February 11, 2025
By Nasser Kandil
• Hamas deserves recognition and appreciation for its bold and well-timed decision to suspend the sixth prisoner exchange, in protest against Israel’s failure to uphold the agreement, particularly its humanitarian provisions. This decision is striking in its courageousness, especially as it coincides with the height of U.S. President Donald Trump’s brutal rhetoric describing the Palestinians in Gaza as livestock to be herded onto trucks and ships and expelled from their occupied homeland. By taking this step, Hamas has put the limits of rhetorical power to the test, challenging its effectiveness in shaping outcomes.
• Hamas’ decision comes at a moment of triumphalism for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has seized upon Trump’s words as a supposed turning point in the balance of power – one he believes grants him the ability to declare victory in the war. But Hamas’ move exposes these claims as hollow, dismantling Netanyahu’s illusions and confronting his hypothetical scenarios with the reality on the ground. At the same time, while both Trump and Netanyahu understand the practical limitations of their mass expulsion project, they have been leveraging it to restore internal cohesion within the occupying entity, repairing its fractured political and societal unity. They have also been using this inflammatory rhetoric to pressure Arab states into normalisation with Israel without any discussion of Palestinian rights. Hamas’ decision, however, has disrupted this narrative by presenting the Israeli public and Arab governments with a stark and undeniable reality: the actual balance of power. The move has once again divided Israel’s leadership over the implementation of the prisoner exchange and laid bare the occupying entity’s inability to return to war, just as it has exposed America’s inability to turn its forced displacement project into reality.
• In practical terms, Hamas is making it clear that the exchange deal is at risk of collapse unless Israel fully adheres to its commitments, including allowing the entry of prefabricated homes and heavy machinery. Israel’s retreat from these provisions serves only to advance the expulsion agenda. Hamas, in response, is saying: If the alternative is war, so be it, but we will not surrender on your terms.
• Hamas understands that the Israeli army is incapable of bearing the consequences of returning to war. It also recognises that Arab public opinion is increasingly shifting in favour of Palestine and its cause. Furthermore, Hamas knows that while the United States can provide money, weapons, and diplomatic cover, war requires soldiers, and forced displacement requires war, so who will provide the men?
By contrast, Hamas has showcased its men, asserting that this is the very force you claimed to have destroyed. Meanwhile, it – along with the rest of the world – has heard the Israeli Chief of Staff admit that it will take ten years for the Israeli army to recover to its pre-October 7 state. Yet even that army of October 6 was the same force that had waged a 16-month war and still failed to achieve its objectives: securing the occupation, displacing the population, and dismantling the resistance. So if the Israeli military now needs a decade just to return to its pre-October 7 capabilities, only to set the stage for yet another failure, who, then, will be able to turn back time and restore the psychological and strategic landscape that existed before that day?
