Israel has stepped up its ground campaign in Gaza in an effort to free remaining hostages and to pressure Hamas terrorists to end the futile war they started. And as the conflict drags on, it has become apparent that the Hamas strategy of embracing death and destruction over peace and compromise has been a massive failure.

The Wall Street Journal reported that documents recovered by the Israeli military reveal that Hamas leaders initiated their brutal Oct. 7, 2023, rampage in an effort to disrupt peace talks between Saudi Arabia and the Jewish state. The leader of the terror group in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar — who was killed by Israel last year — feared that any deal between the two nations would “open the door for majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path,” according to minutes from a Hamas meeting just days prior to the group’s attack on Israel.

This is in keeping with a November 2023 New York Times report in which Hamas leaders openly acknowledged that they carried out their murderous rampage in an effort to trigger a more widespread war in the Middle East. The plan was apparently to provoke an Israeli response that would lead to condemnation from the usual suspects while pushing other Arab nations to line up in support of Hamas.

“In the bloody arithmetic of Hamas’ leaders,” the Times reported in 2023, “the carnage is not the regrettable outcome of a big miscalculation. Quite the opposite, they say: It is the necessary cost of a great accomplishment — the shattering of the status quo and the opening of a new, more volatile chapter in their fight against Israel.”

Hamas at every turn has been dedicated to intentionally stoking death and conflict while turning its back entirely on peace. The results speak for themselves: The leadership in place on Oct. 7 have all largely been killed, and many Palestinians now openly acknowledge, the Journal reports, that the terror group is responsible for their predicament and cares not a whit about the people it was elected to govern, seeing them instead as cannon fodder to be used for propaganda purposes.

And while the Oct. 7 attack did at least temporarily derail hopes for an Israeli-Saudi Arabia detente, the two nations have reportedly begun talks again, according to Britannica.com. Meanwhile, Israel has exposed Iran — the financial benefactor of Hamas — as a paper tiger and crippled Hezbollah.

As Israel begins its latest offensive, negotiators between the Netanyahu government and Hamas were meeting in Qatar in hopes of ending the conflict. The matter is in the terrorist’s hands: Hamas must release the hostages, renounce its addiction to violence and accept Israel’s existence.

— From Tribune News Service