The political disagreement that began at the outset of the recent war against Hamas between those advocating deterring Hamas and those in favor of toppling Hamas is legitimate in a democratic country. With that, it is necessary to undertake a critical assessment of Hamas’ expected force buildup after Operation Protective Edge before formulating a concrete, forward-looking policy. Indeed, now that the guns are silent, Hamas’ efforts at force reconstruction must be addressed. The fact that there was no insistence on mechanisms to prevent force reconstruction at the end of the previous rounds of fighting – Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 and Operation Cast Lead in 2009 – was, to a large extent, the original sin that allowed Hamas to touch off the most recent round of hostilities.

Earlier this week, a senior political source – apparently the Israeli Foreign Minister – was quoted as saying that “Hamas did not even wait one moment after the last round of fighting to start rearming itself in anticipation of the next round.” In response, a senior defense establishment source denied the claim, saying, “We have no such information and we have no idea on what this charge is based.”

However, no particular intelligence capabilities are necessary to determine that Hamas would start reconstructing its military capabilities immediately after the ceasefire. This is what Hamas has done in the past, and one must assume it will do so now. Hamas is an organization whose rallying cry is armed resistance; it is therefore obvious that it will, without any delay, make every effort to rebuild it military capabilities, badly damaged in the 50 days of Operation Protective Edge. In this latest round of fighting, Hamas lost both of its main strategic capabilities: the long range missile threat, which was destroyed by Israel’s Iron Dome, and the offensive tunnels, almost all of which were destroyed by the IDF. Additional efforts, such as infiltrations from the sea and UAVs, either failed or were badly damaged.

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