How Can the Israel-Hamas War Be Ended? (Regarding Israel’s Strategy Against Hamas)

By Lee Cheol-Young (Head of International Affairs Research Team)

It has been over a year since the Israel-Hamas war began. Now, the conflict has expanded to include Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran, and there is no sign of the war ending. Recently, Israel has pursued a strategy of eliminating the top leaders of Hamas—Haniyeh, Sinwar—as well as Hezbollah’s leader Nasrallah, with the aim of dismantling the leadership of these organizations. But will this Israeli strategy help bring the war to an end?

Audrey Kurth Cronin, Director of the Center for Strategy and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University (2024), explains six ways in which terrorist organizations come to an end:

The terror group achieves its goals and voluntarily disbands.
The terror group degenerates into a criminal network or an insurgency.
Successful military repression.
The capture or killing of leaders (decapitation).
Negotiations.
Internal collapse and loss of support.

Drawing on data from a century of history and studies of 457 terrorist organizations, Cronin advises on Israel’s strategy. She argues that the most effective way to truly end the war is the sixth approach: forcing Hamas to collapse on its own. In contrast, Israel’s use of strategies 3 and 4, which it has employed so far, seems to be increasing support for Hamas due to the number of civilian casualties in Gaza and the influence of global media. Can killing Hamas leaders completely eliminate the group? Israel has fought Hamas for over 40 years and has removed numerous leaders, yet it has not solved the problem. The following is the full text by Cronin. We sincerely hope that this war will soon cease and that God’s shalom will prevail in this land.

How Hamas Ends

The war in Gaza continues amid indiscriminate violence, bloodshed, and a recurring cycle of death. Everyone is losing—except Hamas. Israel invaded Gaza last fall, announcing that its military goal was to eliminate Hamas so that atrocities like those of October 7 would never happen again. Although the war has succeeded in reducing the number of Hamas operatives, support for Hamas has risen dramatically among Palestinians, throughout the Middle East, and even globally. Even if Israel’s military response to the attack might have been justified in some sense, the manner in which it was carried out has severely damaged Israel’s international standing and placed significant strain on its most important alliance, that with the United States.

Israel’s overwhelming and indiscriminate military response has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, including women and children. Meanwhile, Israeli hostages taken on October 7—held by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian groups—are suffering and dying in captivity. By restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza, Israel has created near-starvation conditions in some areas. Late last year, South Africa, backed by dozens of countries, filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. In May, the Biden administration expressed displeasure with Israel’s plan to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah—where over one million civilians were effectively held captive—and temporarily halted some U.S. arms supplies.

More troubling still, despite Israel’s claims to have killed thousands of Hamas fighters, there is little evidence that Hamas’s capability to threaten Israel has been significantly weakened. In fact, Israel’s response has in some ways worked to Hamas’s advantage. According to a March 2024 poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, support for Hamas among Gaza’s residents has risen by 14 percentage points since December 2023, now exceeding 50%. The massacre of Israeli civilians—especially children and the elderly—could ironically amplify sympathy for Hamas by reinforcing its narrative that it defends innocent Palestinians against a criminal aggressor.

Hamas meets every criterion for a terrorist organization: it is a non-state actor that uses violence against civilians for symbolic and political ends. The group consists of selfish and violent extremists who prioritize armed struggle over Palestinian welfare and effective governance. Removing Hamas would undoubtedly benefit Palestinians, Israelis, the Middle East, and even the United States.

However, Israel’s intense military response to the October 7 attack and its apparent indifference to Palestinian civilian suffering have ultimately worked in Hamas’s favor. Among the key audiences Hamas targets—Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, Arab populations across the Middle East, and younger generations in the West—the atrocities of October 7 are fading from the forefront. Instead, an image is taking hold: Israel is the criminal aggressor, and Hamas is defending innocent Palestinians.

