Hamas fighters tighten grip in Gaza, clouding future of ceasefire

By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell

CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Hamas fighters tightened their grip in Gaza on Tuesday after carrying out public executions, defying Israel's assertion that war cannot end under U.S. President Donald Trump's plan until the militants are disarmed.

In a stark assertion of the group's return, fighters executed men they accused of collaborating with Israeli forces. In one video circulated late on Monday, Hamas fighters dragged seven men into a circle of people in Gaza City, forced them to their knees and shot them from behind. A Hamas source confirmed the authenticity of the video.

Gaza residents said fighters were increasingly visible on Tuesday, deploying along routes needed for aid deliveries. Palestinian security sources say dozens of people have been killed in clashes between Hamas fighters and rivals in recent days.

Although Israeli troops have withdrawn from urban areas in Gaza under the ceasefire that began last week, drone fire killed five people as they went to check on houses in a suburb east of Gaza City and an air strike killed one person and injured another near Khan Younis, Gaza health authorities said.

Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire. The Israeli military said it had fired on people who crossed truce lines and approached its forces after ignoring calls to turn back.

TRUMP PROCLAIMS 'HISTORIC DAWN' BUT HURDLES REMAIN

Hamas' resumption of power in Gaza and continued flashes of violence underscore the daunting hurdles facing efforts to move Trump's ceasefire plan towards a longer-term resolution of the conflict.

While Trump proclaimed the "historic dawn of a new Middle East" to Israel's parliament on Monday, some of the most difficult elements of his plan have yet to be negotiated to resolve issues that wrecked previous efforts to end the war.

Israeli forces remain entrenched across much of Gaza after their partial pullback inside the tiny, crowded territory. Promised increases in aid deliveries have not yet materialised for a population of 2.2 million people, many facing famine.

A summit co-hosted by Trump in Egypt on Monday ended with no public announcement of major progress towards establishing an international military force for Gaza, or a new governing body. The remains of at least 23 dead hostages remain in Gaza.

HAMAS ASSERTS CONTROL

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently maintained that the war cannot end until Hamas gives up its weapons and ceases to control Gaza, a demand that the fighters have rejected, torpedoing all previous peace efforts.

When Hamas fighters appeared in the streets during the last ceasefire in January-March, Israel abandoned the truce and called off negotiations on an end to the war. But Trump, having announced that the war is now over, said on Monday Hamas still had a temporary green light to keep order.

"They do want to stop the problems, and they've been open about it, and we gave them approval for a period of time," he said.

Hamas sources told Reuters on Tuesday the group would tolerate no more violations of order in Gaza and would target collaborators, armed looters and drug dealers.

The group, though greatly weakened after two years of pummelling Israeli bombardment and ground incursions, has been gradually reasserting itself with remaining fighters moving back onto the streets since the ceasefire took hold over the weekend.

The group, which has governed Gaza since 2007, also deployed hundreds of workers to start rubble clearing key routes needed to access damaged or destroyed housing and to repair broken water pipes.

Road clearance and security provision will also be needed for increased aid delivery. Hamas says hundreds of policemen were killed by Israel while protecting aid routes during the war. Israel said it was targeting Hamas fighters.

AID AND HOSTAGES

The ceasefire has stopped two years of devastating warfare in Gaza triggered by the October 7, 2023 attack in which Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people and seized 251 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza killed nearly 68,000 people according to local health authorities, with thousands more feared dead under the rubble. Gaza's Civil Defence Service said 250 bodies had been recovered since the truce began.

Swathes of Gaza are in ruins and the global hunger monitor said in August there was famine in the territory. Reuters video on Tuesday showed people clearing debris from streets and an aid truck moving through a market protected by armed men sitting on top.

UNICEF spokeswoman Tess Ingram said that while aid was getting into Gaza with tents, tarpaulin sheets, winter clothes, family hygiene kits and other critical items, she hoped for a significant increase later this week.

In Israel, after Monday's jubilation at the return of the last 20 living hostages, families of those declared dead awaited word from Israeli authorities on the fate of their loved ones.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that the bodies of four hostages handed over by Hamas the previous day had been identified. One of them was a Nepalese student, the military said. This leaves 23 hostages in Gaza formally declared dead, plus one whose fate is undetermined.

Some families fear their loved ones' remains will be lost forever in the rubble of Gaza. A special international task force is meant to help locate bodies which Hamas is not able to find.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem. Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva. Writing by Angus McDowall)