Battered and bruised but unbowed, Hamas forces were back patrolling the streets of Gaza almost immediately after the ceasefire with Israel came into effect.
It was both a warning to Israeli-linked gangs and collaborators, as it was a statement about who still governs the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.
US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza envisions a future in which Hamas plays no military or political role.
However, analysts argue that the complex realities on the ground – and the absence of a viable political alternative – cast serious doubt on how feasible it is to marginalise Hamas.
“Hamas wasn’t defeated,” Azzam Tamimi, an academic and author of two books on Hamas.
In the end, Israel was compelled to sign a deal with it, he explained. A deal that brought an end to the two-year genocidal war, paving the way for humanitarian relief in Gaza, a phased Israeli withdrawal and a prisoner exchange.
“[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu failed to achieve one of his main objectives to crush the resistance, let alone the other objectives,” Tamimi added.
“So how do they even expect Hamas to disappear? Hamas did not lose. If it didn’t win, it didn’t lose.”
After two years of relentless bombardment and siege, Hamas will feel an initial sense of victory: it was steadfast in standing up to Israeli aggression, and ultimately directly negotiated with the US to bring about an end to the war.
All eyes are now on how the group will channel that sense of triumph, from short-term consolidation to longer-term strategy.
Security control
In the immediate aftermath of the truce, Hamas has sought to reassert security control over areas of Gaza that Israel’s military has withdrawn from.
It launched a broad crackdown on gangs, aid looters and collaborators with Israel, who had exploited the chaos during the war to target civilians and Hamas members.
Within days, Hamas arrested dozens, while others were killed in clashes. At least eight people, described as “collaborators and outlaws”, were executed publicly in front of crowds.
Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian writer and analyst who grew up in Gaza, said the move served multiple aims.
It was partly to crack down on gangs disrupting Gaza’s economy, which criminal groups had done through reselling aid on the black market and taking control of access to cash.
Hamas also aimed to disarm the gangs and regain its monopoly over weaponry in the enclave.
When Israel killed Hamas fighters, it often confiscated heavy weaponry such as rockets, but left light weapons such as rifles and pistols. Some of these weapons were handed over to rival groups and criminal groups.
It appeared to be part of a deliberate Israeli strategy to sow seeds of civil chaos.
The rapid reassertion of control has shown that, despite Trump’s plan to completely remove Hamas, it will not go easily.
“It’s not like they’re going to be angels and say: ‘Okay, we’re going to leave the picture after having stood our ground for two years of unprecedented warfare and genocide’,” Shehada told MEE.
“They are trying at the moment to accumulate as much leverage as possible.
“Trying to reassert themselves on the map, reassert their influence and control and say to Israel and to the Americans that Hamas cannot be sidelined or ignored.”
Trump even initially appeared to endorse Hamas’ crackdown in which they “killed several bad gangs” before changing course and threatening to “kill” the group if it “continues to kill people in Gaza”.
According to Tamimi, Hamas was trusted by Palestinians over gangs and criminal groups.
“Hamas is the only force people in Gaza trust to maintain law and order,” he said.
“That’s why the majority of the people of Gaza support Hamas in cracking down on the gangsters who torment people, steal their food supplies and assassinate on behalf of the Israelis.”
Tribal leader Husni Salman Hussein al-Mughni, head of the largest assembly of clans in Gaza, publicly backed the campaign, stating that Hamas were going after criminals who had killed children, looted aid and collaborated with Israel.
Question of arms
Hamas regaining security control over parts of Gaza – while the US, Israel and much of the international community call for its total disarmament – creates a long-term fault line.
Hamas has long stated that it will not hand over its weapons until a Palestinian state is established.
“No one has the right to deny us the right to resist the occupation,” senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said.
In more detailed comments by Mohammed Nazzal, another member of Hamas’ politburo, the decision to hand over weapons would depend on the nature of the disarmament programme.
“The disarmament project you’re talking about, what does it mean? To whom will the weapons be handed over?” Nazzal said.
Arab diplomats previously told MEE that mediators were in discussions with Hamas about turning its weapons over to Arab peacekeepers or locking up long-range weapons such as missiles instead of destroying them.
