A positive endgame in Gaza begins to loom
Israel food products, provided directly to Gazans.
Click for video.
Several news stories in the past few weeks suggest to me that we are beginning to see the first signs of the end game that will bring about the defeat of Hamas and the establishment of a sane society within the Gaza strip.
First, it appears that Hamas is short of cash, according to a news report from a Saudi newspaper and then re-reported by an Israeli news outlet.
Sources within the terror group revealed that Hamas is struggling to pay salaries — not only to government employees, but also to members of its military wing and staff in other affiliated bodies at all levels.
The sources added that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, have not paid salaries to terrorists for approximately three months and are facing serious financial difficulties in acquiring essential equipment for their military operations.
One of the things that has propped Hamas up for decades has been its control of foreign aid. The money comes in and Hamas doles it out while keeping large portions for its own use. The distribution of money gives Hamas leverage, while the money it keeps reinforces its power. Under Trump that foreign aid spigot has been largely shut down, and this story suggests we are now seeing the first results of this policy.
Second, Israel is now taking over the direct distribution of humanitarian aid. In the past Hamas maintained its power over its citizens by acting as the go-between of food and medicine. Nothing would go to anyone unless Hamas got its dirty hands on it first. Often no aid at all would reach Gazans. Hamas would keep it all, shipping it underground to its tunnels for use later during siege. Or it would sell that aid on the black market, raising money to fund its terrorist operations.
Israel, in partnership with the United States, is now ending that vile practice.
The Israeli military has set up a news aid distribution network in Gaza aimed at providing direct humanitarian aid to Gaza residents and bypassing the terrorist group Hamas.
Despite Hamas’s threats to target aid workers and disrupt the deliveries, the military has established four distribution centers as part of a U.S.-backed initiative, the Israeli media reported Tuesday. “The Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday that aid distribution centers had begun handing out humanitarian relief to Gazans,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported. “Four centers were established in recent weeks, the IDF said, in coordination with a US civil security company and by the directive of the Israeli government.” [emphasis mine]
This new policy began with the arrival of 170 trucks of aid, all of which went directly to Gazans and not to Hamas. Hamas apparently set up checkpoints to try to block Gazans from getting the aid, but those checkpoints were overrun by thousands, many of whom were reported to shout loud curses at Hamas as they did so.
All told, on the first day 8,000 food packages were distributed, equivalent to almost a half million meals.
Not only is this distribution policy neutering Hamas, it is doing so in a manner that allows the citizens of Gaza to interact directly with Israel. Note the picture above. These are Israeli products, handed to Gazans by Israel. The lies of hatred that Hamas has spread for decades against Israel and Judaism will quickly be rejected by Gazans if this direct contact expands.
Both of these stories fit well with a more detailed analysis of Israel’s short and long term military plans in Gaza, posted on May 5, 2025.
The Gazans have had enough, and polls show most want to leave their ravaged coastal strip to start anew elsewhere. They are currently trickling out in a slow but largely unpublicized exodus via Ramon Airport and the Jordanian border. Some are genuine humanitarian cases, but others likely betrayed Hamas, and their ticket out, along with a visa to a foreign nation, is part of the quid pro quo Israel has offered them.
Hamas is hopelessly depleted, entirely cut off from resupply for 19 months now. There is no celebratory gunfire in Gaza, not just because they are losing, but because every bullet is precious. From firing off hundreds of rockets a day, they now manage perhaps one a month or fewer. They are a spent force, entirely outclassed and surrounded.
After describing at length the weak state of Hamas, the author then outlines in great detail, with maps, the expected actions Israel’s military will take to finish off Hamas and take over Gaza completely. I strongly urge you to read what he writes. The main idea is to subdivide Gaza to isolate Hamas from its citizens so that Israel can deal directly with local officials.
Israel’s immediate military plan.
Once isolated, Hamas leadership effectively loses control, ceasing to exist as an organization. Israel can make individual deals with division commanders, arranging safe passage to third countries. Those claiming Israel can’t occupy Gaza short- to medium-term ignore history. Israel has held up to 50% of Gaza with minimal troop numbers sustainably.
Once Gaza is partitioned, and the IDF has established bases enabling access to Hamas-free towns, arrangements for Gaza’s long-term governance can begin. Most likely, each city will gain self-governance under a fully demilitarized arrangement, surrounded and bisected by Israeli buffer zones, similar to the West Bank.
It appears the first two stories above are examples of the first stage of this strategy.
The bottom line is that Israel is moving aggressively to take full control of Gaza, for its own security but also in a manner that will be for the benefit of the ordinary Gazans. Above all the strategy is to eliminate the bigoted genocidal Hamas leadership so that normality can return to these people. Once that is accomplished, Gazans might even be able to return to the real world, working as they once did in Israel and using their wages to build new lives inside Gaza itself.
They might even be able to make Gaza what it should have been for decades, a wonderful beach resort fronting the nicest part of the Mediterranean Sea.
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Before Oct 7, Israel was sending TONS OF AID into Gaza daily.
While it seems a contradiction in terms, there are Hamas billionaires who could never be bothered to appear in Gaza, or use their billions for their “people.”
When Israel took on Rafah and closed the Rafah/Egypt terror/smuggling tunnels, I’m sure the Hamas billionaires were none too happy.
