Don’t want Israelis in Gaza? They don’t want to be there, either

After a seven-day temporary truce that saw more than 100 Hamas-held hostages released in exchange for three times as many Palestinian prisoners, the fighting in Gaza has resumed. Unsurprisingly, calls for a ceasefire have also resumed with a renewed pitch.

Ironically, if there’s one thing the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine camps agree on, it’s that neither wants to see Israel’s soldiers fighting inside Gaza.

The last place Israel wants to send its fighting sons and daughters is to the Hamas-controlled enclave, with its booby-trapped buildings and its sprawling underground network of tunnels from which gunmen emerge to launch ambushes.

But 15 years of lethal attacks have made clear there is no way to end Hamas’s terrorism without rooting out the organization once and for all. Hamas has openly promised to conduct Oct. 7-style attacks again and again. So even though Israel did not ask for this war, its only choice is to fight it fully.

Those who hoped the week-long pause would lead to a long-term ceasefire misunderstand Hamas, which has a long history of breaking ceasefires. Four days into last week’s truce, the group detonated explosive devices near Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip and opened fire on them. Israel still upheld the truce for three more days until Friday, when Hamas failed to provide a list of hostages for release and resumed launching rockets into Israel.

The terrorist group remains true to its founding mission. Hamas is an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”). It emerged in the late 1980s as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, with a founding charter that called for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic society.

After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas put in place authoritarian institutions to govern the population of 2 million under strict sharia law. It adopted increasingly violent tactics against Israel, capitalizing on funding and training from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Hamas dispatched suicide bombers onto Israel’s streets, launched tens of thousands of rockets and mortars, released incendiary balloons to set fire to nearby villages, planted roadside explosives, and built tunnels to infiltrate communities, kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians.

Then, on Oct. 7, thousands of Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border fence, attacked some 20 Israeli towns and villages, and perpetrated the single-largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

Until then, Israel had tried to keep its citizens safe through a combination of limited military interventions and economic incentives, including permits for Gazans to work inside Israel. It imposed a maritime blockade to prevent the smuggling of weapons while permitting the entry of international aid into the Strip, knowing much of of that aid would be stolen by Hamas.

Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack made clear that Israel can no longer ignore the jihadi death cult that lives on its doorstep. No Israeli family would be willing to return to the now-vacant towns surrounding Gaza as long as Hamas remains a threat. So for now, swaths of Israel are uninhabitable.

To be sure, Israel must abide by the laws of war and make maximum efforts to avoid civilian casualties. Critics can disagree with how Israel is waging war in Gaza, but they cannot, in good faith, deny Israel’s duty to defend its citizens and free the estimated 137 remaining hostages.

Critics who would deny Israel this right are, very often, the same people who deny Israel’s right to exist in the first place. Those calling for a ceasefire want Israel to retreat from a terrorist group that still holds many hostages, and which will only regroup afterward to stage multiple additional attacks.

Such a retreat would send a dangerous message to Israel’s enemies in Hezbollah and Iran, who are watching from other potential battle fronts, assessing Israel’s willingness to respond.

The goal of peace-loving people should not just be an end to this current war but an end to all wars in Gaza. That is only possible if the threat of Hamas is removed once and for all. Israel’s soldiers must complete this mission, progressing methodically and carefully to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties.

A terror state built over 15 years cannot be dismantled overnight. But once it has been dismantled, both Israelis and Palestinians will welcome the day when Israeli soldiers no longer fight in Gaza.

Aviva Klompas is the former director of speechwriting at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations and co-founder of Boundless Israel, a nonprofit organization that partners with community leaders in the U.S. to support Israel education and combat hatred of Jews.