In short, despite some tactical successes, Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to a strategic disaster. To defeat Hamas, Israel needs a better strategy grounded in a deeper understanding of how terrorist organizations end. Fortunately, there is abundant historical evidence. Decades of research have compiled data on 457 terrorist campaigns and organizations over a century, identifying six main pathways by which terror groups disappear. These paths are not mutually exclusive; often multiple factors work together. But Israel should pay special attention to the routes in which groups fail due to strategic collapse rather than military defeat. Since October 7, Israel has attempted harshly repressive tactics aimed at eradicating Hamas entirely, yet with scant results. A smarter approach would be to gradually undermine Hamas’s support and hasten its downfall.

The Return of the Oppressed

The rarest way terrorist groups disappear is by achieving their goals. Only a few groups have succeeded by accomplishing what they set out to do and then disbanding. The African National Congress’s (ANC) military wing, uMkhonto weSizwe, initially attacked civilians to fight apartheid in South Africa, and the Irgun in Palestine used terrorism to expel British forces and pave the way for Israel’s establishment. But such cases are exceptions. Over the past century, only about 5% of groups achieved their core aims. It is highly unlikely Hamas will join this list. Israel, with its superior military and economic power and U.S. backing, far outclasses Hamas. For Hamas to achieve its goal of “liberating Palestine from the river to the sea,” Israel would have to destroy itself from within.

The second way terror groups end is by turning into criminal networks or insurgencies. Since crime and terrorism often overlap, this shift generally means the group abandons political aims for profit. Insurgencies occur when a group can sufficiently mobilize the populace, controlling territory and resources to challenge the state. If Israel maintains its current strategy in Gaza, the West Bank, or even inside Israel, this could potentially prompt a shift toward insurgency.

A third way terrorist groups vanish is through successful military repression by the state. This is the route Israel is attempting with Hamas. Such repression can succeed, but at enormous cost. For example, Russia’s second Chechen separatist campaign, launched in 1999, lasted nearly a decade, causing massive civilian casualties and displacement, yet Russia eventually established a pro-Russian regime. Similarly, in 2008–2009, Sri Lanka cornered the Tamil Tigers in the island’s northeast; tens of thousands of civilians died, but the government destroyed the LTTE leadership, ending a 30-year civil war.

However, military repression rarely works well as a counterterrorism strategy. It’s hard to sustain, expensive, and most effective when the state can separate terrorists from the general population—often not feasible. Repressive campaigns erode civil liberties and undermine the state’s own structure. Scorched-earth tactics change the character of society and raise questions about what exactly the government is defending. For instance, Uruguay in the early 1960s had a strong party system, an educated urban population, and a liberal-democratic tradition. When the Marxist-Leninist Tupamaros launched assassinations, bank robberies, and kidnappings, the government deployed the military. By 1972, the army had eliminated the Tupamaros, but then staged a coup, suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament, and established a military dictatorship that lasted until 1985. The group vanished, but democracy and thousands of lives were lost.

Israeli leaders have justified their repressive approach in Gaza by likening Hamas to the Islamic State (ISIS) and claiming it can be defeated similarly. By 2017, the U.S.-led coalition had reclaimed the territory ISIS captured in Iraq and Syria in 2014, reducing ISIS’s existence. But ISIS never ended; it fragmented into nine “provinces” worldwide and continues planning and sometimes executing deadly attacks. ISIS-K in Afghanistan, for example, carried out a devastating attack near Moscow in March, killing over 140 people. Moreover, unlike ISIS, Hamas is territorially focused on Palestinians. While military might can weaken Hamas’s control in Gaza, without a political solution to the underlying territorial conflict, Hamas will likely re-emerge to target Israeli forces and civilians.

Some argue that Israel’s strategic error is targeting the wrong enemy—that the real problem is Iran, which supports and arms Hamas. But attacking the state sponsor risks a larger conflagration. Last April, Israel and Iran traded blows that nearly escalated into full-scale war, before both sides backed down. For now, Israel rightly focuses on Hamas. In the end, Israel’s poor results in Gaza are unsurprising: purely military counterterrorism strategies rarely succeed, especially in democracies. In a global digital media environment, suppressing reportage is difficult. (According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, over 100 journalists have died in Gaza since the war started.) Unlike authoritarian regimes, Israel faces legal and policy constraints and relies heavily on U.S. support, which includes criticism of excessive force and potential war crimes.

