Post ceasefire with Israel, Hamas is effectively back in control in Gaza

After Israeli troops stood down when a cease-fire came into effect in the Gaza Strip, Hamas began sending thousands of its forces onto the streets to establish control.

- Omar Abdel-Baqui & Summer Said

The deployment—envisioned by the agreement that pauses the fighting while the combatants exchange hostages for prisoners—highlights how the U.S.-designated terrorist group remains the dominant power in the territory. Israel hasn't been able to destroy the group or empower an alternative.

Hamas punctuated its authority Sunday by parading armed and uniformed militants through the streets flashing V-signs to cheering crowds. When Hamas transferred the first Israeli hostages to the Red Cross, Arab mediators said they could see fighters from Hamas's core Nukhba Force unit clad in full military gear and armed.

The open show of force after months of being pushed underground was a signal that aid groups and governments will need to cooperate with Hamas as reconstruction efforts get under way in the coming weeks—an outcome Israel has hoped to prevent.

"The Hamas presence on the ground armed is a slap in the face to the Israeli government and army," said Gershon Baskin, a former Israeli hostage negotiator who is now Middle East director for the diplomacy advocacy group International Communities Organization. "It highlights that Israel's goals for the war were never achievable."

The fragile truce between Israel and Hamas pauses a war that is among the deadliest in modern Middle Eastern history, one that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble and killed around 47,000 people in the enclave following Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people and left another 250 held hostage.

If it holds, the cease-fire could ease tensions in the region after more than a year of a conflict that drew in the U.S. and Iran and its allied militias across the Middle East. But it also raises substantial questions about how Gaza will be governed after the fighting.