The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has repeated its demand that Israel withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip in order to reach a ceasefire-hostage agreement with Israel. Hamas, in other words, is demanding that Israel lose the war so that the terrorist group can regroup, rearm and prepare for more attacks on Israel like the one it launched on October 7, 2023. In that assault, 1,200 Israelis were murdered, with many raped, tortured and burned alive. Another 240 Israelis were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, where 101 are still being held as hostages, many of them already murdered (see here and here).

In a statement issued on September 12, Hamas said that its representatives informed Egyptian and Qatari mediators of their "positivity and flexibility to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, according to which the Israeli occupation army would withdraw from the entire territory of the Gaza Strip in a way that achieves the interests of the Palestinians and paves the way for a prisoner exchange deal."

A total Israeli withdrawal means that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would abandon the Philadelphi Corridor and Rafah border-crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. It also means that the IDF would abandon the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the northern part of the Gaza Strip from its south.

Abandoning the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt would enable Hamas to carry on with its decades-long practice of smuggling weapons into the enclave. It would also allow the new head of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, to escape – along with many of the hostages with whom he is thought to be surrounding himself for protection -- through the tunnels into Egypt's Sinai Desert.