Axios: US Finalizing Fantasy Gaza Peacekeeping League While Hamas Reneges

How much value will planning for Point 15 of Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza when Hamas won’t commit to completing Point 4? Not to mention disarming, which first comes up in Point 7? At the moment, Hamas not only still has the remains of dead hostages in their possession well after the 72-hour deadline of Point 4, the terror network refuses to disarm. The terrorists insist on remaining in control of Gaza, repudiating several points of this plan that explicitly exclude Hamas from any role in governing the territory.

Nonetheless, the US has proceeded with the planning for the International Security Force (ISF) that the plan envisions, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports this morning. It has more than a whiff of wishful thinking, especially in a week where Hamas has launched multiple attacks on IDF forces:

U.S. officials have been holding sensitive conversations with a range of countries about establishing an international force to deploy to Gaza and intend to present a plan in the next few weeks, three sources intimately involved in that process tell Axios.

Why it matters: The breakdown in the ceasefire on Tuesday underscored just how fragile the peace is. But the International Stabilization Force (ISF) envisioned in President Trump’s plan raises politically explosive questions for Israel, Hamas and the countries considering sending troops. 

• U.S. Central Command is taking the lead in drafting a plan for the force, a U.S. official said. It involves a new Palestinian police force — to be trained and vetted by the U.S., Egypt, and Jordan — alongside troops from Arab and Muslim countries.
• Countries including Indonesia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, and Turkey have shown willingness to contribute troops, the sources said. Others raised concerns with the U.S., given the chaotic security situation in Gaza.

Best guess: This is just box-checking at the moment for everyone. None of these countries will send troops into Gaza unless and until Hamas disarms — and Hamas has no interest in disarming. They have made that crystal clear, despite their agreement with the 20-point plan. The only military force that will enter into Hamas-controlled areas while Hamas remains armed is the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Until Hamas disarms or is forcibly disarmed, the ISF is nothing more than a fantasy-league option for a Middle East that exists as a shared delusion among Western leaders. Trump and his team already know this, but the plan requires some negotiations in case Hamas ends up complying and exiting. Hence the box-checking aspect of a plan that has no chance at this time of ever coming to fruition. 

Hamas won’t disarm for obvious ideological reasons. However, they have political reasons to stick around, too. Despite the catastrophic wreckage that their terrorism has wrought on Gazans, a new poll suggests they remain very popular with Palestinians — albeit less so among Gazans themselves:

A new poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows a clear rise in support for Hamas across Palestinian society.

About 60 percent of respondents said they are satisfied with Hamas’s performance, with backing stronger in Judea and Samaria than in Gaza. In a… pic.twitter.com/4aRGTmYF7n

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 30, 2025

At least the taste for “armed struggle” has abated somewhat over the last two years. It’s still the most popular option overall among Palestinians, though, and is roughly tied for the top option among Gazans. The October 7 massacres are still broadly supported by Palestinians (53/39), although not by Gazans (44/54), but still have significant support therein even after two years of destructive war. 

In short, Hamas has almost no incentive to disarm. They remain popular among Gazans, even explicitly regarding the October 7 massacres, in contradiction to two years of Western progressive propaganda insisting that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians. Disarmament would end their mission entirely and deny them any firm ground from which to attempt the annihilation of Israel. The only way to get them to comply with Phase 2/Points 7-15 is to do so by overwhelming force, and that won’t come from the ISF that Trump and his team are trying to assemble. The ISF will just be another UNIFIL that winds up protecting an Iranian proxy army as it rebuilds and launches new attacks on Israel. 

The world can’t wish Hamas away any more than it could wish away the Nazis or the bushido cult in Japan in 1945. Time for an old-fashioned end of a war rather than the modern approach of freezing conflicts for the benefit of terrorists. “Unconditional surrender” worked best to rid the world of poisonous ideologies in an all-out war 80 years ago, and it’s time to apply the same principle to the same kind of evil now. 

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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