Last summer, Turkey and Israel, at American urging, concluded a reconciliation agreement that ended over six years of hostility between the former allies. Pursuant to that agreement, Ankara pledged to end its support for Hamas and expelled Saleh al-Arouri, the country’s most senior Hamas official. Yoav Zitun notes that President Erdogan has nevertheless not lived up to his end of the bargain:

Hamas’s main activity in Turkey is coordinating terror cells in the West Bank. . . . Arouri’s successors are [also] recruiting Palestinian students to study in Muslim countries in general and Turkey in particular. The students are then sent for military training to Lebanon or Syria and from there return to the West Bank to carry out attacks against Israel.

For example, two months ago, the IDF and Shin Bet, [Israel’s internal security service], detained a Palestinian who had been living in Turkish Cyprus for several years. In August 2015, [he] was recruited in Jordan by Hamas [and] given military training and explosives expertise. During a meeting with Hamas operatives in Istanbul last January, he was instructed to recruit terrorists in the West Bank using encrypted memory cards.

Another highly publicized case concerns Muhammad Murtaja, who was head of a humanitarian aid organization in Gaza run by the Turkish government. According to the Shin Bet, following his arrest Murtaja was accused of transferring to Hamas operatives millions of dollars that were donated by Ankara.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.