Gaza’s day after

Anticipating a new adventure, 19-year-old Manar al-Sharif packed most of what she owned in early 2017, said goodbye to her devout Muslim family in Cairo, and climbed into a private car. Her destination surprised some of her friends and confused the Egyptian guards who stopped her the next day at the Rafah border crossing. They could not believe she was on her way to study at the Islamic University in Gaza.

The Egyptian military questioned her for hours. Al-Sharif rattled off her reasons for entering a territory controlled by Hamas since 2007: her Palestinian heritage, her dedication since childhood to Palestinian causes, and her quest to become a journalist.

The border patrol eventually let her through, but over the next three years, al-Sharif learned firsthand the reasons for their skepticism. The life in Gaza portrayed in media accounts or described to her as a child didn’t match reality. No one had told her, perhaps due to ignorance, about Hamas’ brutal disregard for Palestinian lives and basic freedoms. Three months after classes began, she quit the Islamic University, citing Islamist propaganda. She was also tired of the strict dress code that required females to cover their hair, wear long dresses, and remove any trace of makeup before attending class.

But al-Sharif didn’t leave the coastal enclave. After months of creating friendships, she had heard stories—awful firsthand accounts of Hamas’ brutality against its own people—and her determination to learn the truth kept her there. She eventually discovered what many in the West had said for years and now point to as the biggest obstacle to resolving the current conflict: Hamas isn’t interested in leading a self-governed society.

After living under Hamas for more than three years, al-Sharif wasn’t surprised by the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel that included the brutal massacre of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of more than 250 others. Close to 100 hostages still remain in Gaza, presumably hidden in the dark dungeons of Hamas tunnels that span hundreds of miles underground.

In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, Western leaders expressed overwhelming support for Israel and its mission to pursue thousands of Hamas fighters sheltering in Gaza and continuing to wage war.

Over time, world opinion began to shift. As Palestinian casualties mounted into the tens of thousands, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis eclipsed Israel’s existential crisis in the public mind. World powers began pushing Israel for an end to the war and immediate Palestinian statehood.

But al-Sharif and other eyewitnesses to the political and humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank say Palestinians aren’t ready for their “day after” scenario, for a new era of self-governance. It will likely take years, maybe decades, to address rampant government corruption, undo widespread indoctrination, and detach from Iran’s iron grip. The root cause of the 76-year conflict goes far deeper than the quest for an independent Palestinian state, and Hamas is only one piece of a wider threat against Israel.

IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for Hamas to take note of al-Sharif. Only months after quitting the university, she invited a group of friends to visit her apartment. Hamas military police found out and arrested her for hosting a mixed-gender gathering. During her two days in jail, she says, they beat her on her face and legs with a wooden stick.

Founded in 1987, Hamas is an extension of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. The organization’s charter calls for Israel’s extermination and the implementation of Islamic law—strict ordinances they believe will bring about Muslim global dominance. And they believe Jews and the state of Israel are hindering an eschatological vision for the last days.

Hamas found common cause with Tehran in these beliefs, despite Iran’s Shiite heritage and Hamas’ rival Sunni ideology. Former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told Al Jazeera television in 2022 that Iran provided $70 million in military aid to Hamas and supplied the group with long-range rockets. (Haniyeh, one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack, died during a July visit to Tehran in an assassination widely attributed to Israel.)

Some Muslim countries have little tolerance for Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots. Egypt in 2013 banned the Muslim Brotherhood, and both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates followed suit. And yet Israel withdrew from overseeing Gaza in 2005 with no real plan to prevent Hamas from turning the territory into a weapons depot.

The Israeli public is now asking how their leaders failed to address what many analysts warned about all along: You can’t trust an Islamist government to moderate over time. Egypt learned this lesson when the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Morsi won the 2012 presidential election and began unraveling democratic values. The Egyptian military quickly toppled his government.

