April 22, 2025: Israel has dealt with its Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah problems. All that remains is the festering mess in Gaza, where Hamas remnants continue shooting at Israeli troops and local Palestinian residents. Currently Israeli forces are fighting Hamas remnants in Gaza. The fighting has intensified to the point that airstrikes have been used. Both sides were killing Palestinian civilians and with that something unusual happened. The civilians turned on Hamas, which was now considered by most Palestinians as a heartless, corrupt organization that regularly killed Palestinian civilians when it suited their situation. Armed Palestinian civilians struck back, killing Hamas operatives in Gaza. Palestinians have long depended on dozens of clan leaders and their armed associates, for protection and arbitration of disputes among Palestinians. Israel generally leaves these clan organizations alone and will often cooperate with the clans to maintain the peace in the West Bank and Gaza. Currently Israel and the Palestinian clans agree that Hamas is a threat to everyone and must be destroyed. That is virtually impossible because anyone can join Hamas and no matter what the situation is for Hamas, there are always some Palestinians who want to join and die for the cause.

Hamas first appeared in 1987 and initially provided assistance for Palestinian civilians, not just armed resistance to Israel. Hamas believed that a Palestinian state must be established and replace Israel. Hamas wants to drive all Jews out of the region. Initially Hamas was popular with Palestinians and local Arab countries. This is where most of their funding came from. In addition Hamas engaged in various illegal enterprises, including drug smuggling and production. Western-supported Palestinian charities also contributed to Hamas. In the last few years the Western nations have cut off their financial support of Palestinians because nothing else worked to prevent aid to Palestinian civilians from reaching Hamas. This is one of the issues that turned Palestinian civilians against Hamas.

Meanwhile Hamas continues to be the source of much grief. In mid-2024 Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza, where fighting had been going on since the initial Hamas offensive in October 2023. Hamas employed surprise, deception, and frequent use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. Hamas used Palestinian civilians when fighting the Israelis at the Rafah border crossing. This is the only crossing between Egypt and the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip.

Until Hamas decided to start another war in October 2023, over two million Palestinians lived in the Gaza Strip and their two main supply routes were Rafah and the Erez crossing with Israel. Hamas failed to penetrate either of these crossings. The Erez crossing was not a practical option for Hamas because it is guarded by the Israeli Defense Forces/IDF. The Rafah crossing is guarded by Egyptian forces, who will not allow Palestinian civilians to cross but will allow supply trucks to enter Gaza from Egypt. Israel wants Hamas to hand over the remaining Israeli hostages and other foreign hostages they hold. Some of these hostages are dead and Israel wants their bodies. At the same time Israel wants to kill all the remaining Hamas members in Gaza. Most of these Hamas members have hidden their weapons and present themselves as Palestinian civilians. Israel has biometric fingerprint and photo data on many Hamas members and that makes it difficult for Hamas members to try leaving Gaza via the Rafah crossing. Hamas members have to cross an Israeli checkpoint and then an Egyptian checkpoint. Hamas could only use these crossings in peacetime so now they are trapped in Sinai and hunted by the IDF.

The United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization and so do many other countries that have encountered Hamas. That is still the case but in October 2023 Hamas found a new way to cause mischief. Hamas launched a surprise offensive from Gaza against Israel. The IDF easily defeated the Hamas attack but Hamas continued attacking with help from the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon and parts southwestern Syria. Hamas described its attacks on Israel as an effort to create a Palestinian state. The problem is that Hamas considers a Palestinian state one that occupies all the territory Israel is composed of. Since Israel is the wealthiest and most militarily powerful state in the region, Hamas efforts to eliminate Israel are fantasy. Currently Hamas has gained a lot of media recognition and even some support for their Palestinian state plan.

Despite that, Hamas leaders, who live and work in Persian Gulf sanctuaries, are trying to make the most of the current Hamas Palestinian state fantasy, which has gained a lot of media coverage and public support in the West as well as Arabs. Among the Palestinians, who live in the West Bank and, until late 2023, Gaza, Hamas is considered a menace that is more interested in power than providing any benefits to the millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Currently Hamas gunmen are using Palestinians in Gaza as human shields as they continue to fight Israeli troops sent in to restore order and establish safe routes for foreign aid to get to over two million Palestinians who need it. Hamas not only disrupts aid deliveries but seizes much of the aid that does get through, diverting the aid to Hamas-controlled locations so that Hamas can sell the aid on the open market to obtain money to pay for Hamas operations. This is how Hamas operates and a major reason for the unpopularity of Hamas among Palestinians.

These Hamas operations put the growing number of Moslem states that have established diplomatic and trade relations with Israel in an awkward position. Hamas, for all its faults, knows how to manipulate the media temporarily to portray Hamas as the good guys. Arab states in the regions, especially Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, have to put up with Hamas activities until Hamas runs out of support. This doesn’t take long but until the media and diplomatic support fades there is not much that can be done.

One of the temporarily disrupted efforts is the growing tendency for Israel’s Arab neighbors to establish valuable economic, diplomatic, and military ties with Israel, and gain an ally against common enemies like Shia Iran and Islamic terrorism like Hamas. Israel is also the only nation in the region with nukes and reliable ballistic missiles, which are also used to put Israeli spy satellites into orbit. It is also the worst of times because Iran has personnel operating on Israeli borders and an increasingly effective Cyber War effort against Israel.

There is growing dissatisfaction in the West and the Middle East with the Palestinian leadership failures and rampant corruption. The current Hamas activities are the latest example. Many Palestinians support Hamas because they are convinced that Israel has no right to exist and pretending to negotiate a peace deal is useful for obtaining foreign aid, if not much else. Arabs in general are now telling the Palestinians to take whatever peace deal they can because cash and other aid from Arab nations will continue to disappear unless the Palestinians solve their own problems with corruption and fixation on destroying Israel. Many Palestinians are willing to change but their corrupt leaders are not and use their war on Israel as an excuse to violently suppress any Palestinian opposition to the current suicidal strategy. This played a role in Hamas from launching a major attack out of Gaza into southern Israel in October 2023. Over a thousand Israelis and hundreds of foreigners died or were taken as hostages. Hamas planned to overthrow and replace the current corrupt West Bank Palestinian government. That effort failed because the Israeli military was able to counterattack and put Hamas on the defensive and Palestinians saw no gain in replacing their current corrupt leaders with the even more corrupt and much more violent Hamas.

The current Hamas crisis stems from the 900,000 Palestinian refugees who fled Gaza to escape the Hamas inspired violence. The refugees fled to the Egyptian border and the Egyptians will not let them in for the same reason Israel wants to control aid going to these refugees and search the refugees to find and capture or kill Hamas members.