War on Gaza: Why forcing Hamas to disarm will not end Israel's genocide
In the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Gaza. His stated goals were to destroy Hamas militarily and politically, to recover the Israeli captives, and to eliminate Gaza as a future threat.
What followed was Israel’s largest military mobilisation in the country’s history, with nearly half a million troops engaged and more than 100,000 tonnes of explosives dropped.
But more than a year and a half later, the core objectives remain unmet. Hamas is still operational, many Israeli captives are still in Gaza, and the territory’s humanitarian catastrophe is deepening.
Unable to claim military victory, Israeli policy has shifted. The state’s new demand is the complete disarmament of Hamas, presented as a necessary precondition for peace and regional stability. But this narrative is dangerously misleading, and detached from the complex realities on the ground.
Gaza possesses no heavy weaponry such as aircraft, tanks or ballistic missiles, but rather a limited cache of locally manufactured arms. By setting the elimination of even the most rudimentary forms of self-defence as a precondition for peace, Israel appears to seek not reconciliation, but rather the total erasure of the Palestinian presence in Gaza.
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Demands for disarmament are typically made in the final stages of a conflict, following a decisive military victory that compels the adversary to surrender and comply. Such a scenario has not materialised in the ongoing war on Gaza.
Israel’s demand, far from representing a position of strength, is a tacit admission of failure. Having failed to dismantle Hamas’s command structure and armed brigades through military means, it now seeks to do so through political pressure.
But the notion that Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK and other countries, can be disarmed under such conditions is both implausible and dangerous for a number of reasons.
Filling the void
Firstly, armed resistance is not monopolised by Hamas; it is embedded in the broader social and political fabric of Palestinian life. To many Palestinians, resistance is not an ideological luxury, but an existential necessity, deeply rooted in a history of displacement, occupation and unfulfilled promises.
Fighters are not always formally aligned with factions. They are often driven by a shared purpose, collective trauma and a pervasive sense of injustice. In such a context, disarming Hamas - assuming that this was even feasible - would not guarantee the end of armed struggle, as other groups would likely step in to fill the void in the absence of a broader political resolution addressing the roots of the conflict.
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Secondly, Hamas is not the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and Gaza is not Beirut. Drawing historical parallels with the disarmament of the PLO in Lebanon during the 1980s is misguided. Hamas is not a foreign force operating from exile; it is a local actor, deeply rooted in the very territory it governs.
Moreover, Hamas has survived nearly two decades of blockades, assassinations and invasions of Gaza. Its resilience lies not only in its military infrastructure, including its notorious tunnel network, but in its symbolic role as a force that endures in the face of overwhelming Israeli military power.
A durable peace cannot be achieved through force, but only through a political process grounded in dignity, sovereignty and mutual recognition
Attempts to replicate the PLO’s forced disarmament and exile misunderstand the nature of Hamas’s entrenchment in Gaza. They also risk reinforcing a pattern in which failed military strategies fuel greater radicalisation and long-term instability.
Thirdly, disarmament without justice is a dead end. For most Palestinians in Gaza, resistance is not a choice between war and peace, but between survival and erasure. With entire neighbourhoods flattened, more that 50,000 Palestinians killed and generations traumatised, the idea that simply laying down arms will deliver safety feels illogical and insulting.
Ironically, Israel’s military operations are fuelling the very resistance they aim to extinguish. The erosion of public support for the war within Israel itself suggests that the strategy is not only failing, but possibly backfiring.
Lessons from history
Fourthly, history does not provide much basis for trust. Calls for disarmament are often accompanied by promises of reconstruction and peace. But Palestinians have seen such promises collapse before, often with devastating consequences.
During the Bosnian War, the Srebrenica massacre followed a UN-enforced disarmament. In Lebanon, the Sabra and Shatila massacre occurred amid international oversight. And in the occupied West Bank, years of Palestinian demilitarisation have coincided with expanding Israeli settlements, daily raids and unchecked violence.
Palestinians are acutely aware of these historical precedents. They understand that disarmament would likely lead to further massacres and the mass expulsion of its population - intentions that Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have not concealed.
This alone is enough to compel Palestinians in Gaza to ask a fundamental question: why accept disarmament if it will not bring an end to the war, safety or reconstruction? Why surrender arms if the likely outcome is a second Nakba and the complete erasure of the Palestinian presence?
Lastly, the belief that Hamas can be fully disarmed through military force or diplomatic fiat without addressing the underlying injustice of occupation is a dangerous illusion. Resistance movements under siege rarely disappear; they adapt. As history shows - from Hezbollah’s rise after the PLO’s departure, to Iraq’s post-invasion insurgency - military campaigns that ignore political realities tend to sow more chaos.
Disarmament cannot be imposed before justice. It cannot be demanded without addressing the foundational issues of occupation, displacement and Palestinian national rights. A durable peace cannot be achieved through force, but only through a political process grounded in dignity, sovereignty and mutual recognition.
Until then, insisting on Hamas’ disarmament as a precondition for peace is not a strategy, but rather a distraction - one that risks prolonging a cycle of violence with no clear end in sight.
The illusion that disarmament can lead to lasting stability obscures a harsh reality: for many in Gaza, the choice is not between war and peace, but between resistance and erasure.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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