Killing the Leadership

A fourth way terror groups end is through the capture or killing of leaders (decapitation). France’s radical left-wing group Action Directe ceased operations after its leaders were arrested in 1987. In 1992, when Peru arrested Abimael Guzmán, leader of the Maoist Shining Path, violence immediately declined. The group eventually accepted amnesty and fragmented into small criminal gangs over the next decade. Japan’s apocalyptic terrorist cult Aum Shinrikyo collapsed after its leader Shoko Asahara was arrested in 1995, changed its name, and eventually abandoned violence.

Groups that succumb to decapitation are usually small, hierarchical, cult-like, and lack ready successors. Typically, they are less than a decade old. Long-established, networked groups can reconstitute and survive. Hamas, nearly 40 years old and highly networked, is ill-suited for decapitation. If killing leaders were sufficient, Hamas would have disappeared long ago. Israel has tried this repeatedly. In 1996, Israeli security forces killed Yahya Ayyash, a chief Hamas bomb-maker, by rigging his phone with explosives. A few years later, during the Second Intifada, targeted killings increased, and in 2004 Israel killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

In 2006, scholars Mohammed Hafez and Joseph Hatfield examined the rate of Hamas violence before and after leader assassinations. They concluded the impact was minimal. Subsequent studies have found similar results: targeted assassinations rarely affect a group’s capability or intent. Yet after October 7, the Israeli government resumed this tactic. A few weeks into the offensive, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that Israel would “assassinate every Hamas leader wherever they are.” Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar told Israeli lawmakers that Israel would target Hamas leaders in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Turkey, and Qatar. Since October of last year, Israel claims to have killed over 100 Hamas leaders, including military commanders.

But these assassinations have only temporarily weakened Hamas’s military power in Gaza, without affecting the group’s long-term capabilities. Hamas has demonstrated for decades its ability to replace key leaders. Worse, this approach carries strategic costs. Killing a leader to prevent an imminent attack could be seen as self-defense, but indiscriminate or broad targeting of leaders makes a state appear morally equivalent to a terrorist group—especially as the target list expands. For example, last April Israel killed the family members of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, including his three sons and four grandchildren, in an airstrike. This allowed Haniyeh to portray himself not as a terrorist commander, but as a grieving father and grandfather.

Negotiations

Instead of trying to eliminate Hamas’s leaders, Israel could attempt negotiations for a long-term political settlement. To most Israelis, this likely seems impossible. Given the long history of failed peace talks and the deep anger both sides now feel, urging peace talks might seem unrealistic. Yet negotiation is the fifth way terrorism can end. For example, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended decades of terrorism by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. In 2016, Colombia’s FARC agreed to a complicated deal to demobilize and become a normal political party. Both groups indiscriminately targeted civilians, making talks difficult for officials and victims alike. But in the end, the bloodshed stopped, and the countries achieved relative peace at a modest cost.

For terrorist groups, negotiations are risky. Coming to the table reveals useful information and undermines the narrative that they have no alternative to violence. Only about 18% of terrorist groups engage in negotiations, and these talks often last a long time amid low-level violence. Long-lived groups are more likely to negotiate than short-lived ones. Although reaching a settlement can be challenging, even unsuccessful talks can create divisions within a group between those favoring a political path and those insisting on continued fighting. (Though sometimes talks fail meaningfully, as in Sri Lanka, where the government negotiated with the LTTE for over five years before crushing them militarily.)

Hamas’s likelihood of ending through negotiations appears low, given its longstanding disdain for talks with Israel. In the 1990s, whenever the peace process advanced, Hamas launched disruptive attacks. Today, Hamas is more committed to its version of a one-state solution aimed at eliminating the other side. Some Israeli extremists hold a similar stance. Still, Hamas and Israel have negotiated indirectly before, often with intermediaries like Qatar. This includes a short-term truce and prisoner exchange last November. External actors—such as the United States, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—might press Israel and Palestine to resume a diplomatic process aimed at a two-state solution. Hamas, or at least some factions or remnants of it, could conceivably join such talks. These negotiations would be long, fraught, and susceptible to sabotage by extremists on both sides. Yet even announcing such a process could yield positive effects. Indeed, it could foster conditions that trigger the most likely way Hamas might end: by its own internal failures.