Below is a link to a recent video of Hamas trying to hijack aid trucks. The IDF were ready for them.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1fmaivc/the_idf_destroys_a_hamas_group_attempting_to/
Ronaldus Magnus: In the past however all that Israeli aid had to be distributed through UNRWA to Hamas, before any ordinary Gazan could see it. And since UNRWA was simply an arm of Hamas, it worked with those thugs to empower Hamas over ordinary Gazans.
The new policy changes all this, for the good.
“Sources within the terror group revealed that Hamas is struggling to pay salaries — not only to government employees, but also to members of its military wing and staff in other affiliated bodies at all levels.”
I think it is reasonable to conclude that most ALL of the deaths, murders, heart ache, pain, chaos and terrorism that has taken place over the last 13 years on both sides is directly caused by the American presidencies and leadership of Barak Hussein Obama AND Joe Biden.
Both weak, Liberal, “progressive”, Globally oriented, essentially Leftist Democrat presidents actively facilitated the cash and much of the war material that was needed for Iran, their associates and bad actors whose ideological hatred for Israel and by extension America that sought their destruction.
Some might call that treason, some might call that politics.
America makes a good enemy and a bad friend.
Things today however seem to be going in the correct general direction.
Stay tuned.
The mainstream media is already trying to undermine this narrative.
I saw an MSM story earlier today about the “US backed. Israeli run” aid stations cannot meet the demand.
It’s amazing how the money trail has had these effects. When the money disappears, Hamas disintegrates.
Why didn’t someone do this before? Why didn’t someone use existing government accountants to audit the various NGO’s? Why is Mr. Trump the smart one in the room to begin accountability for the NGO’s? By saving U.S. taxpayers this money, he cuts off funds to Hamas. Seems as if there is a one-to-one correspondence between those events.
Too bad this strategy wasn’t in the Democrats’ textbooks; might have helped them save quite a few lives, both Israeli ones and Gazan ones.
Greetings from Israel. There is one teensy weensy problem with your rosy scenario:
There is no such thing as a peace-loving Palestinian civilian.
And probably no such thing as a peace-loving Muslim civilian.
After decades of internationally funded peacemaking and PC breast-beating, most Israelis – and many Europeans and others – are now convinced of this…. the sane Westerners are finally believing what the Muslims say about Jihad and world conquest, instead of practicing the DARVO of victimhood politics and excusing violence as “expressions of anger at colonialist repression”.
Palestinians were given territory, money, and an internationally-supervised election – in which they overwhelmingly elected Hamas.
Palestinians who lived and worked alongside Israelis in Gaza participated in the slaughter and rape of their neighbors.
Palestinians who were escorted to Israeli hospitals to receive better treatment – slaughtered their benefactors, burned them in their homes – and gloried in the violence.
Their neighbors praised them – as did Muslims around the world.
They WANT this.
They are NOT “just like you and I”.
They see “others” differently than we do.
They define good, evil, and “the good life” differently than we do.
The Geneva conventions permit expulsion of an implacably hostile population.
That is the only way to achieve lasting peace in the region.
Most Israelis – and more and more Europeans and Americans – understand this now.
Western self-negation and attempts to “understand” a brutal, amoral culture – are the exact opposite of what must be done.
A certain minimal adherence to Judeo-Christian Western morals is a precondition before Western-style human rights can be granted to an individual or group. Until then, the schoolyard rules apply: don’t give the bully your sandwich.
Heavy-handed defense, expulsion, and segregation are the only solutions wherever Muslim populations meet others people.
BenDavid should be the “Voice of Reason” when considering the FINAL DESTINATION of the gazans! They should ALL be sent to some “peace loving muslim nation” to live out their miserable lives under the sharia laws they love so much!
The WORLD would be a better place if all muslims were sent back to their 7th Century paradises and never allowed to leave! When someone says their PURPOSE in life is to control or kill you they should NOT be allowed to enter your Nation!
BenDavid: You very sadly may be right. However, just so you don’t think I am being naive, see the discussion at this thread, most especially my first response to Lee S.
Also, if you reread the quotes, exportation of large numbers of Gazans is clearly part of the Israeli strategy.
BenDavid: You should also know that I am not speaking entirely out of my hat. All my relatives live in Israel, in West Bank settlements no less, and I have visited them all many times. I know the situation on the ground there as it really is. See the essays here: A visitor’s look at Israel
Hamas puts its citizens in harm’s way specifically so that they will be harmed or mistreated (lack of food and supplies, despite humanitarian aid arriving in Gaza) so that people will feel sorry for their citizens and turn against the victims, the Israelis.
Instead of the real victims being recognized as victims, the Palestinians are seen as the victims, and people are fooled into feeling sorry for those who continually conduct violence, whether it be a large sneak attack or regularly occurring missile attacks, missiles coming from civilian areas and are thus difficult to counterattack and prevent.
Terrorists have been successfully doing this to Israel for decades, which is why Hamas is doing it now. And thanks to the people who are continuously fooled, Hamas, too, is succeeding. Those gullible people fell for the trap and have done as Hamas wanted. This means that the next time anti-Israelis attack Israel, they will have incentive do the same, perpetuating the very things that appall the exploited people who complain that Israel defends itself.
To BenDavid
Wasn’t there some line in the UN charter about not blaming children for sins of ancestors?
I can’t find that anymore on the web–a nice, secular write up against the whole idea of blood-guilt.