In 2006, Palestinians voted Hamas into power. It too failed to moderate, and the West boycotted the terrorist organization, attempting to force its collapse and bring the rival Fatah party back into power. The two parties tried to form a unity government. But in 2007, Gaza descended into a civil war that left between 100 and 160 Palestinians dead, depending on the source. Hamas seized control.

Al-Sharif said she heard many stories about Hamas arresting and even killing people for senseless reasons, and eventually her perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shifted: “I don’t see a problem with Israel as much as I see a problem with Hamas. As a society, as a community, as a government, we have the problem,” al-Sharif told me.

“We discovered it’s literally like ISIS. They try to force people to wear clothes in a certain way. Men can’t shave in a certain way,” she added.

She blames the media, particularly Al Jazeera, for amplifying pro-Hamas voices and ignoring the hardships of ­average Palestinians in Gaza. “Many people would say to me, ‘Manar, remember the good days when Israel was controlling us?’” They recalled the benefits of having closer ties with Israel: travel privileges and work permits, both severely curtailed after Hamas took over and committed blood and treasure to Israel’s extermination instead of Palestinian welfare.

The residents of Gaza protested but made little headway. In 2017, around 10,000 people took to the streets, yelling slogans against then-Hamas leader Haniyeh. Protesters blamed Hamas, in addition to the West Bank’s Fatah party, for the lack of electricity, available then for only six to eight hours a day, according to al-Sharif.

According to both Israeli and Palestinian sources, Hamas spent $100 million to $250 million a year on its military and built an army 40,000 strong. An estimated $40 million of its military budget went to building a network of underground tunnels used for weapons smuggling and attacks against Israel.

Frustration in Gaza continued to grow as Hamas pursued war at the expense of the people. A pattern developed: Hamas fired rockets, Israel retaliated, Palestinian civilians suffered, and Hamas failed to deliver on promises to rebuild. Then it would fire another round of rockets to pursue its reckless dream of Israeli extermination, and the cycle repeated.

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets in Gaza again in 2019 chanting, “We want to live.” Human Rights Watch reported more than 1,000 arbitrary arrests, including 17 local journalists. But few Western media outlets reported the details of Hamas’ brutal crackdown against peaceful Palestinian protesters or the terrorist group’s mismanagement of international aid.

AL-SHARIF SAID SHE AND HER FRIENDS in Gaza talked daily about the possibility of arrest. As she continued to hear about the arrest of others, beatings, and even government-sanctioned murders, she decided to join the Gaza Youth Committee, a 250-person peaceful grassroots movement.

She took part in several peace initiatives, including a pigeon release on Gaza’s border with Israel and a virtual call during the pandemic that connected hundreds of people from around the world, including Israelis. Her activism put her back on Hamas’ radar.

In mid-2020, al-Sharif was at home with her cat Gracie when she thought she heard a knock on her door. Since her 2017 arrest, she rarely invited guests to her apartment, so she quickly dismissed it as a figment of her imagination. Then she heard a second, much louder knock.

When she opened the door, seven Hamas officials barged into her apartment. They confiscated her phone, computer, books, and notebooks. Then they took her to a women’s prison where she had no shower for the first two weeks and only a small, dirty blanket for sleeping. She had worked to develop a relationship with Hamas officials who gave her approval for many of the Gaza Youth Committee events. Still, the organization’s leaders accused her of working for Israel.

Hamas makes no allowances for al-Sharif’s brand of peace activism—or any other. It’s also not interested in a two-state solution. But even without Hamas, would Palestinians be ready for peace? Spain, Ireland, and Norway formally recognized an independent Palestinian state in May, and President Joe Biden signaled his support for a two-state solution during his March State of the Union speech.

Palestinian polls seem to suggest little hope for an immediate peaceful transition. Years of indoctrination through the school systems and the tightly controlled media suggest the majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank still support the war aims of Hamas. Israelis have also downshifted away from peace initiatives.