Their Own Worst Enemy

Most terrorist organizations end via the sixth pathway: internal collapse or loss of support. Groups vanish as they fail to pass on their mission to a new generation, split into factions (like the remnants of the IRA after the Good Friday Agreement), implode due to operational disagreements (like Canada’s Quebec Liberation Front in the early 1970s), or fracture over ideological differences (like Japan’s Communist Red Army in 2001).

Another reason groups fail is that they lose public support. Sometimes the government offers alternatives, such as amnesties or jobs, but often the key factor is that the group’s tactics repulse its core constituency. For example, a 1998 Real IRA bomb in Omagh, a small market town in Northern Ireland, killed 29 people, many of them children. The universal revulsion strengthened support for the Good Friday Agreement. In 2004, Chechen separatists seized a school in Beslan, resulting in over 300 deaths, mostly children, annihilating any sympathy for their cause. In 2005, Al Qaeda in Iraq’s suicide bombers attacked three hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing about 60 people. Public opinion turned sharply against Al Qaeda, with 65% of Jordanians shifting from positive to negative views. Historically, more than one-third of Al Qaeda’s victims have been Muslims, a major reason it failed to grow into a mass movement.

Hamas is primed for such failure. Notably, Hamas has never maintained stable popular support. After it took control of Gaza in 2007, support for Hamas among Palestinians declined. Pew Research Center found that in 2007, 62% of Palestinians viewed Hamas favorably, but by 2014, only about one-third did. Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian pollster, notes that Hamas’s support surges during conflicts with Israel but recedes if it fails to deliver positive change.

Yet Israel’s excessive use of force is strengthening Hamas’s grip and aiding its propaganda after October 7. According to Shikaki’s March survey, 90% of Palestinians deny that Hamas committed war crimes that day. Whatever revulsion Gazans might have felt toward Hamas’s actions has been diluted by the suffering Israel inflicted on their loved ones, homes, and cities.

Still, Hamas has internal fractures that could widen and lead to its eventual collapse. Its military and political leadership have not always seen eye to eye. According to The New York Times, Gaza-based Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar planned the October 7 attack with a handful of commanders and informed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh only hours before it began. Reuters reported that some Hamas leaders were shocked by the timing and scale of the assault. Hamas also faces pressure and competition from smaller, more Iran-aligned groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Moreover, with much of Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza destroyed, other power structures—clans or criminal networks—may compete for control, weakening Hamas.

The more likely path to Hamas’s downfall is public backlash. Hamas rules Gaza repressively, jailing and torturing dissenters. Gazans widely despise its military intelligence service for spying, keeping files on citizens, suppressing protests, threatening journalists, and hunting down those accused of “immoral acts.” Since October 7, many Palestinians have blamed Hamas for misjudging the consequences of its attack, which resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans. Palestinians know Hamas built elaborate tunnels to protect its leaders and fighters while doing nothing to safeguard civilians.

To foster Hamas’s failure, Israel must show Gazans that alternatives exist and a more hopeful future is possible. Instead of minimal humanitarian aid, Israel should provide abundant relief. Rather than simply destroying infrastructure and housing, it should present a plan for rebuilding Gaza after Hamas. Instead of collective punishment that hopes Palestinians will eventually blame Hamas, Israel must differentiate between Hamas fighters and the majority of Gazans—innocent victims of Hamas’s violent and reckless rule.

For decades, Israel has fought Hamas, and despite months of fierce warfare, the likelihood of eradicating Hamas completely remains low. But Israel can still achieve victory by leading Hamas to defeat itself.

References

Cronin, A. K. (2024, June 3). How Hamas Ends. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/how-hamas-ends-gaza