Hamas seen working to keep up management of Gaza through Trump-backed our bodies

[ad_1] US President Donald Trump is pushing full steam forward along with his imaginative and prescient for a post-war Gaza that's not dominated by Hamas. However proof seen by The Occasions of Israel exhibits how Hamas is shifting successfully to subvert him.

The fear group is making ready a shadow authorities, and dealing to insert navy commanders into civil roles as soon as the Palestinian Authority-linked technocratic management begins its actions in Gaza, paperwork seen by The Occasions of Israel point out.

On the Board of Peace assembly in Washington final week, Trump won commitments for round $7 billion towards the rebuilding of Gaza, and has 5 international locations pledging to ship troops to the nascent Worldwide Stabilization Pressure, meant to switch Israeli troops within the enclave.

There are additionally some indicators of progress nearer to the war-torn territory. The technocratic Nationwide Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG, meant to handle day-to-day civilian affairs in Gaza, is now working, although solely from Cairo, with no date but set for getting into the Gaza Strip. NCAG can also be recruiting candidates for a transitional police power meant to function Gaza’s civil regulation enforcement company.

“Once you consider Israel, we’ve achieved the largest factor of all,” stated Trump in his deal with to the Board of Peace. “We have now peace within the Center East proper now.”

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By signing up, you conform to the terms However regardless of the worldwide efforts and optimistic statements on the Board of Peace and elsewhere, what are understood to be inside Hamas paperwork seen by The Occasions of Israel present that Hamas has no intention of giving up management over Gaza in follow, even when it does so in identify.

President Donald Trump holds the constitution throughout a signing ceremony on his Board of Peace initiative on the Annual Assembly of the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026. (AP Photograph/Markus Schreiber, File) A brand new position for Hamas commanders Some 4 months into the Gaza ceasefire, Israel nonetheless holds over half of the Strip, however almost all 2 million residents of the enclave are in areas that proceed to be held by Hamas.

Beneath the deal that ended the warfare, Hamas is meant at hand day-to-day governance of Gaza to the NCAG. The 15-member technocrat committee is headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath, who will function beneath the auspices of diplomat Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s Excessive Consultant overseeing the Gaza transition.

Whereas refusing to surrender its arms, Hamas has gone out of its option to give the impression that it's cooperating simply sufficient with regard to giving up civil management of Gaza to maintain the important thing mediating states blissful.

“Protocols are ready, information are full, and committees are in place to supervise the handover, guaranteeing a whole switch of governance within the Gaza Strip throughout all sectors to the technocratic committee,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem advised AFP final week.

Ali Shaath, head of the Palestinian technocratic committee for managing the Gaza Strip, seen in Cairo, Egypt, on January 19, 2026. (AFP) Hamas is certainly making ready at hand over its information and information on its ministries, The Occasions of Israel has discovered.

However based on the paperwork seen by The Occasions of Israel, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who changed Muhammad Sinwar after he was killed final Could in an Israeli strike, has issued orders for Hamas members to make copies of any information handed over to the brand new authorities.

This enables the group to keep up a report of presidency workers who can probably be threatened or pressured if wanted.

The Israel Protection Forces have warned the federal government that Hamas is adapting to the rising state of affairs in Gaza by ensuring its members are in key roles.

Hamas Gaza chief Izz al-Din Haddad, then the commander of Hamas’s Gaza Metropolis Brigade, is seen in a video launched by Hamas’s navy wing in Could 2022. “Hamas is advancing steps on the bottom meant to protect its affect and grip within the Gaza Strip ‘from the underside up’ by way of integrating its supporters in authorities places of work, safety apparatuses, and native authorities,” the navy stated in a document offered to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late January.

The paperwork seen by The Occasions of Israel additionally present that the group in latest weeks has targeted on shifting members of its navy wing into civilian roles which might be set to turn into a part of the NCAG governing equipment.

Written orders, apparently from Haddad, embody particular directions about shifting commanders from Hamas’s armed Al-Qassam Brigades into civilian roles in order that they are going to be able to work with the brand new technocratic authorities.

