Joe Biden appears to be pushing for a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. ‘My hope is that by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire,’ the US president said yesterday. Hamas has said the comments are ‘premature’ and Israeli sources have reportedly said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was surprised by Biden’s remarks. Pressure for a ceasefire would benefit Hamas, which has been demanding a stop in the fighting since mid-October after it attacked Israel and massacred 1,000 people and took 240 hostages.

Hamas’ approach in this latest conflict is nothing new: it has often sought to leverage the suffering of Gazan civilians, which it hides behind to fire rockets and build tunnels, to push for ceasefires after carrying out attacks. This has been Hamas’ model for decades. It has honed this strategy, and historically has used pauses in fighting to rebuild its arsenal of rockets. It’s worth recalling that Hamas illegally took over Gaza in 2007, ejecting the Palestinian Authority, and then used Gaza to stockpile weapons and launch attacks. This has resulted in numerous conflicts with Israel, in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021.

Israel has said since 7 October that Hamas will not be allowed to once again dictate the tempo of this conflict. When Israel and Hamas agreed to a hostage and prisoner exchange on 24 November, Israel referred to this as a pause in fighting, not a ceasefire. Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in November that ‘this will be a short respite after which the fighting will resume with intensity and pressure to bring back more hostages. At least two more months of fighting are expected.’

Hamas decided to attack Israel

In the two months since the first pause ended on 1 December, Israel has achieved more goals in Gaza. It has defeated an estimated 18 of Hamas’ 24 battalions. It has taken the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis from Hamas – the hometown of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, honeycombed with tunnels and terrorist infrastructure.

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press on in Gaza, targeting the last Hamas-held bastion in Rafah near the Egyptian border. The US and other countries have opposed this operation. ‘Once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion. Not months,’ Netanyahu recently said. ‘It has to be done because total victory is our goal and total victory is within reach.’

It’s important for Israel not to be pressured into a timetable for these operations. Hamas decided to attack Israel on 7 October in an unprecedented terror attack that led to the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. Hamas systematically targeted civilian communities, massacring foreign workers and kidnapping people who hold citizenship from some two-dozen countries. Hamas began the war. If the international community wants to make sure that Gaza would have the peace that a ceasefire will bring, then it is incumbent on the international community to remove Hamas as a threat.

The challenge Israel faces is that Hamas has many backers who have used its attack to their benefit. Russia and Iran have profited from the attack. Iran has used to encourage its proxies to attack US forces in Iraq and Syria and to target shipping in the Red Sea. It has also pushed Hezbollah to carry out daily attacks, amounting to thousands of rockets fired, since 7 October. Russia has benefited from the Gaza war in that it has distracted the West from the conflict in Ukraine. China has also excused Hamas attacks. In short, Hamas has exploited the shifting world order to try to meet its goals in Gaza. A ceasefire that caters to Hamas demands and does not release hostages or end the Hamas threat is not acceptable to Israel, and shouldn’t be to the rest of the world either.

The war on Hamas has been compared to the war on Isis. There was no ceasefire in Mosul in 2017 when Isis was on the ropes. Hamas is on the ropes in Gaza. It sees defeat looming. It wants a ceasefire so it can continue to control the border with Egypt and steal aid from Gazans and rebuild its strength. A ceasefire must come on Israel’s terms. Hamas started this war, and has done irretrievable harm to Gaza by embedding its terrorist claws throughout the enclave. Peace demands Hamas be defeated and be defanged from ever threatening Gazans, Israel and the region again.