CAIRO (Reuters) – In neighborhoods ravaged by 15 months of war with Israel, Hamas officials are overseeing the removal of rubble following Sunday’s ceasefire. The group’s gunmen guard humanitarian convoys on Gaza’s dusty roads, and its blue-uniformed police once again patrol the city’s streets, sending a clear message: Hamas remains in charge.
Israeli officials described the parade of jubilant Hamas fighters who celebrated the ceasefire Sunday in front of cheering crowds as a carefully orchestrated attempt to exaggerate the strength of the Palestinian militant group.
But in the days since the ceasefire took effect, the Hamas-led administration in Gaza has moved quickly to reimpose security, curb looting and begin restoring basic services in some areas. parts of the enclave, entire sections of which have been reduced to wasteland by the Israelis. offensive.
Reuters spoke to more than a dozen residents, officials, regional diplomats and security experts who said that, despite Israel’s promise to destroy it, Hamas remains deeply entrenched in Gaza and that its hold on power represents a challenge to the implementation of a permanent ceasefire.
The Islamist group not only controls Gaza’s security forces, but its administrators run government ministries and agencies, pay employees’ salaries and coordinate with international NGOs, they said.
On Tuesday, its police officers and gunmen – who for months were kept off the streets by Israeli airstrikes – were stationed in neighborhoods across the Gaza Strip.
“We want to avoid any form of security vacuum,” said Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the media office of the Hamas-led Gaza government. He said some 700 police officers were protecting humanitarian convoys and no trucks had been looted since Sunday – a contrast to massive food thefts by criminal gangs during the conflict.
A United Nations spokesperson in Geneva confirmed on Tuesday that no looting or attacks on aid workers had been reported since the ceasefire took effect.
In recent weeks, Israeli airstrikes have targeted low-ranking administrators in Gaza, in an apparent bid to break Hamas’s grip on the government. Israel had already eliminated Hamas leaders, including political leader Ismail Haniyeh and the architects of the October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif.
Despite the losses, Al-Thawabta said the Hamas-led administration continued to function. “Currently we have 18,000 employees working daily to provide services to citizens,” he said.
Hamas-run municipalities began clearing rubble from some roads on Sunday to allow vehicles to pass, while workers repaired pipes and infrastructure to restore running water to neighborhoods. On Tuesday, dozens of heavy goods vehicles transported the debris of destroyed buildings along the enclave’s main dusty arteries.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not articulated a vision for Gaza’s future after the war, only insisting that the Islamist group can play no role and declaring that the Palestinian Authority – a body created as part of the Oslo peace accords thirty years ago and which partially administers the occupied West Bank – it cannot be trusted under its current leadership either. The Israeli government did not respond to Reuters’ questions.
Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group said Hamas’ firm hold on Gaza presented Israel with a dilemma.
“Israel has a choice: continue to fight in the future and kill people – and that hasn’t worked in the last 15 months – or accept an arrangement in which the Palestinian Authority takes control with the Hamas’ acquiescence,” Hiltermann said.
Hamas’s military capacity is difficult to assess because its rocket arsenal remains hidden and many of its best-trained fighters may have been killed, Hiltermann said, but it remains by far the dominant armed group in Gaza: “No one talks about the PA’s takeover. Gaza without the consent of Hamas. »
While senior Hamas officials have expressed support for a unity government, Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority and a longtime opponent of Hamas, has not agreed. Abbas’ office and the Palestinian Authority did not respond to a request for comment.
NEW NEGOTIATIONS
Under the ceasefire, Israel must withdraw its troops from central Gaza and allow Palestinians to return to the north for an initial six-week phase, during which some hostages will be released. From the 16th day of the ceasefire, the two sides are expected to negotiate a second phase, which should include a permanent ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Reconstruction, expected to cost billions of dollars and take years, would only begin in a third and final phase.
The deal has divided opinion in Israel. While the return of the first three hostages was widely celebrated on Sunday, many Israelis want to see Hamas destroyed for its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.
Even before the ceasefire came into effect, members of Netanyahu’s cabinet said they were in favor of resuming the war to oust Hamas from power once the hostages returned home. Three far-right ministers have resigned.
“There is no future of peace, stability and security for both sides if Hamas remains in power in the Gaza Strip,” Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Sunday.
A spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, Abu Ubaida, told Reuters the militant group would respect the terms of the ceasefire and urged Israel to do the same.
Fifteen months of war have left Gaza a wasteland of rubble, bombed buildings and makeshift encampments, with hundreds of thousands of desperate people sheltering from the winter cold and living off the aid that reaches them. More than 46,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The ceasefire agreement provides for 600 aid trucks per day to reach Gaza. Al-Thawabta, the spokesman for the Hamas-led administration, said he was liaising with United Nations agencies and international humanitarian organizations over the security of aid routes and warehouses, but that it was these agencies which took care of the distribution of aid.
A damage assessment released by the UN this month showed that simply clearing the more than 50 million tonnes of rubble left by Israeli bombing could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion.
As Hamas security forces marched through the streets on Sunday, some residents expressed pride at having survived the assault.
“Name me a country that could resist the Israeli war machine for 15 months,” said Salah Abu Rezik, a 58-year-old factory worker. He praised Hamas for helping distribute aid to starving Gazans during the conflict and for trying to impose a security measure.
“Hamas is an idea and you cannot kill an idea,” Abu Rezik said, predicting the group would rebuild.
Others expressed anger that the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, caused the destruction of Gaza.
“We had houses, hotels and restaurants. We had a life. Today we have nothing, so what kind of victory is this?” said Ameen, 30, a civil engineer from Gaza City, displaced to Khan Younis. “When the war ends, Hamas must not rule Gaza alone.”
NO RIVALS
Since 2007, when Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority dominated by the rival Fatah faction after a brief civil war, it has crushed the opposition in Gaza. Backed by Iranian funds, he has built a feared security apparatus and military organization based on a vast network of tunnels – much of which Israel says it destroyed during the war.
The Palestinian Authority continues to pay the salaries of thousands of government employees in Gaza involved in health and education, who report to ministries in the West Bank, and it provides support to many families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel. Although the Authority claims to be the only body with legitimacy to govern post-war Gaza, it has no presence in the enclave and little popular support, according to polls.
Israel has floated tentative ideas for post-war Gaza, including co-opting local clan leaders – a number of whom were immediately assassinated by Hamas – or using members of Gazan civil society without militant ties to lead the enclave. But none gained ground.
Major donors, including the United Arab Emirates and the new administration of US President Donald Trump, have stressed that Hamas – designated a terrorist organization by many Western countries – cannot remain in power in Gaza after the war.
Diplomats discussed models involving international peacekeepers, including one that would see the United Arab Emirates and the United States, along with other countries, temporarily oversee Gaza’s governance, security and reconstruction until ‘until a reformed Palestinian Authority is able to take charge.
Another model, supported by Egypt, would see a joint committee made up of Fatah and Hamas rule Gaza under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority.
Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer now at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies in Tel Aviv, called Hamas’s public willingness to discuss a government “cosmetic.” of unity.
“As long as they’re behind the scenes, taking care of business, they don’t care that there’s a committee as a front,” he said.
On Monday, shortly after taking office, Trump expressed skepticism about the Gaza ceasefire deal, when asked if he was confident all three phases of the deal would be implemented. artwork. He did not specify further.
A spokesperson for the Trump camp did not respond to a request for comment.