What we are currently witnessing are direct and indirect efforts by Hamas to continue governing the Gaza Strip even after the establishment of Trump’s “Board of Peace” and the Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). Pictured: Hamas terrorists in Gaza on February 15, 2025. (Photo by Moiz Salhi/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Hamas is and will be the biggest beneficiary of the utterly blind, ignorant, naive Trump Administration, as the Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) and the 20-point peace plan are about as effective as Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer guiding Santa’s sleigh through the foggy night. Same logic, same reality.

I don’t know how many finding themselves here are also subscribers of Amir Tsarfati’s Telegram page, but I highly recommend signing up if you’re not already discovering real news unlike any other source.

Over the weekend, this is real news that isn’t reported everywhere. This is about President Trump, Steve Witkoff, and the farcical negotiations taking place with Iran, but it directly relates to President Trump’s, Steve Witkoff’s, Jared Kushner’s, and what appears to be the entire Trump Administration’s understanding of Islam, dealing with Hamas and Gaza, and their lack of understanding the Middle East…

From Amir Tsarfti’s Telegram page;

Witkoff on Iran: “The president is curious as to why — I don’t want to use the word capitulated, but why they haven’t capitulated. Why under this pressure with the amount of naval power over there, why they haven’t come to us and said we profess we don’t want a weapon…”

Delvin Alireza writes on X: The answer to Witkoff’s question is simple: Trump and his team fundamentally misunderstand who they are dealing with. This is not a government that represents its people or its nation. The regime ruling Iran is a band of radical Islamist ideologues who have no genuine attachment to Iran as a country — they merely occupy it. Iran is their vehicle, not their homeland. Their loyalty is to an apocalyptic ideology, not to the Iranian people, not to Iranian soil or its vast natural resources. They don’t “capitulate” under pressure because nation-states capitulate — they calculate costs, weigh national interests, and protect their people. These men do none of that. They have slaughtered their own citizens by the thousands, plundered the country’s wealth, and sacrificed generation after generation on the altar of an ideology that was imported into Iran, not born from it.

Asking why they haven’t come forward to say, “We don’t want a weapon,” misses the entire point. A weapon — or the threat of one — is the only thing keeping this stateless theocracy in power. It is their leverage over the world and their own population. You cannot negotiate with a group that views the destruction of Iran itself as an acceptable price for ideological survival. Until Washington grasps that distinction — between the Iranian state and the occupying force running it — every diplomatic effort will hit the same wall.

I must add that Mr. Alireza only offered a wisp of the reasons all this is occurring and why the Trump administration is so lost, so clueless, so naive, and so confused.

Mr. Alireza wrote two important words — apocalyptic ideology. The ayatollahs, a large segment of Shia Islamists, all have their own version of a supernatural being coming to earth to rule and dominate. To them, it is the Mahdi. The Last Imam. Their version of a messiah. Totally blind. totally in error, but it is their faith. What they believe and what they are working to bring about. Hell on earth. Destruction. Pain, suffering, terrorism, and war against the enemies of Islam to usher in the coming of the Mahdi.

The Trump administration and all working within it, save perhaps Mr. Rubio and Mr. Huckabee, all lack spiritual understanding, true knowledge of history. A true understanding of Islam and precisely what is at work in the world.

To them, it’s all about the deal. The material, earthly deal — because that’s all they know and have done throughout their lives, they have been successful at it, made billions for themselves, they have been so good at making the deal.

They are in more trouble than a fish out of water, a blind man parachuting for the first time with no chute, no help.

They are free falling into the hands of Islam. The ayatollahs of Iran are smiling. Everything is going exactly to plan.

Again, I voted for President Trump. But we must be willing and able to be objective. To see, to hear, to know and discern well and rightly. And when it comes to Islam, Iran, Gaza, Hamas, Israel, and the Middle East? President Trump and his team are utterly lost, naive, blind, and clueless. They really are.

President Trump. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and the overwhelming majority don’t get it, and perhaps they never will — but the ayatollahs don’t value life other than their own. They will slaughter as many Iranians, Jews, and people of the West as they can. They do so with no remorse. No guilt. They do it believing it is getting them closer to their ideological goal. The coming of the Mahdi.

