The western world keeps repeating the same slogan: Gaza must be demilitarized. Every peace plan, every UN speech, every press conference insists that Hamas cannot continue to rule Gaza with guns in its hands. Billions of dollars for reconstruction are on hold until someone ensures those weapons are taken away.

There is only one problem: Hamas says it will never disarm. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not for a state, not for the UN, not for Europe, not for the Americans, and certainly not for Israel. Hamas did not slaughter and rape Israelis on October 7 to abandon its quest to vanquish the Jewish State.

So a question hangs over every diplomat and every cabinet meeting from Cairo to Paris, a question no one wants to speak out loud: If Hamas refuses to disarm, who is going to shoot Hamas?

The West calls Hamas a terrorist organization responsible for massacres, rape, torture, kidnapping, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. But to many Palestinians, Hamas is not a rogue gang. It is the leadership they voted for, winning 58% of parliament in the last elections, and polling suggests they would win again today. To disarm Hamas is not to disarm a fringe—it is to confront their popular governmental leaders and legitimate military.

So who will go into Gaza, walk into the war tunnels, into the apartments, into the mosques used for rocket storage, and take those weapons away? Who will drag commanders from basements and seize the launchers hidden under family homes?

Israel? The world says no. Israel may have destroyed Hamas battalions, but the same leaders who demand demilitarization say Israel must not stay in Gaza to enforce it.

The Palestinian Authority? Hamas threw them off rooftops in 2007. The PA’s authority barely extends through parts of the West Bank. They are not disarming anyone in Gaza without outside troops and a graveyard’s worth of casualties.

Arab and Muslim states? This is the newest fantasy. An “International Security Force” of Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Emirati, Moroccan or other troops is supposed to enter Gaza, secure the borders, keep the peace, and—if necessary—shoot Hamas fighters to take their weapons. Will Egyptian soldiers do that? Jordanians? Saudis? The UAE? And what of Qatar, which housed Hamas leaders in luxury hotels for years? Will Qatar now arrest the men it financed?

The UN? NATO? Peacekeepers do not storm bunkers or raid arms factories. It has never happened in the Middle East, and it will not start in Gaza.

Which leaves one final option, the one everyone pretends not to see: No one will disarm Hamas. The world will congratulate itself on a “post-war framework,” aid will pour in, cement will be shipped, tunnels will be rebuilt, rockets will reappear—and we will repeat this in two years, five years, ten years, with more dead children on both sides.

This is the part no diplomat wants quoted back to them: You cannot demand a demilitarized Gaza, forbid Israel from disarming Hamas, refuse to disarm Hamas yourself, and still pretend you are building peace. Those positions cannot coexist. Either someone will use force against Hamas, or Hamas remains armed, and Gaza remains a terrorist enclave.

Ask the diplomats, ask the presidents and prime ministers, ask the foreign ministers drafting communiqués they will never enforce: Who will shoot Hamas?

Peace is not built on Security Council resolutions. It is built on the willingness to confront those who would destroy it.