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** Hamas Has Left Netanyahu with No Option but to Occupy Gaza ([link removed])
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by Con Coughlin • August 15, 2025 at 5:00 am
* Hamas's terrorist leadership has demonstrated unequivocally it has no interest in agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza.
* One of the main sticking points in the Qatar talks was Hamas's insistence that it remains in control of Gaza, despite a number of Arab states issuing a joint declaration for the terrorist organisation to disband and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority.
* Hamas's terrorist leadership was encouraged to adopt this hard line position after a succession of naive Western leaders announced their intention to recognise a Palestinian state at next month's meeting of the UN Security Council, even though there is actually no such Palestinian state in existence.
* The pitfalls of this completely unnecessary diplomatic grandstanding, which may well effectively cause the murder of the remaining 50 hostages who might still to be alive, were clearly evident when Hamas responded to Starmer's pledge by publicly hailing it as a "victory."
* It is unclear how recognizing a terrorist state committed to obliterating its neighbour will bring about any kind of "peace."
* US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, alluding to the novel Frankenstein, responded to Macron's declaration: "Macron's unilateral 'declaration' of a 'Palestinian' state didn't say WHERE it would be. I can now exclusively disclose that France will offer the French Riviera & the new nation will be called 'Franc-en-Stine.'"
* Hamas's intransigence has left Netanyahu with little option but to maintain military operations in Gaza until Israel has achieved its ultimate objective in the war -- namely the complete destruction of the terrorist organisation's military and political infrastructure in Gaza.

Hamas's terrorist leadership was encouraged to reject a ceasefire in Gaza after a succession of naive Western leaders announced their intention to recognise a Palestinian state next month. Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau and the terror organisation's former Gaza "Health Minister", said that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's move meant that "victory and liberation are closer than we expected", and that "international support for Palestinian self-determination shows we are moving in the right direction." Pictured: Naim in Istanbul on February 8, 2025. (Photo by Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images)

The international condemnation Israel has received after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his plan to assume control of Gaza overlooks one critical fact. Netanyahu has no option other than to embark on this course of military action because Hamas's terrorist leadership has demonstrated unequivocally it has no interest in agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza.

From the moment he returned to the White House in January, US President Donald Trump had made resolving the Gaza crisis one of his key foreign policy objectives. To this end, his negotiating team, led by special envoy Steve Witkoff, engaged in lengthy and extensive discussions in the Gulf state of Qatar with the express intention of implementing a lasting ceasefire.

As recently as early July, hopes were running high that a deal might be possible, especially after the Trump administration indicated that Israel had agreed to the "necessary conditions" to finalise a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza.

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