Hamas’ refusal to give up means the peace plan is stuck — with Gaza a tinderbox

With Hamas reportedly threatening to pull out of the Gaza cease-fire, it’s anyone’s guess what’s next in store for the strip.

Since the deal was inked in October, progress toward a broad, long-lasting peace has always seemed dicey, since Hamas has refused to disarm and surrender, and no one has been ready to make the terrorists quit.

“Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form,” reads one of the 20 points in President Donald Trump’s peace plan.

Instead, Hamas fighters have launched nearly “daily” attacks across the Yellow Line, which marks where Israel Defense Forces pulled back to under the cease-fire.

IDF Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, who runs a base near the line, cites hundreds of Hamas forays since the cease-fire began; some have claimed the lives of Israeli soldiers.

After a terrorist attempted another attack over the line Saturday, Israel responded with its own attacks, reportedly taking out Hamas’ chief of weapons supply, Alaa Hadidi, and military commander Abu Abdullah Al-Hudaydi.

That may have triggered Hamas’ threats, though the terror group later denied it had even made them.

On Thursday, the IDF also launched retaliatory airstrikes, eliminating the head of Hamas’ navy and a senior tunnel engineer. 

Hamas has also used the cessation of hostilities to solidify its power in the western part of the strip; it has reportedly even reinstated taxes.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council adopted Trump’s plan on Monday — but so far no country is willing to actually assign troops to the International Stabilization Force the plan calls for.

Nor is it clear who’d command the ISF, which can’t possibly succeed if every national contingent is checking back home to confirm every order.

The Arab nations that cruelly weaponized their Palestinian cousins for decades — turning them into “refugees” generation after generation, propagandized into believing that their national cause, and only real purpose in life, is to slaughter Israelis — won’t live up to their moral duty to topple Hamas, free Gazans from their rule and secure the peace.

Nor will European countries, even those that have self-righteously “recognized” some Palestinian state, help force Hamas to surrender — and so pave the way for such a state to actually exist.

Heck, no country besides Israel has any recent experience fighting an urban war against terrorists yet all the nations that won’t do the job themselves also don’t want the IDF to do it.

And so a million or two innocent Gazans remain under Hamas’ thumb, serving both as human shields and as the main support system for terrorists who appropriate whatever food or wealth they choose.

True, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed last week to demilitarize Gaza either “the easy way or the hard way.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir echoed that: “We will continue to insist that the Hamas regime will not exist on the other side of the border. Even if this requires time — we will persist in the mission of dismantling Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip.”

Yet the Jewish state drew intense blowback from much of the world for trying to take out the terrorists after their Oct. 7 slaughter-and-rapefest, including the kidnapping and torture of 251 innocent Israelis.

Imagine the global heat if the IDF has to resume active operations to stop Hamas from rebuilding and attacking again.

Plus, many Israelis themselves are wary of continuing the fight; they certainly have no moral duty to save Gazans from Hamas’ rule.

At some point, though, the failure of anyone else to step up may leave Israel no choice: It can’t let Hamas recover to the point where another Oct. 7 becomes possible.

Trump has rightly shown enormous support for the Jewish state and vowed to keep backing it no matter how it decides to deal with the problems.

That’s both fair and wise.

Meanwhile, hope for the best but prepare for the worst: The war on Hamas is stilly mostly frozen, but it can flare back up in the blink of an eye.