Disarmament Without Settlement: An Open Recipe for Sustaining the War in Gaza

The political and security indicators coming from Doha, particularly the meeting held by the US Central Command regarding the “international force” in Gaza, converge on one conclusion: no real breakthrough, no practical answers, and no international consensus that can be built upon. According to media reports, the meeting was not decisive or fruitful compared to the expectations of the US administration, and the abstention of several countries from participating constituted a clear signal of the fragility of the idea itself and the depth of the international division regarding it.

From the Israeli perspective, these indicators appear overwhelmingly negative. Israel insists on reducing the role of any potential international force to a single issue: disarming Gaza. However, at the same time, it does not hide its lack of confidence in these forces and practically declares that it is the only entity capable – or authorized – to carry out this task, even if the price is returning to war or imposing a long-term attrition plan. The direct result of this approach is the consolidation of the status quo in Gaza: no actual cessation of the war, no reconstruction, and no political horizon.

In this context, it becomes clear that disarmament outside the framework of a comprehensive political settlement, in which “Hamas” is a key party, is nothing but an empty slogan. Experience, as well as field realities, proves that any purely security approach, detached from a realistic political solution, is doomed to failure. And if Israel's and “Hamas's” positions do not change, and mediations fail to produce sustainable solutions, the final decision will remain in the hands of the US administration, which will sooner or later be forced to deal with this complex dilemma, not just manage it.

Within this scene, the Israeli government continues to evade forward through a policy of assassinations. The assassination of the Hamas leader Raed Saad, whom Israel describes as one of the planners of the October 7 attack and responsible for rehabilitating the movement's military wing, was met with widespread welcome in Israel. However, this celebration conceals Israel's true intentions: non-commitment to the agreement and evasion of any serious political path.

Even Israeli military analysts acknowledge that Saad's death does not constitute a decisive blow to “Hamas.” Despite losing a large part of its senior leadership and suffering heavy losses, the movement remains the only party capable of imposing itself in Gaza. As one of them wrote: “There is no one in Gaza who challenges Hamas, which has quickly returned, frustratingly, to be the undisputed master of the house,” at a time when the United States has failed to formulate a multinational force capable of assuming security responsibility or enforcing a disarmament path.

According to Israeli analysts, concern is rising in Israel with the emergence of the “Eight Countries Alliance,” which includes five Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar) and three Islamic countries (Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia). This alliance is considered a new phenomenon in regional political arrangements, as it links geographically non-adjacent countries with diverse political orientations and interests.

The roots of this alliance go back to the Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh in November 2023, an exceptional step aimed at demonstrating a unified position on the war in Gaza, which worries Israel and prompts it to work diligently to dismantle it.

In the same context, the disagreement between Tel Aviv and Washington over Turkey's role deepens. While US officials believe that Ankara should be part of the stabilization force, given its military capabilities and influence channels in Gaza, Israel considers that a red line. From its perspective, a party that maintains relations with “Hamas” cannot be classified as a stabilization force; rather, its inclusion could undermine the very essence of the declared goal of the international force.

This disagreement reflects a broader crisis in vision: the United States is seeking crisis management, while Israel insists on perpetuating it under the banner of “security.”

According to Israeli analysts, it seems that US President Donald Trump's patience is beginning to run out. Netanyahu's upcoming visit comes within a political hourglass aimed at preparing the ground for a decisive meeting between them. Washington wants to verify whether Netanyahu is ready to move to the next phase of the US plan and what the limits of his flexibility are on the Gaza file and the international force.

From Israel's perspective, this moment represents a test of how to say “yes” to a political path without conceding, even symbolically, to the “red lines” of security. From the United States' perspective, the question is simpler and more dangerous: Is Netanyahu a reliable partner, or a leader who prefers to keep the arenas ablaze?

It is no longer possible to describe what is happening in Gaza as a failure in mediation or American inability to exert pressure. The accumulating data clearly indicates that the United States is not incapable of pressuring Israel, but chooses not to do so. Washington, which possesses unprecedented political, military, and financial leverage tools, continues to grant Tel Aviv an open margin to sabotage any serious political path, under security pretexts that have become exposed.

Israel, for its part, systematically works to obstruct everything that could end the war. It empties the idea of the international force of its content, reduces it to the disarmament issue, then doubts its usefulness and insists on monopolizing its implementation by force, even if that leads to new rounds of fighting or a long-term attrition war. Thus, every political initiative turns into a tool for managing the war, not ending it.

The US administration also provides political cover for this behavior by continuing to talk about “calm planning” and “permanent peace,” while allowing Israel to set new conditions, delay the transition to the second phase, and link any withdrawal to open-ended temporal criteria related to disarmament. More dangerously, the US administration knows that disarming “Hamas” outside a comprehensive political settlement is an unrealistic demand, but continues to present it as a prerequisite, giving Israel the perfect pretext to perpetuate occupation and war.

Therefore, sustaining the war in Gaza is not the result of miscalculation, but the product of a complete political partnership: Israel refuses to end the war, and the United States refrains from imposing that on it. Between this refusal and that abstention, Gaza is left hostage to killing, starvation, and destruction, while the discourse of “stability” is recycled to justify the continuation of the crime.

The Israeli government is not ready to advance in any serious political path, nor to formulate the day after or launch a real reconstruction process in Gaza. What is happening is not a pursuit of stability, but a conscious management of an open-ended war in various forms, for which Israel and the US administration bear direct responsibility.