Hamas seen working to maintain control of Gaza via Trump-backed bodies

US President Donald Trump is pushing full steam ahead with his vision for a post-war Gaza that is not ruled by Hamas. But evidence seen by The Times of Israel shows how Hamas is moving effectively to subvert him.

The terror group is preparing a shadow government, and working to insert military commanders into civil roles once the Palestinian Authority-linked technocratic leadership begins its activities in Gaza, documents seen by The Times of Israel indicate.

At the Board of Peace meeting in Washington last week, Trump won commitments for around $7 billion toward the rebuilding of Gaza, and has five countries pledging to send troops to the nascent International Stabilization Force, meant to replace Israeli troops in the enclave.

There are also some signs of progress closer to the war-torn territory. The technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, or NCAG, meant to manage day-to-day civilian affairs in Gaza, is now operating, though only from Cairo, with no date yet set for entering the Gaza Strip. NCAG is also recruiting candidates for a transitional police force meant to serve as Gaza’s civil law enforcement agency.

“When you think of Israel, we’ve done the biggest thing of all,” said Trump in his address to the Board of Peace. “We have peace in the Middle East right now.”

But despite the international efforts and optimistic statements at the Board of Peace and elsewhere, what are understood to be internal Hamas documents seen by The Times of Israel show that Hamas has no intention of giving up control over Gaza in practice, even if it does so in name.

A new role for Hamas commanders

Some four months into the Gaza ceasefire, Israel still holds over half of the Strip, but nearly all 2 million residents of the enclave are in areas that continue to be held by Hamas.

Under the deal that ended the war, Hamas is supposed to hand day-to-day governance of Gaza to the NCAG. The 15-member technocrat committee is headed by former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath, who will operate under the auspices of diplomat Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s High Representative overseeing the Gaza transition.

While refusing to give up its arms, Hamas has gone out of its way to give the impression that it is cooperating just enough with regard to giving up civil control of Gaza to keep the key mediating states happy.

“Protocols are prepared, files are complete, and committees are in place to oversee the handover, ensuring a complete transfer of governance in the Gaza Strip across all sectors to the technocratic committee,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem told AFP last week.

Hamas is indeed preparing to hand over its records and files on its ministries, The Times of Israel has learned.

But according to the documents seen by The Times of Israel, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who replaced Muhammad Sinwar after he was killed last May in an Israeli strike, has issued orders for Hamas members to make copies of any files handed over to the new government.

This allows the group to maintain a record of government employees who can potentially be threatened or pressured if needed.

The Israel Defense Forces have warned the government that Hamas is adapting to the emerging situation in Gaza by making sure its members are in key roles.

“Hamas is advancing steps on the ground meant to preserve its influence and grip in the Gaza Strip ‘from the bottom up’ by means of integrating its supporters in government offices, security apparatuses, and local authorities,” the military said in a document presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late January.

The documents seen by The Times of Israel also show that the group in recent weeks has focused on moving members of its military wing into civilian roles that are set to become part of the NCAG governing apparatus.

Written orders, apparently from Haddad, include specific instructions about moving commanders from Hamas’s armed Al-Qassam Brigades into civilian roles so that they will be ready to work with the new technocratic government.

Two Palestinian sources with direct knowledge of Hamas’s operations told Reuters last week that the group had named five district governors, all of them with links to the Al-Qassam Brigades. They also replaced senior officials in Gaza’s economy and interior ministries, which manage taxation and security, the sources said.

A new deputy health minister was shown touring Gaza hospitals in a ministry video released this month.

“Shaath may have the key to the car, and he may even be allowed to drive, but it is a Hamas car,” one of the sources told Reuters.

Hamas’s internal intelligence apparatus appears to be intact as well. The Times of Israel viewed a written order from a Hamas brigade commander ordering his forces to increase surveillance at several sites, including at hospitals, and to report any suspicions to local commanders.

The coming clash

There is evidence that Hamas believes another high-intensity military clash with Israel is only a matter of time, The Times of Israel has learned.

That prognosis represents a rare area of agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Last month, a senior Israeli security official said that it was looking increasingly likely that the Israel Defense Forces would have to act militarily against Hamas to disarm it, since Hamas would not agree to give up its weapons willingly under the ceasefire agreement.

Senior Hamas officials have said as much publicly. “Criminalizing the resistance, its weapons, and those who carried it out is something we should not accept,” said Khaled Mashaal at a conference in Doha earlier this month.

“As long as there is occupation, there is resistance. Resistance is a right of peoples under occupation… something nations take pride in,” said Mashaal.

Hamas is willing to place its “heavy” weapons — rockets and explosives — in warehouses guarded by the IDF and Egyptians, an Israeli source said.

It is also willing to hand over maps of its tunnels, but sources said that Hamas would likely not report on all of its tunnels.

The IDF believes that at least 60 percent of Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza are still intact, though the percentage could be higher, as the army does not know how many it has not yet found.

An Israeli security official told The Times of Israel that Hamas was determined to keep both its AK-47 semi-automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, but stressed that Israel would not allow such a scenario under any circumstances.

The only weapons Israel will allow Palestinian forces to keep, said the official, are handguns, but only in the hands of a new Gazan police force and not Hamas.

Hamas is widely understood to fear that large anti-Hamas clans in Gaza will seek to take revenge after years of brutal repression should they hand over their rifles.

But it also wants to make sure it is ready to fight the IDF again, as it is convinced that Israel is going to reinvade Hamas-held areas, according to a message the group’s Gaza leadership has sent to its politburo in Qatar, The Times of Israel has learned.

To prepare for that fight, Haddad is believed to have reorganized Hamas’s top military council last week. He appointed new intelligence chiefs, regional commanders, and heads of weapons manufacturing and propaganda, The Times of Israel has learned.

Israel has been making the case to Trump that in order for his vision of Middle East peace to be unlocked — and perhaps for him to win a Nobel Peace Prize — Hamas must be disarmed, a source with knowledge of Israel’s thinking told The Times of Israel.

The only way that will happen, Israel has told the White House, according to the source, is for the IDF to go back into Gaza. Israel made the case that an operation would be much quicker and more aggressive than previous operations, as there are no more hostages in the Strip, and Israel can operate everywhere and at full strength.

Jacob Magid and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.