Imagine surviving 738 days in Hamas captivity, enduring isolation, starvation, beatings and the constant uncertainty of whether you would ever see your family again. Then, just as your captor informs you that you are finally going home, he delivers one final message: Enjoy your freedom while you can, because we intend to slaughter your people again.
That is what freed Israeli hostage Avinatan Or says happened shortly before his release from Gaza.
In an interview broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12, Or described how a Hamas terrorist identified as Abu Hassan instructed him to return home, embrace his family, say goodbye to his friends and then pack his bags for Europe.
The reason? Hamas intended to repeat October 7.
According to Or, his captor declared that as long as Jews remained in Israel, the massacres would continue. Or refused to leave. Pointing to the devastation surrounding them in Gaza, he asked whether the terrorist himself would abandon his home and move to Egypt.
The terrorist said no. Gaza was his home.
Or’s response was simple: “This is also my home.”
That exchange may tell us more about the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than a hundred diplomatic conferences.
Israel Has Eliminated Thousands. But Has Hamas Changed?
Israeli officials have announced that approximately 4,000 of the estimated 6,000 terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, have been killed.
By any reasonable military measure, eliminating two-thirds of the original attackers represents a significant achievement. Hamas has suffered devastating losses, its military infrastructure has been battered, and Gaza has experienced destruction on a staggering scale.
Yet here is the question that should trouble every Israeli and every world leader demanding a lasting peace: What happens when the enemy loses thousands of fighters, watches its territory reduced to rubble, and still promises to do it all again?
Most people would recognize such devastation as a reason to reconsider their objectives. But the Hamas operative described by Or apparently saw no reason to abandon the organization’s murderous ambitions.
For him, October 7 was not a terrible mistake to be regretted. It was a model to be repeated.
Israel is not simply fighting armed men hiding in tunnels. It is confronting an ideology that treats the elimination of the Jewish state as an objective worth pursuing even at an extraordinary cost to Palestinian civilians.
You Cannot Bomb An Ideology Out Of Existence
Israel can destroy tunnels, eliminate commanders, dismantle weapons factories and hunt down those responsible for the October 7 atrocities.
But military victories alone cannot guarantee that the next generation will reject the hatred that inspired the previous one.
Hamas’s original 1988 charter explicitly embraced Israel’s destruction and contained deeply antisemitic religious language. Its 2017 political document softened some of that language and distinguished Jews as a religious group from Zionists, but it still rejected Israel’s legitimacy and endorsed armed resistance.
The danger is not merely the terrorists who remain alive today. It is the possibility that new recruits will inherit the same ambitions tomorrow.
If Gaza is rebuilt without fundamentally changing the ideology that glorifies attacks on civilians, what prevents the next generation of militants from using that rebuilt territory to prepare another massacre?
New buildings do not automatically produce new beliefs. Economic assistance does not guarantee moderation. And a ceasefire does not necessarily mean the people holding the weapons have abandoned their original objectives.
Any serious discussion about Gaza’s future must address not only reconstruction, humanitarian relief and political arrangements, but also disarmament, education, incitement and the prevention of renewed terrorist rule.
Otherwise, the world risks financing the reconstruction of a territory that could once again become a launching pad for attacks against Israel.
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