“They’re going to disarm. If they don’t disarm, we’ll disarm them.” (Narrator: They’re not going to disarm.)

The quote’s from Donald Trump, the narrator’s me and “they”/”them” are Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t get everything he wanted from the Gaza ceasefire agreement. In fact, there’s a strong argument to be made that the return of the hostages wasn’t even at the top of his objectives list, and never has been. Rather, the complete destruction of Hamas and, probably, the razing, clearing out and seizing of Gaza for resettlement, were surely more important objectives, even as the latter wasn’t an explicit war aim.

Trump was on board with all of that initially (remember the “Riviera of the Middle East”?) but at some point over the last month or so, it seemed to dawn on him that Netanyahu was a little like Vladimir Putin in being ambivalent, at best, about stopping the daily bloodletting.

As is the case in Ukraine, Trump doesn’t care about engineering a “just” outcome. He’d gladly force Kyiv to cede territory to Russia (indeed he almost did on multiple occasions this year), just like he’d gladly assist Netanyahu in bringing about a second Nakba to clear the way for construction of Trump-branded resort properties on Gaza’s beaches.

The one thing Trump does care about, though, is his own ego. And for all his pandering to Putin and all the diplomatic cover and military assistance the US gave Israel, what’d Trump get in return? Not a lot in terms of concrete steps towards stopping the shooting. Trump famously lacks a moral compass, but daily killing and maiming in conflicts he’s pledged, implicitly or, in the case of Ukraine, quite explicitly, to resolve, is embarrassing.

With that in mind, I’d argue Netanyahu’s decision to strike Hamas’s politburo in Doha early last month during ongoing ceasefire talks to which the US was a party, was loosely akin to Putin’s refusal to dial back the indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian cities amid Trump’s efforts to secure a provisional deal to halt the violence. In both cases, Trump the aspiring strongman was being played for a fool by a couple of real-life authoritarians bent on pursuing wars he was determined to end, if for no other reason than securing peacemaker bragging rights.

Unlike Putin, though, Netanyahu’s shown himself to be amenable to serious ultimatums from Trump. Recall the morning of June 24 when Trump instructed the IDF to cease and desist bombing Iran to give his nascent peace deal a fighting chance. Israel was trying to get in a few final blows before the agreement went into effect, and Trump was having none of it. No one knows what Trump said to Netanyahu behind the scenes that day, but if his public remarks, including on TruthSocial, were any indication, he did a lot of shouting.

Earlier this month, when Trump presented his 20-point ceasefire proposal to Hamas and told them to take it or leave it (where leaving it would’ve meant the IDF massacring everyone in northern Gaza with no pushback from The White House), all he really wanted was good press, which in this case meant pictures and video of the 20 still-living Israeli hostages going home. Once Hamas agreed to release those hostages, Trump essentially called the deal done, even as the group didn’t agree to, or at least equivocated on, most of the other stipulations.

I don’t think Netanyahu, left to his own devices, would’ve agreed to that ceasefire. It’s not so much that Trump “forced it” on Israel as much as it is he extracted from Hamas an agreement to release the hostages, broadcast that to the world along with a declaration that the deal was done, thereby leaving Netanyahu in the extremely awkward position of having to either concur or else say, “No, we’re not signing this until Hamas also agrees to all 20 points — and they can keep the hostages until they do.” In such a scenario, Netanyahu would’ve effectively been holding the hostages himself in true Blazing Saddles fashion, exposing just how cutthroat his government really is when it comes to achieving the war’s primary (“real”) goals.

The problem now — and this is why you don’t go “full W.” in the first place — is that Gaza’s a failed statelet with a power vacuum. Once you’ve destroyed a place and ousted the tyrant(s), you have two choices: Stay forever or let who’s left fight it out and hope democracy grows as a rose from concrete.

That’s existential for the locals, but not for you when the place you destroyed is thousands of miles and a vast ocean away. When the place is on your border, it’s almost as existential for you as it is for the locals (because you are a local), particularly when the place you destroyed was already an open-air prison where the prisoners hated you enough before you set about ethnic cleansing them for (at least) the second time in three generations.

Now that the IDF’s pulled back, the remnants of Mohammed Deif‘s Qassam Brigades — all of whom will, one assumes, be repurposed as members of the “Rada’a,” an outfit established to restore order upon the withdrawal of the Israeli army — are out and about in northern Gaza doing what you’d expect them to be doing: Shooting people.

Without going into the details — which for now you don’t need, but which I fear I’ll be compelled to recount at some point in the near future — there’s no religious rivalry in Gaza to speak of. Rather, it’s more like a cross between warlordism and a Godfather scenario where Hamas are the Corleones. Even if they wanted to disarm in the interest of pacifying Trump and the Israelis (and that’s obviously a ridiculous thing to say — the whole movement’s based on armed resistance) they couldn’t because they’d all be murdered by members of the rival families vying for control of territory.

Despite losing more or less everyone to the IDF (and certainly everyone who counted for anything), Hamas is likely still more powerful and better armed than anyone who might contest for power in Gaza. But they’re going to be tested on that score which means — and I hate to put it this way, but it’s a fact — they’ll need to kill some people, probably several dozen and maybe hundreds, to reestablish dominance. To justify the killings, they’ll likely accuse rivals of collaborating with the Israeli military, even if that’s not true. (And in some cases it probably will be. True, I mean.)

This is going to be messy business. Bloody business. Close-quarters gang shootout business. It’s going to look quite a lot like a mob war. Remember: This is a tiny, tiny piece of territory. It’s not Iraq or Afghanistan. They’re not going to be separated by vast swathes of desert, and they’re not going to be riding horses through mountain passes. Gaza’s Philadelphia. Or maybe Compton’s a better analogue (sorry, Compton, you still make great music). They’re all right on top of each other.

Needless to say, Israel isn’t going to love the specter of Raqqa ca. 2015 on their doorstep, even as the Israeli government will (secretly) delight in the ongoing bloodshed to the extent it means “one fewer Palestinian.” Trying to assist or arm rival “clans,” if you like, would be a disaster, and I doubt Israel will go that route, even as they’ve surely kicked the proverbial tires a few times.

In all likelihood, Hamas will kill its rivals in a bid to reestablish a monopoly on violence, but the scope of the damage to the enclave’s infrastructure pretty much rules out the provision of basic services. And Israel won’t allow for the rebuilding of that infrastructure with Hamas in a position of power.

So… what? What now? Well, who knows, frankly. The population needs food, water and medicine, but Israel’s already suggested the IDF might throttle humanitarian aid if Hamas continues to slow-walk the return of dead hostages. (Hamas claims — not implausibly — that it can’t find the rest of the corpses because there are a lot of corpses in Gaza and after a couple of weeks, one corpse begins to look a lot like any other corpse.)

I don’t see anything other than low-level anarchy and abject deprivation in Gaza’s near- to medium-term future. Hamas is both destroyed and not. Destroyed as a highly-organized, quasi-regimented militia with the capability to harass the Israeli state, but not as a localized, heavily-armed outfit capable of lording it over a destitute population with no other options.

At least from the Palestinian point of view, the Gaza ceasefire doesn’t mark the dawn of a new era of peace and stability. More likely, it’ll mean the opposite, and the chaos will provide Israel with an excuse for the imposition of military rule and, ultimately, settlement and annexation. That’s my prediction. I’ll be happy to be wrong.