Osama Bin Laden, we wasted an opportunity to refocus on creating a self-sufficient substitute for the Taliban. Now that Sinwar and his peers have been brought to justice, Israel has the same opportunity to help a preferable regime take power and finish the campaign in Gaza. A ceasefire is more realistic today than any time before. It all depends on Israel’s leadership thinking ahead.
Alex Lee ‘25 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at alex.b.lee@wustl.edu.