Hamas will not voluntarily demilitarize the Gaza Strip, according to former Israel Defense Forces head of intelligence Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin.  As a result, Israel must do it for them, he told a July 27 conference call organized by The Israel Project.

“Until they will be beaten hardly they will not agree to it. And even if they will be beaten hardly, to ask Hamas to demilitarize Gaza, is like asking a priest to convert to Judaism…The only one who can demilitarize them is the IDF.”

With a limited ceasefire only being broken sporadically by Hamas on July 28, talk is focusing on the end game – how Gaza could look after an end to hostilities is in place.

One of Israel’s stated goals is to destroy all Hamas’ terror tunnels dug under the Gaza-Israel border. An early end to the Israeli operation would leave a question mark hanging over the tunnels not yet destroyed by the IDF.

It was a point picked up on in another July 27 conference call organized by TIP with Col. (res.) Atai Shelach, who headed the elite combat-engineering unity Yahalom.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of buildings that they hire or took in violence and they dig from the house, from whenever they like. They are hiding evidence from the digging in the home. And what is the cruelest thing is the concrete. To build one tunnel is about 800 tons of concrete that Israel sent to the Gaza Strip for humanitarian (purposes) and the Hamas organization took this concrete to build its tunnels.“

Until a long-term ceasefire is agreed, the IDF will continue locating and destroying tunnels, said Shelach.

One of the problems in trying to reach a ceasefire is that Hamas’ line is currently being dictated by its military chief Muhammad Deif, said Yadlin.

 “He is very extreme he is willing to destroy Gaza. He wants to continue and fight…This is their ideology, this is what they believe in, this is a resistance, a militarized resistance, and they will not demilitarize Gaza (voluntarily).”

(Photo: David Katz / The Israel Project)