A poll conducted by the West Bank–based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research concluded that 71 percent of Palestinians support Hamas’ attack against Israel, and 59 percent believe Hamas should continue to govern Gaza.

But al-Sharif questions the reliability of polling in Gaza where speaking freely has negative consequences. She believes some 75 percent of Gazans are angry with Hamas and ready for real change, but she also acknowledges that Palestinians aren’t ready to govern themselves.

“I think we need a really long time to rebuild ourselves. And without Israel, I don’t think we can do that at the moment,” al-Sharif said. She has little faith in Palestinians outside Gaza, including those in the West Bank. She says they have no idea what has happened in Gaza.

The Israeli government has proposed that a new crop of Palestinian civilians, unaffiliated with Hamas or the Palestinian Authority (PA), take over Gaza’s municipal ­governments. Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on Arab and Islamic politics with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, doesn’t think that plan will work.

He believes few Palestinians are willing to face threats from both Hamas and the PA, which view themselves as the legitimate leadership and will not easily relinquish power.

Instead, al-Omari proposes a transition back to PA control of the Gaza Strip that involves reform benchmarks tied to funding and a system of accountability. The PA governed Gaza from 2005 until Hamas seized control in 2007. Like al-Sharif, he believes it will take years to reform the government and deradicalize the population, and that means Israel will need to oversee Gaza for the foreseeable future.

Al-Omari saw some signs of reform in the 1990s when he served as a PA official and the George W. Bush administration insisted on Palestinian reform benchmarks. Now, al-Omari said he’s even more optimistic.

“When we were doing reforms, we often were seeking technical assistance from Western countries, and there’s a degree of cultural incompatibility,” he said. “What works in France doesn’t necessarily work in the Arab world. Today, there are successful models of reform and institution-­building in the Arab world that are culturally appropriate.”

But this proposal will also take time. While Israel addresses the “day after” question in Gaza, the predominantly Jewish nation of 9 million people still faces a connected and much larger threat from Iran.

IN OCTOBER 2020, after al-Sharif spent three months in prison, Hamas officials sent her back to Egypt. Now she’s in an undisclosed Western country, attempting to maintain a low profile and pursue her education.

She stays in touch with her friends in Gaza, including a Palestinian who blogs about grievances in the coastal strip. Musa Ibrahim, who asked that I not use his real name due to security risks, told me through online exchanges that more than 70 percent of people in Gaza are frustrated with their dependency on Iran. He said most are “fully convinced that movements like Hamas, in alliance with Iran, are actually undermining Palestinian identity.”

Even if Israel succeeds in crippling Hamas and replacing it with a reasonable alternative, Iran has no shortage of proxy groups ready to wage war against Israel, including Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization that also functions as a powerful political party in the country.

Hezbollah has more than 25,000 full-time fighters, including an elite commando force 2,500 strong, and has long threatened to use its own vast network of tunnels to slaughter Israelis across the country’s northern border. The terrorist group also has an estimated 150,000 missiles—more than many countries—including some with long-range capabilities.

Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces have exchanged rocket fire almost daily on Israel’s northern border since October 2023. In August, Israel preemptively bombed dozens of Hezbollah sites after learning of a massive imminent attack.

In April, Iran launched hundreds of explosive drones and missiles at Israel, most of them intercepted by U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems, and the July assassination of Haniyeh on Iranian soil drew threats from Tehran of all-out war against Israel. Meanwhile, Houthi rebels in Yemen and Iranian proxies in Syria and Iraq have also attacked American interests in the region.

As the United States, Western powers, and moderate Arab governments attempt to diffuse regional threats and negotiate Gaza’s “day after” scenario, al-Sharif cautions against narratives, including those on U.S. college campuses, that don’t tell the truth about Islamist organizations.

“I excuse them for not knowing really what happened,” she said. “But seeing them also not trying to be open and listen to stories—not only my story since there are many stories around—that makes me sad.”