In Lebanon and Syria, senior terror leaders keep disappearing. Israel’s intelligence services have shown that even far from home, their reach is absolute. Hezbollah commanders vanish without warning. Iranian coordinators meet “accidents” in Damascus. Israel’s eyes are everywhere — east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL / “West Bank”) and far beyond.

Inside Israel and the territories under its vigilance, that network of informants has kept the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) from unleashing the kind of barbarism seen under Hamas. The true security barrier is not made of concrete or wire — it is people: HUMINT, human intelligence, the whispers that prevent slaughter.

But Gaza became a black hole the moment Israel withdrew in 2005. Every soldier, every Jew, every Israeli presence was uprooted — and with them went the eyes and ears that had kept the region stable. Hamas seized power through blood, executing its rivals and every suspected collaborator. What followed since 2007 was not liberation but suffocation. Gaza became a fortress of fanaticism, sealed off and armed to the teeth.

The legal Israeli blockade was not enough. While Israel and Egypt controlled the borders, Hamas tunneled beneath them — smuggling Iranian rockets, explosives, and even the raw materials to build new weapons. Gaza transformed from a strip of land into a terrorist enclave. By 2023, it was not just armed — it was indoctrinated, radicalized, and ready for mass murder.

Israel will not make that mistake again.

Among the newly released SAP prisoners, there are almost certainly Israeli plants — men and women turned during interrogations or cultivated long before. They will slip back into Gaza’s shattered neighborhoods, listening, watching, feeding intelligence. Every conversation, every weapons cache, every hint of reorganization could be the thread that prevents the next October 7.

Hamas knows this. Its paranoia will turn inward. Accusations will fly, confessions will be forced, and public executions will become commonplace to the shouts of “Allahu Akhbar.” The group will again devour its own, because it cannot rule without fear.

Any new ruling authority that replaces Hamas will need to coordinate with Israel. There can be no “independent Gaza” left to rot in secrecy. Deradicalization cannot be trusted to glossy NGOs or “neutral” foreign agencies alone. It must be verified — by intelligence, by informants, by those who know the difference between reform and camouflage.

[As for the Arab propaganda outlets, none of the public executions are discussed on Qatari-owned Al Jazeera. It is busy selling Gaza and Hamas as peace-loving.]

The intelligence war has already begun. The question is not whether Israel has plants among the returnees — it is how many will live long enough to stop Gaza from sinking back into the darkness it dug for itself.