Is The War In The Middle East Over, As Trump Has Claimed?
- 13.10.2025, 14:58
- 4,704
Opinion of a political scientist.
Twenty hostages taken by Hamas released from captivity by terrorists on October 7, 2023. Donald Trump arrives in Israel and is greeted as a winner. The US president says the war in the Middle East is over.
Is it really so? About this and more, Charter97.org spoke to Slovak political scientist and president of the Institute of Social Problems (IVO) (Bratislava) Grigory Mesežnikov:
- The release of the hostages is a very important event, as is the fact that all participants in the conflict, including Trump (although he is not a direct participant), have declared that the war is over. This, of course, is a strong signal.
In fact, whether the war is over or not, I think it's too early to say, because it's not just a war between Hamas and Israel. It's a war between Israel and that Iranian axis that has been shelling Israel for these two years, waging, in fact, a real war against Israel. Israel fought back and, I believe, changed the overall dynamic in the Middle East. But the enemies remained. So we cannot completely rule out the resumption of some kind of hostilities.
But I will emphasize, Trump's words that this is the end of the war will deter those forces on both sides that may try to somehow inflame this situation again.
But here, of course, Israel is more predictable than Hamas. Israel has won in Gaza as well, it has defeated Hezbollah, and Iran, and Syria, and the Hussites.
And for Hamas, of course, it is very important now to avoid total collapse as an organization, because militarily Hamas is everything. It is now incapable of doing what it did to Israel on October 7, 2023.
But it will try to stay in Gaza at all costs. Plus, as far as I'm following, according to the polls, even in the so-called West Bank, he has almost 70% support if there are elections all of a sudden. And for it, of course, this is a strong signal, although the organization is dramatically weakened, the leadership has been destroyed, the military potential is essentially gone, and it can only perform police functions.
But Hamas, I think, will try to do everything not to disarm, not to withdraw.
- How will Israel respond to this?
- I think that Israel will make a decision in coordination with the United States. It's probably impossible to completely rule out a limited military operation.
- Is there any guarantee that Hamas will be disarmed as the plan envisions?
- It's hard for me to say whether some international armed coalition that is supposed to emerge there and is supposed to oversee this process will actually be able to get Hamas disarmed. I've been following what's going on in Lebanon out of the corner of my eye. And there, although the process of disarming Hezbollah has begun, Israel is constantly bombing something.
That is, Israel has no confidence even in the Lebanese army, which seems to be engaged in this, although it was hard to imagine that such disarmament was possible a year ago. This means that the disarmament process that is being carried out by the Lebanese army is considered insufficient by Israel.
How it will all play out in Gaza is difficult to imagine at all. If there were no hostages alive in Gaza before today, I think Israel would have behaved much more harshly. It could have achieved a real disarmament, where Hamas would not even have had the temerity to do anything even remotely resembling an invasion on October 7, 2023.
Hamas has now, in Gaza territory where there are no Israeli troops, started a crackdown on rivals, started shooting people.So in this respect I am, frankly speaking, skeptical, but it is necessary to give a chance to those who want to finish Hamas "peacefully".
It is important who will be in this coalition, whether there will be Turks, whether there will be Egypt, Qatar, it seems that some other countries should join.
Till now the only force that could contain Hamas was Israel. I think it still is.
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