Omit the spiritual, and there is no reason to discuss, plan, mention, or work towards anything. All efforts will take place on the wrong course heading. Msising the mark.

Refusing to see, know, and understand the history, the mind of those who want to kill you, and approaching them as if they think as you do? Have the same values? How naive and foolish!

Refusing to understand Islam. Refusing to acknowledge the spiritual, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the whole Holy Bible, Satan, evil, Islam, and its place and intended goal, the place of Israel and the Jews.

To treat everything like a deal? Like a real estate deal? As if playing a board game, and everyone can be bought, sold, and moved around to fit your desires?

And you think this is going to work out well? President Trump will prevail? Outwit the ayatollahs and Islam in the Middle East?

Really?

Nothing has happened as of writing this other than the largest gathering of potential force in the Middle East in decades. And a lot of talk. A lot of talk. But if there is military action? I doubt it’ll be more than a smack upside the head and not much more. It certainly will not topple the current regime. It will not install a new government that is a free and open republic or a democracy, taking into account the Iranian people.

And in Gaza…

Hamas will remain in power, in control. With their weapons. President Trump and his administration have already made concessions regarding the retention of weapons by Hamas, showing weakness when all that Islam understands is strength.

The Trump administration has already bowed and capitulated to them on many counts and will on many more yet to come. A lot of words with little or no action.

And Iran may be weakened, but they, whoever is alive and in power, will go to their friend Russia and hook them into making the decision, along with Turkey and a few other sympathetic nations, align themselves in an effort to overtake and defeat Israel once and for all. It’s the Ezekiel 38 war that is coming.

If you’re still around when that takes place, and in its aftermath — remember this. And do something eternally positive about it.

And you know what that is. Right?

Read on…

Ken Pullen, Monday, February 23rd, 2026

Who Will Become the Biggest Beneficiary of the Billions of Dollars About To Be Invested in the Gaza Strip? The Terrorist Group Hamas

The Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), established last month in accordance with U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war, is about to assume its responsibilities in the Gaza Strip.

The NCAG’s main mission is to manage the day-to-day operations of the civil service and administration in the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the war, which erupted after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of Israel.

The committee, whose members are described as “independent technocrats,” is headed by Ali Shaath, a top official of the Fatah faction headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. Shaath previously held several positions in the PA, including Deputy Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, and Undersecretary at the Ministry of Transport.

The NCAG is expected to start operating in the Gaza Strip even though Hamas continues to control nearly half of it, with more than 90% of the population still under the terror group’s jurisdiction. The other half is controlled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Although Hamas has expressed its willingness to hand over its government institutions to the NCAG, there are indications that the terror group seeks to control the new committee and turn it into a Hamas puppet.

The NCAG is already under pressure from the terror group to incorporate thousands of Hamas terrorists into a newly established Palestinian police force in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, in addition, is seeking to ensure that its civil servants are placed on the payroll of the NCAG.

Sources close to the NCAG revealed that Hamas “continues to insist that its security personnel remain in service within the agencies that will operate under the committee’s [NCAG] leadership,” according to the London-based newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat.

“The sources said this issue further complicates the committee’s ability to assume its duties in an orderly manner, explaining that Hamas, by insisting on certain demands related to its security employees and police forces, seeks to impose its presence in one way or another within the committee’s work. There is a prevailing sense within the committee and other parties that Hamas is determined, by all means, to keep its members within the new administrative framework overseeing the Gaza Strip.”

The news about the newly established Palestinian governance committee’s preparations to enter the Gaza Strip coincided with reports that Hamas is reasserting its power in areas under its control. According to a February 18 BBC report:

“Gazans say Hamas is again extending its control over security, tax revenue, and government services, raising questions about its long-term strategy, and whether it is prepared to give up its weapons and authority, as now required under the second stage of Donald Trump’s peace plan.”

Mohammed Diab, an activist in the Gaza Strip, noted that Hamas “regained control of more than 90% of the areas where it is present.”

