Hamas stands more isolated than at any time since its founding.

Oded Ailam

(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs via JNS)

In September 2025, Gaza reached a critical turning point when hundreds of thousands of civilians defied Hamas’s orders and followed Israeli evacuation instructions instead.

This act of defiance signaled the erosion of Hamas’s control and the collapse of its once-centralized power. The group’s leadership has been largely eliminated, its finances have evaporated, and its military capacity has fragmented into scattered local cells.

Meanwhile, social and political shifts within Gaza are growing, as major clans begin challenging Hamas’s authority.

Regionally, the organization has become isolated: Iran is preoccupied with its own struggles, and Qatar is facing mounting international scrutiny. Turkey and Qatar continue to support Hamas behind the scenes while maintaining a façade of cooperation with the West.

Hamas’s greatest crisis is no longer military or economic but rather psychological. It has become a pawn of regional powers and can no longer act independently.

Israel faces what many see as a rare opportunity to permanently dismantle Hamas, prevent its resurgence, and reshape Gaza’s future under new regional and international conditions.

The Sept. 15, 2025, historic event, which unfolded in the Gaza Strip, nearly went unnoticed by the world’s media, yet its importance was enormous. It marked the beginning of the end for Hamas’s brutal rule.

For the first time in many years, ordinary Gazans refused to obey the terrorists hiding in tunnels. Instead, they listened to the IDF’s evacuation instructions broadcast through loudspeakers and online channels. Around 800,000 residents—men, women and children—gathered their few belongings and walked south as instructed.

Hamas tried to stop them with threats and violence, but failed. By evening, in the devastated neighborhoods of northern Gaza, the group’s leaders realized they had lost control of the population. It was a moment of bitter realization.

From army to guerrilla: The collapse of a killing machine

Since that day, Hamas has ceased to function as a unified military or governing force. What remains is a collection of scattered, semi-independent cells clinging to the remnants of a once-organized army.

The IDF has systematically eliminated most of Hamas’s senior and mid-level commanders, leaving the group without strategic leadership or coordination.

The mass public executions of alleged collaborators in October 2025, filmed and circulated by Hamas itself, were meant to project power and authority. In truth, they exposed fear and internal chaos. It was a show of desperation disguised as strength.

Cracks in control: Gaza’s clans rise up

As Hamas’s power structure erodes, an equally important social and political shift is emerging. Ten major clans across Gaza are cautiously but increasingly challenging Hamas’s authority.

In the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City, the Khalas clan has become active. In Rafah, the Abu Shabab clan has taken a stand. In the north, the Al-Mansi clan is asserting itself. Members of the Dughmush, Bakri and Al-Astal clans have also shown varying degrees of resistance.

None of these clans possesses the military strength to overthrow Hamas on its own. Yet their existence as armed, organized communities with their own interests and leadership represents a serious crack in the system of fear and blind obedience that Hamas built over the years.

Regional isolation: Abandoned by its patrons

In the regional arena, Hamas stands more isolated than at any time since its founding.

Until late 2023, Gaza was the only territory ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood and benefited from the backing of Iran, Qatar and other allies. That era has ended.

Iran, Hamas’s main patron, is preoccupied with rebuilding Hezbollah in Lebanon after suffering heavy losses against Israel in the north.

Qatar, long the group’s chief financier and diplomatic protector, is moving cautiously amid mounting international accusations of supporting terrorism.

Before the war, Hamas had an annual budget of about $2.5 billion. Around 62% came from taxes imposed on Gaza’s population, while the rest came from Iran, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA and global business ventures.

That money has disappeared. Today, Hamas’s main source of funds is the open theft of humanitarian aid meant for Gaza’s civilians. The organization steals food and medicine from its own people to pay its fighters and sustain what remains of its regime.

The double game of Turkey and Qatar

Two key players continue to manipulate the situation from the sidelines: Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Qatar. Both countries, long-time supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, are playing a careful and cynical double game.

On the surface, they present themselves as moderate and cooperative with the West. Turkey is a NATO member, and Qatar hosts American military bases. Both even took part in persuading Hamas to consider certain proposals advanced by U.S. President Donald Trump. Behind the scenes, however, they continue to protect and support Hamas.

Turkey allows Hamas to operate offices and command centers on its territory. Qatar shelters the organization’s top leadership in Doha under full protection and may soon resume direct funding.

Their shared goal is to preserve Hamas as a seemingly political movement, a “legitimate party” with enough military strength to influence Gaza’s future government under Turkish and Qatari sponsorship.

This is a calculated attempt to rebrand a terrorist organization as a political actor, to polish its international image, and to allow it to keep threatening Israel under the guise of legitimacy.

For Israel, this poses a serious challenge, particularly in convincing the United States of the danger in this approach.

Ceasefire violations: Terror by habit

Why does Hamas continue to break ceasefire agreements? The answer is simple and revealing. These violations are no longer directed by a central command. They are isolated acts by local commanders trying to prove to their followers and to themselves that they still have power and relevance.

There is no longer a unified military council or strategic command. What remains is inertia, a chaotic pattern of violence driven by habit rather than strategy.

Each violation only further weakens Hamas and gives Israel greater moral, legal and operational legitimacy to respond forcefully.

A crisis of consciousness

Hamas’s greatest weakness is not military or financial. It is psychological. The organization cannot accept that it is no longer an independent actor in the region. It has become a pawn used by others, particularly Turkey and Qatar, to serve their own interests.

Israel now faces a decisive moment. It must define the rules of the future rather than wait for international powers, often unfamiliar with the region’s realities, to impose artificial constraints.

If Israel stops short and accepts a partial victory, it will lose the ability to shape the strategic reality of the postwar period.

A moment not to be missed

This is a rare strategic opportunity for Israel. Hamas is at its weakest point since its creation. Its leadership has been eliminated or forced into hiding. Its military power is exhausted, its finances depleted, and its civilian support fading fast.

Now is the time to dismantle what remains of its terror network, to remove Turkey and Qatar from the equation, and to secure American backing to prevent Hamas from ever rebuilding.

Waiting for the usual cycle of diplomatic negotiations would mean wasting this opportunity and returning to a state of perpetual threat.

Israel can ensure that the final chapter of Hamas’s rule in Gaza is truly the last. Once this curtain falls, it should never rise again.

Image: Palestinians in Gaza. Fars News via Wikimedia Commons.

Oded Ailam is a former head of the Counter-Terrorism Division in the Mossad and is currently a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.

Originally published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.