IDF officials warn that the quiet from Gaza is "misleading." On the ground, Hamas supplies itself through smuggling from the air, sea and land, rebuilding its strength and rearming. The humanitarian aid it has seized is giving it cash and oxygen. That is why officials believe it is now important for Israel to keep insisting on advancing an agreement to demilitarize the Gaza Strip.
Since the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip went into effect, a perception has taken hold among the Israeli public that is detached from the reality on the ground: that the Strip's borders are closed, the fighting has stopped and Hamas itself is on the verge of collapse. But conversations with IDF officials, some of them senior, paint the opposite picture: Hamas is undergoing a systematic and rapid process of rebuilding its strength. According to officials familiar with the details, the humanitarian aid corridor is one of the channels enabling Hamas to rebuild, with at least two shipments recently uncovered in which banned materials had been hidden under the guise of food and approved humanitarian equipment. Senior officials say these seizures are not isolated incidents, but part of a mechanism intended to ensure Hamas' survival and prevent its collapse.
In practice, the ceasefire has not only failed to stop Hamas, it has given the organization breathing room to deepen its renewed entrenchment and buildup. The terrorist organization in the Strip is exploiting the delay in implementing the second stage of the agreement as a "window of opportunity" to rebuild and rearm. Not only that, but Hamas is also increasing its open presence on the ground. Its operatives move around in public, strengthen governance, man armed checkpoints and restore government infrastructure. Hamas firmly controls more than two-thirds of the territory in the Strip that is not held by the Israel Defense Forces, doing so through a combination of force, intimidation, distribution of money and the use of part of the humanitarian aid as a tool to strengthen governance.
Since the summer of 2025, weapons and ammunition have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip by drones launched from Egyptian territory. The IDF has managed to thwart a handful of attempts, but the working assumption must be that some smuggling operations were not thwarted. According to officials familiar with the details, Hamas has also developed maritime smuggling capabilities using containers that float to the shores of southern Gaza. But the real risk, the officials say, lies in the humanitarian aid framework, under which hundreds of trucks enter Gaza from Egypt through Israel. The trucks ostensibly contain humanitarian aid and are inspected by Israeli personnel, but the inspection is not airtight, and Hamas is exploiting the ability to prepare goods in Egypt in order to conceal banned materials and products inside the aid in a sophisticated manner. (Read More)
