In reality, what is unfolding in the Gaza Strip these days does not feel like just another fleeting chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It marks a qualitative shift, charged with strategic implications and intellectual dimensions that point to what might be called the end of a full cycle in Hamas’s ideological narrative.
From my vantage as an observer, the fight has moved well beyond military operations to strike at the very core of the organizational and doctrinal framework that has ruled the enclave for more than fifteen years.
Undoubtedly, Israel is no longer pursuing isolated cells or weapons caches alone; it aims to dismantle the entire ecosystem that Hamas has built: its symbolism of resistance, its religious rhetoric, and the popular imagery it cultivated.
Delays in entering central and southern Gaza, such as Deir el-Balah, Khan Yunis, and al-Mawasi, reflected complex calculations around population density, the presence of hostages, tunnel threats, and international pressure. Today, however, Israel appears ready to turn that page.
The current Israeli strategy combines soft population displacement with precision firepower and limited, targeted incursions by special forces backed by air superiority. Yet the great paradox lies in Hamas’s own behavior. The movement has shown no real flexibility toward international initiatives. Instead, it seems to be bracing for a dramatic finale in which martyrdom and collapse become indistinguishable.
Publicly, Hamas’s leadership discourse has drifted toward a final sacrificial narrative, casting the organization as the fallen hero rather than as a pragmatic political actor. Khaled Mashaal, a leading figure in Hamas’s external command, captured this ethos when he declared, “The enemy only understands the language of jihad and martyrdom,” and insisted that “the redemption of Palestine is measured not only by the strength of our weapons but by our readiness to die.”
His words crystallize a philosophy of heroic self-annihilation, transforming death from a painful outcome into the very apex of struggle.
This rhetoric does more than mobilize followers; it directs Hamas’s parallel media apparatus to produce content that psychologically primes people to accept the disappearance of their leadership and the organization itself as a glorious conclusion.
The same logic echoes in statements from the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades spokesman, Abu Ubaida, who warned, “If civilians are targeted without warning, we will execute the hostages.” Such threats embody a destructive mindset that sees mutual killing as integral to its resistance strategy.
Hamas’s dwindling hope for its own survival
OBSERVERS NOTE that this violent, sacrificial, and non-negotiable discourse betrays Hamas’s dwindling hope for its own survival. Western think tanks monitoring armed groups’ ideological behavior have pointed out that Hamas now recognizes the inevitability of its internal leadership’s demise and that its external elements may face precise assassinations similar to those that befell their predecessors in recent years.
In my view, the hostage dossier has become a mere instrument to buy time, not a genuine leverage point in negotiations. Once this chapter closes, the movement will be recast in the international arena not as a negotiating partner but as a target for eradication – its leaders pursued worldwide with no refuge.
At the same time, the region is gearing up for one of the largest civilian and humanitarian reconstruction efforts of the modern era. United Nations estimates place Gaza’s rebuilding cost at over $50 billion, with projections likely to climb given the extensive destruction, collapsed infrastructure, and the decades it may take to restore basic services.
This reconstruction challenge will attract countless regional and international actors, not purely for humanitarian motives but to capitalize on financial flows, expand political influence, and set the future political terms for Gaza. Reconstruction itself will become another competitive arena, shaped by strategic calculations rather than solely by the desire to rebuild.
Thus, Hamas faces not a choice of resilience but the inevitability of disintegration and death under the banner of so-called martyrdom. The battle has transcended the physical battlefield to become a struggle over narrative. Hamas seeks to seal its journey with a heroic image that overrides political realities and enshrines itself in popular imagination as the ultimate sacrifice.
I believe that the dramatic end Hamas is preparing for, both intellectually and in its media portrayal, is far from the glorious finale its supporters foresee. Instead, it reveals the ideological framework’s failure to produce viable political alternatives.
It may be more a narrative conclusion than a resolution to the conflict, but it unquestionably paves the way for a new chapter in Gaza’s history, one defined by the organization’s collapse, an explosion of reconstruction, and the forging of a future with no place for those who chose to die humiliated and isolated, leaving no life-affirming path for others.
The writer is a UAE political analyst and former Federal National Council candidate.