This strategic brief analyzes why the assassination of Qassam Brigades commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad fails to advance regional disarmament mandates, detailing the systemic institutional and geopolitical barriers that preserve the militant group’s stockpile.
The target of recent high-profile kinetic operations in Gaza underscores a persistent strategic miscalculation regarding the structural resilience of militant networks. While the elimination of a top military leader is framed as a decisive blow to resistance, the underlying institutional architecture ensures that Hamas disarmament remains an elusive objective, independent of individual commanders. Ultimately, the prospects for Hamas disarmament are dictated by broader geopolitical leverage and internal consensus rather than the survival of any single insurgent figurehead.
Hamas disarmament structural barriers remain
On the evening of 15 May, Israeli aircraft bombed a residential building in central Gaza City and a car that was driving away. It destroyed six apartments, killed at least eight people, and injured 45 others, according to Palestinian medical sources. Shortly after, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said the target had been Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the commander-in-chief of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
Al-Haddad was confirmed as having been killed alongside his wife and daughter. Katz accused him of planning the attack against southern Israel on October 7 2023, and of killing and detaining dozens of Israelis. He also said al-Haddad had refused to implement the agreement led by US President Donald Trump, particularly the clause requiring Hamas to be disarmed and for Gaza to be stripped of its weapons.
Al-Haddad’s killing has put Hamas’s disarmament back under the spotlight. Some think he was the main obstacle to disarmament, raising the prospect that the US-Israeli agreement could now pass. But, in killing him, has Israel really forced through its disarmament demand?
Since the start of the war, Israel has accused several Hamas military leaders of planning and carrying out the October 7 attacks and has moved to assassinate them one by one, announcing the killing of most members of the Qassam Brigades’ military council. But al-Haddad’s name continued to be cited, with Israel accusing him of refusing to release Israelis except through exchange deals.
After a ceasefire in October 2025, Israel insisted that Hamas disarm. Hamas said it would only disarm if this coincided with the full withdrawal of the Israeli army, which still controls more than 60% of the Gaza Strip, an area of 365 square kilometres. Hamas also stipulated the entry of the national committee formed by the Board of Peace Council to take over governance in parallel with disarmament and the army’s withdrawal, to avoid a security vacuum in Gaza during implementation.
Ideological cohesion resists Hamas disarmament demands
The Board of Peace position has slowly taken shape through statements by Trump and the council’s director, Nikolay Mladenov, demanding that Hamas hand over its weapons and withdraw from governing Gaza without preconditions. Some say al-Haddad was the major roadblock to getting the group to agree to surrendering its weapons.
Hamas has mourned al-Haddad, condemning his killing as a deliberate Israeli strike without prior warning on a residential building inhabited by civilians. Mahitab al-Haddad, his elder sister, told Al Majalla that there had been earlier failed attempts on his life. She said her brother had not embraced armed struggle for liberation only to lay down his weapons, adding that he would often say the choice was between martyrdom and victory.
“They speak of a ceasefire and negotiations, yet on the ground, there is daily bombardment and gunfire that kills and wounds civilians and keeps people on the move,” she said. “So, where is the ceasefire? Where is this agreement they talk about, with its supposed phases of implementation?”
Some might take his sister’s remarks as confirmation of reports about internal divisions within the movement, but the reality is less straightforward. After Mladenov met Hamas leaders and mediators from Egypt and Qatar, Hamas reportedly replied negatively to disarmament, which could have been the reason why Israel decided to target al-Haddad.
Institutional survival drives Hamas disarmament
Sufian Abu Zaida, a Palestinian writer and political analyst, told Al Majalla that no official in the Qassam Brigades in Gaza is believed to support disarmament, meaning that this stance was not confined solely to al-Haddad. The issue “is not because the weapons are regarded as sacred, nor simply because of their right to resist the occupation, but because arms now offer personal protection amid the chaos and the arming of militias that Israel has created and is equipping”.
Hamas disarmament blocked by external factors
Abu Zaida added that Israeli leaders, like al-Haddad, have no interest in implementing Trump’s plan, because it would require them to leave territory that they have no wish to leave. “For all its drawbacks from the Palestinian perspective, it would still compel Israel to withdraw its forces from the entire Gaza Strip and set in motion a reconstruction process it has been delaying, as it seeks to evade its obligations and blame Hamas and the Palestinians for obstructing implementation.”
Trump’s plan also envisages reunifying the Palestinian political system, with the national committee assuming responsibility for governing Gaza and overseeing reconstruction, followed by Palestinian elections. Mladenov recently urged Hamas to contest those elections as a political party after relinquishing control of Gaza. Abu Zaida argued that these steps cut against Israel’s interests, prompting it to shirk its obligations and fall back on convenient pretexts.
Leadership succession shapes Hamas disarmament path
In his assessment, al-Haddad’s assassination will not change realities in any meaningful way, either within Hamas or in Israel’s reaction. The future, he said, remains unclear and impossible to predict, particularly at this delicate stage, as Hamas is still holding internal elections to choose the head of its political bureau.
The contest is between its leader in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, who is also the head of Hamas’s negotiating team, and the former head of its political bureau, Khaled Mashal. The outcome, he added, will have a major impact on Hamas’s direction and choices in the next phase, unless Israel assassinates yet more leaders.