Members of the Al-Ghafeer household break their quick in the course of the holy month of Ramadan subsequent to the tent the place they're sheltering on the Gaza Metropolis port, on February 20, 2026. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana) Two Palestinian sources with direct data of Hamas’s operations told Reuters final week that the group had named 5 district governors, all of them with hyperlinks to the Al-Qassam Brigades. Additionally they changed senior officers in Gaza’s financial system and inside ministries, which handle taxation and safety, the sources stated.

A brand new deputy well being minister was proven touring Gaza hospitals in a ministry video launched this month.

“Shaath could have the important thing to the automotive, and he could even be allowed to drive, however it's a Hamas automotive,” one of many sources advised Reuters.

The Rumah Sakit Indonesia Hospital in Gaza Metropolis on November 1, 2023, amid the continued battles between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas. (Bashar TALEB / AFP/ File) Hamas’s inside intelligence equipment seems to be intact as effectively. The Occasions of Israel seen a written order from a Hamas brigade commander ordering his forces to extend surveillance at a number of websites, together with at hospitals, and to report any suspicions to native commanders.

The approaching conflict There's proof that Hamas believes one other high-intensity navy conflict with Israel is just a matter of time, The Occasions of Israel has discovered.

That prognosis represents a uncommon space of settlement between Israel and Hamas.

IDF Chief of Workers Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir meets with troops in southern Gaza’s Rafah, February 13, 2026. (Israel Protection Forces) Final month, a senior Israeli safety official said that it was trying more and more doubtless that the Israel Protection Forces must act militarily in opposition to Hamas to disarm it, since Hamas wouldn't agree to surrender its weapons willingly beneath the ceasefire settlement.

Senior Hamas officers have stated as a lot publicly. “Criminalizing the resistance, its weapons, and those that carried it out is one thing we must always not settle for,” said Khaled Mashaal at a convention in Doha earlier this month.

“So long as there may be occupation, there may be resistance. Resistance is a proper of peoples beneath occupation… one thing nations take satisfaction in,” stated Mashaal.

Hamas is prepared to position its “heavy” weapons — rockets and explosives — in warehouses guarded by the IDF and Egyptians, an Israeli supply stated.

Rockets are discovered by IDF troops in southern Gaza’s Rafah, in a handout photograph issued on January 1, 2025. (Israel Protection Forces) It's also prepared at hand over maps of its tunnels, however sources stated that Hamas would doubtless not report on all of its tunnels.

The IDF believes that a minimum of 60 % of Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza are nonetheless intact, although the proportion might be greater, as the military doesn't know what number of it has not but discovered.

An Israeli safety official advised The Occasions of Israel that Hamas was decided to maintain each its AK-47 semi-automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, however confused that Israel wouldn't permit such a situation beneath any circumstances.

The one weapons Israel will permit Palestinian forces to maintain, stated the official, are handguns, however solely within the arms of a brand new Gazan police power and never Hamas.

Armed Hamas cops patrol in Gaza Metropolis, October 11, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90) Hamas is extensively understood to concern that giant anti-Hamas clans in Gaza will search to take revenge after years of brutal repression ought to they hand over their rifles.

However it additionally needs to ensure it is able to combat the IDF once more, as it's satisfied that Israel goes to reinvade Hamas-held areas, based on a message the group’s Gaza management has despatched to its politburo in Qatar, The Occasions of Israel has discovered.

To organize for that combat, Haddad is believed to have reorganized Hamas’s high navy council final week. He appointed new intelligence chiefs, regional commanders, and heads of weapons manufacturing and propaganda, The Occasions of Israel has discovered.

Israel has been making the case to Trump that to ensure that his imaginative and prescient of Center East peace to be unlocked — and maybe for him to win a Nobel Peace Prize — Hamas should be disarmed, a supply with data of Israel’s pondering advised The Occasions of Israel.

The one method that can occur, Israel has advised the White Home, based on the supply, is for the IDF to return into Gaza. Israel made the case that an operation can be a lot faster and extra aggressive than earlier operations, as there are not any extra hostages within the Strip, and Israel can function all over the place and at full energy.

Jacob Magid and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.

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