President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have made clear that they wish America to aid in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, and the amelioration of its overall material situation, while making sure that these funds don’t go to Hamas. But it is not at all clear how this can be done, given the terrorist group’s tight control over the territory and the willingness of such institutions as UNRWA—the UN organization that provides aid to Palestinians—to cooperate with it. Israel, for its part, has long allowed Qatar to support Hamas with large cash payments. But Nitsana Darshan-Leitner suggests an alternative:

The truth is simple: money transferred to the Gaza Strip cannot be monitored. Not by international organizations whose functionaries answer to Hamas, not by charities—as their infrastructure is an integral part of Hamas and the public sympathy for it—and certainly not by the Palestinian Authority, which has no power over the Strip whatsoever. . . . [A]ny cash that goes into Gaza finds its way to Hamas’s military goals.

Israel must now inform Qatar and European countries that if they want to support the impoverished Palestinians in Gaza, they are more than welcome to send as many containers of food, medicine, clothing, toys, textbooks, furniture, etc. as they want. Want to pay for fuel and electricity? Excellent. But keep the cash. Dollars only buy ammunition and Israel will no longer allow it into Gaza.

A terrorist group cannot pay operatives without banks, communicate without technological means, or operate in general without lawyers and accountants. . . . The thousands of rockets [Hamas] has developed, the missiles it purchased, the underground city it dug [for conducting military operations], the stipends paid to terrorists and their families—all cost more than a billion dollars.

To this end, Darshan-Leitner concludes, Israel must follow up its military offensive against the terrorist group with a financial one—otherwise it is merely allowing Hamas to build back what the IDF just destroyed.

In a sense, the most successful negotiation with Hamas was the recent agreement securing the release of Edan Alexander, the last living hostage with a U.S. passport. Unlike those previously handed over, he wasn’t exchanged for Palestinian prisoners, and there was no cease-fire. Dan Diker explains what Hamas got out of the deal:

Alexander’s unconditional release [was] designed to legitimize Hamas further as a viable negotiator and to keep Hamas in power, particularly at a moment when Israel is expanding its military campaign to conquer Gaza and eliminate Hamas as a military, political, and civil power. Israel has no other option than defeating Hamas. Hamas’s “humanitarian” move encourages American pressure on Israel to end its counterterrorism war in service of advancing additional U.S. efforts to release hostages over time, legitimizing Hamas while it rearms, resupplies, and reestablishes it military power and control.

In fact, Hamas-affiliated media have claimed credit for successful negotiations with the U.S., branding the release of Edan Alexander as the “Edan deal,” portraying Hamas as a rising international player, sidelining Israel from direct talks with DC, and declaring this a “new phase in the conflict.”

Fortunately, however, Washington has not coerced Jerusalem into ceasing the war since Alexander’s return. Nor, Diker observes, did the deal drive a wedge between the two allies, despite much speculation about the possibility.