On October 7 2023 estimates put Hamas’s operational military strength at 40,000 personnel. Numerous Israeli sources say that 25,000 Hamas operatives have been killed to date, but that Hamas’s current fighting strength is back to its 40,000 level.

This would mean that Hamas is at its “Volksturm” stage of the Gazan war. That is, Hamas is now depleted of its well-trained cohorts, less well-armed, suited more to ambushing rather than organised fighting but is still motivated for the cause of the “Reich”.

Trump’s 20-point Gaza Peace Plan calls for the disarmament of Hamas once the terror group releases all remaining Israeli hostages and Israel pulls back to a set Gazan phase line.

It is non-negotiable. The EU, Arab League and even Australia have demanded that Hamas lays down its arms too. And it won’t be easy.

How Trump will do it is precisely the complex issue that the Russians faced when they flattened Berlin in 1945 to end Europe’s WW2, and the US faced when resorting to the Atomic Bomb against Japan.

Taking Japan as the example, the Allies feared that millions of armed fanatical civilians potentially dug in on the mainland were ready for a suicidal fight. That risk, the US said, was too great for its Army and Marines who would need to root them out city by city.

Is Hamas like Imperial Japan in this regard?

We’ll soon gauge its intent to fight on should it withhold a single living hostage from freedom by Monday, should one end up dead, or if an excessive number of the currently known hostages dead do not materialise in the swap for prisoners due.

If Hamas breaches what’s being called “Phase 1” of Trump’s plan in this way, Point 17 details the President’s response.

It releases Israel to resume operations to destroy Hamas. If Hamas chooses that path “all hell” will indeed break loose in Gaza as Trump has said.

In Gaza Israel has done a laudable job re-writing the text books on urban warfare and civilian casualty minimisation for the world’s militaries. It has effectively defeated Hamas as an army in a multi-layered battlefield where the enemy has hidden under hospitals and schools. Possibly the only other professional military capable of pulling it off would be the US.

So, Israel can definitely finish the job against Hamas’s depleted militia whether above or below ground.

Israel, however, has not written the book on propaganda. That is the masterpiece of Hamas—right through to the well-fed adults and children seen dancing in Gaza’s streets just last night celebrating the coming ceasefire—with the world not thinking of asking how that can be if there’s an alleged two-year “genocide” and “famine”?

Mainstream media has been Hamas’s ally. So, Trump will need to bring it on side as well. That means the Arabs will need to step up once more and control their own streets.

You see, that’s because another question pops up and it is the whole ballgame.

Do Qatar, Iran and Turkey prefer to support the growing media intifada in the West or do they want Hamas gone?

We can’t underestimate their answer.

For whether the Arabs and the Palestinian Authority truly want Hamas disarmed in the coming weeks, will determine whether a Palestine will ever have a chance of being born this century.

© 2025 Adam Parker.

Picture credit: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio informs President Trump that Hamas has agreed to Phase 1 of the Trump Plan. October 9 2025. Video still © 2025 Sky News Australia.