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Source: https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-904275
Israelis Deserve to Know that an IDF Withdrawal from Gaza Will Not Be Followed by Rearmament and Another Attack
(Jerusalem Post) Editorial - Israel cannot agree to a process in Gaza in which withdrawal, reconstruction, or political recognition move forward on the assumption that Hamas will disarm later. The issue is whether Hamas is required to disarm before Israel gives up the leverage needed to make it happen. Hamas has used every negotiation to gain time, preserve control, and push the most difficult questions into the next phase, while its military power has remained largely untouched by diplomacy. It has repeatedly rejected disarmament, qualified it, or offered formulations that leave its weapons under a different name or authority. Israel cannot base a withdrawal on what Hamas says it intends to do. The standard must be physical and verifiable. Weapons need to be collected and placed beyond use, while production sites and tunnels need to be located and destroyed. Smuggling routes, command networks, and financing systems need to be dismantled. Inspectors must be able to enter sites without warning. A Palestinian civilian administration should be built. But it cannot become a mechanism for allowing Hamas to survive the war with its weapons, its coercive power, and its ability to start the next one. The test is not whether Hamas signs a disarmament clause. It is whether Hamas is, in fact, disarmed.