Trump has threatened to “quickly and perhaps violently” disarm Hamas if needed. But such a strategy may not work.
Shehada pointed to a major study by Rand Corporation in August 2008, titled “How Terrorist Groups End”, which looked at the fate of militant groups from 1968 onwards.
It found that many groups ended after transforming their militant entities into political parties.
It also found that military force was very rarely successful in defeating such groups.
“That’s the pathway that Hamas would be on,” said Shehada. “The immediate alternative that Israelis jumped at what was the military solution to solve off the Palestinian question through genocide.
“But now they are going to increasingly understand there is no military solution against Palestinians.
“The only solution left is political accumulation one way or another.”
With no clear pathway to Palestinian statehood in sight – or even mentioned as part of Trump’s plan – Hamas looks set to temporarily hold on to at least its defensive weapons.
Interestingly, Trump’s plan spoke of “decommissioning” rather than disarmament.
Decommissioning took place during the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, signed in April 1998.
Weapons were gradually deposited in a depot, and disarmament took place over several years once the fulfilment of the peace agreement was ensured.
It is unclear whether Trump necessarily had this model in mind. Israeli politicians have spoken about the destruction of all types of weapons and infrastructure, offensive and defensive.
“In modern history, in Northern Ireland, Colombia or South Africa, you never had disarmament and demilitarisation as a prerequisite of the peace process,” said Shehada. “It was always the outcome of it.”
Political future
MEE understands from sources close to Hamas that the group’s leadership within Gaza had notified officials abroad that it would not surrender and would only accept complete Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Hamas leaders in Gaza made it clear that the group was prepared to continue fighting for significantly longer if necessary.
But had the war continued, discontent may have grown among the two million Palestinians living under genocide.
Polling carried out earlier this year showed that Hamas had lost some support in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, though it remained more popular than its rival Fatah.
But a majority of Palestinians oppose disarmament, and a sizeable section of the population continues to believe in armed resistance.
“Hamas is a government, a political party, an armed resistance group, and a civil society actor,” said Shehada. “People might support one of those versions of Hamas and not the other.”
He noted that Hamas was both popular and unpopular at the same time.
Some people, including those within Hamas’ own ranks, have criticised the 7 October surprise attack, how the war was managed, as well as how the group fared in negotiations and Palestinian reconciliation talks.
“At the same time, I’ve seen another trend where some of the people that have been the strongest critics of Hamas became some of its strongest vocal supporters because of the genocide,” he added.
Shehada said that many in Gaza saw that while a genocide was taking place against their families and existence, the entire world had turned its back.
“And they saw a ragtag army, people in flip-flops and sandals, that were coming out of tunnels to engage with the [Israeli army] to try to drive them out of Gaza,” he added. “That’s the paradoxical dynamic that you have in place.”
Ultimately, Hamas will feel like it was not defeated, and therefore still has a say in the future of Palestine.
“Hamas’ negotiators engaged with only the six key, initial points of the 20-point Trump plan,” Helena Cobban, co-author of Understanding Hamas: And Why That Matters, told MEE.
“They said nothing about the other 14 points, for or against. It is completely unrealistic for anyone to imagine that the movement will have no role in the governance of Gaza going forward.”
Cobban noted that Israel went to war not only with Hamas fighters, but also with political and administrative figures inside and outside Gaza.
That included killing former political leader Ismael Haniyeh in Iran in June 2024, as well as targeting senior Hamas officials in Doha last month.
“Despite the many killings and assassinations Israel has carried out against members of Hamas’s region-spanning directing council, it has continued to act as a coherent leadership body, including during its conduct of the negotiations,” said Cobban.
Hamas has said that it will eventually hand over administrative control of the strip to a Palestinian body, and that it is not interested in government in the long run.
The group is aware of the potential for international delegitimisation and boycotts if it plays an active and public role, given its reputation in the West.
But it would still seek to have some say in Palestinian politics, perhaps, said Shehada, through involvement in the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
“How much influence they would have is still yet to be known,” he said. “There’s a lot of parameters up in the air, a lot of unknowns at the moment.”