“Its police and security agencies have returned, and are now present in the streets, controlling crime and pursuing those it labels as collaborators and people with opinions. Citizens must go to the Hamas authorities for identity cards or health procedures, and it is also reasserting control over the judiciary and courts.”

Such reports prove that Hamas is lying when it says that it is ready to hand over its governing power to NCAG. Hamas’s actions on the ground demonstrate that the terror group plans to maintain its control over the Gaza Strip in violation of Trump’s plan, which states: “Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form.” What we are currently witnessing are direct and indirect efforts by Hamas to continue governing the Gaza Strip even after the establishment of Trump’s “Board of Peace” and the NCAG.

Hamas, whose members murdered, tortured, mutilated, raped and kidnapped thousands of Israelis and foreign nationals on October 7, sees itself as an essential part of the post-war arrangements in the Gaza Strip. In the viewpoint of Hamas, the role of bodies such as the “Board of Peace” and NCAG should be limited only to paying salaries, funding reconstruction and ensuring the entry of aid supplies into the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the terror group will focus its efforts on rearming, regrouping, rebuilding its terror infrastructure, and planning more attacks on Israel.

According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

“[D]espite Hamas’ alleged willingness to transfer governance to the committee, it will have to rely on tens of thousands of employees who remain loyal to Hamas after nearly two decades of absolute Hamas control in the Strip. In such a situation, the committee will at best be able to carry out limited assistance and reconstruction activities, but most likely not to resolve core issues of control, security and demilitarization.”

Needless to say, Hamas has repeatedly made it clear that it has no intention of laying down its weapons or abandoning its Jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel.

Under current circumstances, where Hamas is quickly reasserting its control over the Gaza Strip, it is hard to see how the “Board of Peace” or the NCAG could succeed in ending the terror group’s rule and implement Trump’s vision, specifically that “Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors.”

So long as Hamas and thousands of its terrorists are roaming the streets, collecting taxes, intimidating the residents, and recruiting new fighters, the security and economic situation in the Gaza Strip will never improve. Anyone who believes that the NCAG will be able to operate as an independent governing body in the Gaza Strip is abysmally uninformed. Its members will undoubtedly be at the mercy of Hamas and its masked thugs.

Arab political analyst Mahdi Mubarak wrote:

“The committee’s formation did not occur in a political vacuum, but rather in an environment dominated by Hamas, which ruled the Gaza Strip for many years and established a deep military, organizational, and social presence. Therefore, any realistic assessment of the committee’s future cannot ignore the existing balance of power on the ground. No matter how professional the civil administration may be, its influence remains limited if it lacks the tools of actual power or if it operates within a framework defined by a more powerful party.

“The image promoted by some international parties that the committee is a means to remove Hamas from power seems far removed from reality. The facts on the ground indicate that Hamas still maintains military, organizational, and ideological control within Gaza, and that any new administrative body cannot operate independently of its will or outside its sphere of influence. Real power remains in the hands of those who possess weapons, organizational networks, and the capacity for sustained popular mobilization.

“From this, it can be said that Hamas was the biggest beneficiary of the formation of the committee, not because it relinquished its influence, but because it cleverly repositioned itself. Instead of appearing at the forefront of the scene and bearing the cost of political, security, and economic confrontation before the international community, Hamas left space for a civilian body to manage day-to-day affairs, while it retained the keys to strategic influence. The military force is still in Hamas’s hands, its organizational structure has not been dismantled, and the social networks it built over the years are still active.

“If the new security apparatus relies on elements formed within an organizational environment close to Hamas, then the separation between civilian administration and Hamas’s influence becomes more theoretical than practical. And if the professional cadres—engineers, doctors, and employees—work within a social system that has been influenced by Hamas for years, its indirect influence will persist even in its formal absence from the forefront.”

Hamas appears to be on its way to attempting to impose the model of Lebanon, where Iran’s terror proxy, Hezbollah, has for the past few decades been able to operate as a “state within a state.”

Hamas should have been asked to end its rule over the Gaza Strip and hand over all its weapons before, and not after, the formation of the NCAG. Since that has not happened, Hamas will become the largest beneficiary of the billions of dollars that are about to be invested in the Gaza Strip.

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.