Israeli General: To Disarm Hamas, IDF Must Take Over All of Gaza

A senior Israeli general, Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, who was formerly deputy commander of the IDF’s Gaza division, has just given an interview to the newspaper The Algemeiner. General Aviv believes that only Israel has both the ability and the will to disarm Hamas in Gaza. He argues this will require the IDF to take over all of Gaza, which means returning to the area between the Yellow Line and the Mediterranean that the IDF withdrew from just a few months ago.

More of his views can be found here: “‘No Way’ to Disarm Hamas Without Israel Taking All of Gaza, Former General Says,” by Debbie Weiss, Algemeiner, February 23, 2026:

Israel will need to take over all of Gaza to meet its war objectives, a senior reserve Israeli general said, as the United States moves ahead with plans to assemble a multinational stabilization force that is not expected to deploy in Hamas-controlled areas.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, a former deputy commander of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)’s Gaza Division, said the military aims of the war — including the disarmament of Hamas — cannot be achieved without moving into the remaining parts of the enclave still held by the Palestinian terrorist group.

“There is no way to reach the goals of war without conquering Gaza,” Avivi told The Algemeiner.

“Ninety-nine point nine percent, the IDF is going to be the [party] that will dismantle Hamas,” Avivi said, noting that the Trump administration’s International Stabilization Force is expected to deploy only in Israeli-held areas and avoid confronting Hamas directly.

A decisive campaign could be completed in a month or two, Avivi said, because the constraints that slowed earlier phases of the war — most notably the presence of Israeli hostages in Hamas-held areas — no longer apply. The IDF could expand from its current 53 percent control of Gaza to 75 percent in “as little as a week,” he said.

No longer will the IDF have to hold back in its operations in Gaza out of concern for the lives of the hostages.

With the Israeli security cabinet focused on Iran, no final decision has been taken yet on the next phase in Gaza, Avivi said. The government is likely to give Hamas “a month or two” to see if a confrontation with Iran materializes before moving to conclude the campaign in Gaza….

The IDF is waiting to see if it will need to defend itself against an Iranian attack, as well as carry out an offensive campaign to destroy Iran’s store of ballistic missiles, before it takes on the task of disarming Hamas in Gaza. The IDF can only do such much at one time.

According to US and Israeli officials, the stabilization force is expected to begin deploying in southern Gaza, starting in Rafah, and expand gradually as conditions allow. The force is intended to help establish governance and security conditions in cleared areas, rather than conduct combat operations or forcibly disarm armed groups. Its commander, US Army Major General Jasper Jeffers, has said five countries — Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania — have committed personnel so far, with longer-term planning envisioning a significantly larger deployment of up to 20,000 troops and police focused on policing, security coordination and aid facilitation.

Neither the American forces, nor any of the soldiers from the five Muslim states who have agreed to send troops to the stabilization force, are prepared to fight Hamas to disarm it. Only Israel is willing to take on that arduous task. The Americans are sounding more and more as if they would be willing to have Hamas troops keep small arms; Israel insists that Hamas must turn over all weapons, for terrorists infiltrating across the Yellow Line into the IDF-held 53% part of Gaza, or worse still, infiltrating into Israel proper, can use even small arms. In addition, if Hamas were to be allowed to keep its small arms, it could still threaten the family- and clan-based enemies of Hamas in Gaza, such as the Abu Shebab.

The Guardian reported last week that US contracting documents describe plans for a 350-acre military base in Gaza designed to support 5,000 people that will include watchtowers, bunkers, and training facilities. A US official declined to discuss the contract and reiterated that Washington does not plan to deploy US combat troops to the enclave.

That makes it crystal clear: Washington has no plan to deploy combat troops to Gaza. Any hope that the US would itself disarm Hamas has disappeared. Either Israel does it, or it doesn’t get done.

Trump needs to make a public statement recognizing that he does not intend to have American troops on the ground — “we do not intend to repeat the experience of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that didn’t end well” and “since none of the Muslim states has stepped forward to help disarm Hamas, the terror group that continues to refuse to disarm voluntarily, we hope our ally Israel will manage to do it, so that we can begin the great work of cleanup and construction to benefit the people of Gaza.”

Some donor states have privately raised concerns about funding rebuilding efforts only for Israel to return to large-scale military operations.

And that’s exactly why those donor states should have no objection to Israel re-entering western Gaza in order to completely defeat and disarm Hamas. If that happens, there will be no need for the IDF to return to those “large-scale military operations.” Hamas will have been dissolved as a fighting force; some Hamas fighters will opt to leave Gaza altogether.

Avivi said Israel’s takeover of the enclave would be followed by a technically complex cleanup phase focused on dismantling tunnels and weapons stockpiles. “The whole area is full of tunnels and munitions,” he said. “Finding and destroying them is complicated. That part takes time.”

The IDF has more experience in locating and destroying tunnels than any other army in the world.It makes sense for the Israelis to be entrusted with that task.

A strategy gaining traction in the US framework would see Gaza divided into two zones, a Hamas-free “green zone,” where reconstruction and alternative civilian governance could begin, and a “red zone” comprising areas still held by Hamas….

The “green zone” is the territory between the Yellow Line in Gaza and the border with Israel, where Hamas has been completely defeated, and the “red zone” is the territory between the Yellow Line and the Mediterranean where Hamas can still field thousands of combatants. It is Maj. Gen. Avivi’s belief that the IDF has to go back into the “red zone,” killing those Hamas combatants still fighting, and destroying the tunnels that have been so essential to Hamas’ war making ability.

When the IDF entered Gaza City, the Hamas troops quickly melted away. General Avivi believes that the same will happen if the IDF chooses to re-enter the 47% of Gaza from which it pulled back. He doesn’t expect a major fight.

Will the IDF follow the recommendations of Generals Avivi and Amidror? Will President Trump give his imprimatur to the plan for Israel to re-occupy western Gaza in order to devastate what remains of Hamas, given that Hamas has refused to disarm as Trump had been counting on? And if Hamas is forced to leave Gaza, what countries will be willing to take in its combatants? Somalia? Sudan? Algeria? Questions, as always, for study and discussion.