With all of the focus on Iran and Lebanon, readers may wonder what the situation is on the third ceasefire front – Gaza. The situation looks remarkably similar, where Iran and its proxies refuse to actually comply with the terms of the ceasefires to which they agreed, and are similarly nonplussed at the fire that hasn’t ceased as a result.
In Gaza, however, that may be a secondary issue. The primary issue is that Israel has no intention of letting anyone with responsibility for the October 7 massacre to survive. And so today, the IDF took out the military chief of Hamas in a strike on a Gaza City residence. Mohammed Ouda didn’t even get a fortnight to celebrate his promotion:
The IDF and the Shin Bet on Wednesday morning confirmed its Tuesday night assassination in Gaza City of Hamas’s brand new military chief, Mohammed Ouda.
Only 11 days after the IDF assassinated his predecessor, Iz al-Din al-Hadad, on May 15, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz had already announced that they had attempted the assassination on Tuesday night, and the military and the Israel Security Agency confirmed the details on Wednesday.
He joined al-Hadad, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Mohammed Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and other top Hamas officials who Israel has assassinated since October 7, 2023.
Perhaps Hamas should just keep the position open on LinkedIn, given the turnover rate involved. Maybe the terrorist group needs to fire more people on its own, too. How did the IDF get intelligence so quickly on Ouda eleven days after taking out al-Hadad? Hamas’ opsec for its command functions appears to be getting worse, which is exactly what you’d expect when your command functions keep getting decapitated.
So … who wants to be next in line on the IDF’s hit parade? How many applicants will there be?
Before we get to the ceasefire itself, we should rethink our expectations for such agreements. The Israelis do not forgive and forget when it comes to terrorists. They will do so when it comes to making peace with legitimate states in their region, such as Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and the rest of the Abraham Accords members. The Israelis only reluctantly entered into agreements with Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas of the PLO under pressure from these countries, and have paid a steep price for it with intifadas over the years. However, when a group undertakes a coordinated massacre on Israelis, the Mossad and the IDF will spend years wreaking their revenge and making sure everyone involved pays the price. Search for the leaders of Black September after the 1972 Munich Olympics attacks and Operation Wrath of God for an instructive look at Israeli policy on terrorism.
Ceasefire or no, Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t just offering war rhetoric when he promised every Hamas member involved in the October 7 attacks would be a dead man.
Even beyond that, though, the ceasefire in Gaza has the same quality as the one in Lebanon and the one with Iran: they’re all phony. The Iranians and their proxies have no intention of complying with the agreements they make, and Hamas is no exception. The agreement that Donald Trump brokered in Gaza requires Hamas to fully disarm long before the Israelis have to pull out, so that an international force can replace both Hamas and the IDF to maintain security. Hamas has reneged on that agreement for months:
Since the October 2025 ceasefire between the sides, Hamas has agreed to partial disarmament, giving away some heavy weapons, but only if Israel first withdraws from portions of the 53% of Gaza it controls, and allows significant rebuilding of Gaza to begin.
The Wall Street Journal also takes note of Hamas’ non-compliance, and the refusal of Israel to play the Hamas Hokey Pokey this time:
Hamas has resisted disarming as the agreement requires. Meanwhile the international military force intended to secure the enclave has yet to take shape, and a technocratic committee that was supposed to oversee daily governance has yet to enter Gaza.
Israel has further expanded its control of the enclave by moving the so-called yellow line, which marks the division of territory, deeper into Hamas’s zone of control.
Hundreds of Gazans have been killed in Israeli attacks since the cease-fire went into effect in early October, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, with the population relying on handouts and lacking proper sanitation and shelter.
“Palestinian health authorities” is a reference to Hamas’ propaganda units within the Gazan government, such as it is. The IDF has not launched full-scale offensive operations in Gaza since the ceasefire; it has mainly responded to probing attacks and other provocations, while going full speed on targeting strikes aimed at Hamas leadership. The humanitarian situation in Gaza may be “dire,” but that’s because Hamas refuses to comply with the agreement it signed last year to end the war it started on October 7th, 2023.
And, of course, this is exactly the problem in Lebanon and with Iran, too. Iran and its proxies don’t negotiate in good faith, and they don’t consider themselves bound by agreements, because they are terrorists. There is a reason for the policy of non-negotiation with terrorists, and only part of that is deterrence against terrorism. The main reason is just futility, and the existence of the Palestinian Authority in its current form is a great testament to that futility. We need to learn this lesson and apply it to the head of the snake in Tehran, and perhaps that might resolve these other theaters in the same war that the Iranian regime has waged for 47 years.
The Israelis understand it better than anyone. That’s why they’re making Gaza into a Monty Python opening credits roll. Keep sacking enough of these leaders, and they might find someone to take charge that has a better grasp of reality. Or a møøse might bite your sister.
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