In recent months, the suggestion to build an offshore port for the Gaza Strip has been circulating in think tanks and among Israeli officials. Ostensibly the port would allow the territory to import and export goods more freely while also enabling Israel to monitor shipments for weapons. Initially, the idea was to build an artificial island a mile or two off Gaza’s coast; now Cyprus has been proposed as a possible location. Martin Sherman argues against both plans:

[First], how would Israel monitor the use of dual-purpose materials like fertilizer (also ‎used to make explosives), metals (used in ‎rockets), and cement? Even today, despite strict ‎supervision, about 90 percent of the cement delivered into ‎Gaza is appropriated by Hamas for non-civilian ‎purposes, such as the construction of terror ‎tunnels. ‎. . . And in the ‎Cyprus version, how would Israel be able to prevent ‎military equipment from being smuggled onto a vessel ‎left ‎unsupervised after it departs Cyprus and begins traveling to Gaza? . . .

[The primary] reason offered in ‎support of the idea is that the proposed Cyprus port ‎would ease the economic hardship in Gaza and therefore diminish the violence ‎against Israel, and also that it would be contingent on the ‎return of two Israelis and ‎the remains of two IDF soldiers ‎held by Hamas.

The first argument essentially validates the false Palestinian ‎narrative that terrorism is the result of the ‎‎“occupation” and therefore Israel is responsible for ‎it. [But] if [Palestinians] ‎want to improve their situation in Gaza, all they ‎have to do is to stop trying to murder Jews and ‎allow Israeli entrepreneurship and creativity to ‎help Gaza prosper. ‎

The second argument essentially fuels Palestinian ‎extortion. If holding bodies and live captives gets ‎the Palestinian a port, why wouldn’t they see it ‎as a clear invitation to continue with this policy?‎ [Furthermore], Gaza already has a ‎port: Ashdod, an Israeli city closer to Gaza ‎than it is to most other Israeli cities. The Ashdod port ‎can easily meet all of Gaza’s needs. Besides, in the ‎event of war, does anyone really want the ‎Palestinians to have access to a port?

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.