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On October 18–19, 2025, Hamas fighters brazenly attacked Israeli forces in the Rafah area, shattering the fragile ceasefire and forcing the Israel Defense Forces to respond with targeted strikes across Gaza. The violence is proof that negotiating with terrorists only works so long as the terrorists choose to honor an agreement they never intended to keep.
The U.S. State Department warned the same day that it has credible reports Hamas may be planning attacks even against Palestinian civilians inside Gaza — a sickening tactic that would be a direct violation of the truce and a further demonstration of Hamas’s contempt for human life. American diplomats and allies can no longer paper over the moral bankruptcy of a group that treats both its enemies and its own people as tools.
Israel had every right to hit back quickly and decisively after the breach, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to keep the Rafah crossing closed until Hamas accounts for the dead and returns hostages is the hard-headed security posture this moment demands. No nation can be expected to sit quietly while a terrorist organization tests the limits of restraint, and the IDF’s actions reflect a sober commitment to protecting Israeli citizens.
Let’s be clear about who is responsible for this bloodshed: Hamas has repeatedly proven it is a terrorist cartel, not a legitimate government. Reporting from recent clashes — including fierce raids in Khan Yunis and footage the IDF says shows militants moving with children — underlines the ruthless tactics Hamas employs, including using civilians as shields and fighting from within populated areas. Those realities matter before anyone rushes to lecture Israel from a moral high ground.
Yet international outrage predictably falls unevenly: while Gaza’s media and some Western outlets tally alleged Israeli violations, they too often neglect to place those incidents inside the larger context of Hamas’s years-long campaign of terror and the October 7 massacres that sparked this war. Americans who love liberty should demand consistency — condemn attacks on civilians no matter who commits them, and stop treating a brutal terrorist organization as a misunderstood political party.
Washington must back Israel’s right to neutralize Hamas’s ability to strike again, and it must press guarantors of any truce to hold Hamas accountable for breaches and for the hostages it still holds. Empty calls for “restraint” have left Western allies watching their friends endure daily threats; if the United States means to lead, it must stand firmly with democracies that fight terrorists openly and decisively.
Hardworking Americans know the truth: peace is not peace if it allows the most barbaric actors to regroup and strike anew. Now is the time for clarity, for support of our Israeli friends and their soldiers, and for a refusal to reward barbarism with sympathy while ignoring the victims of terror.
