Hamas has begun stockpiling advanced weapons abroad, with plans to smuggle them into Gaza in the future, according to a report aired Sunday.

This is the polar opposite of peace. Israel should never have been restrained; it was on the brink of wiping out Hamas in September.

Amid talk of its disarmament, Hamas said stockpiling advanced weapons abroad

Report comes amid talk that US could forego demand for terror group to disarm and as IDF chief says Israel ready to seize additional territory in the Strip at any point

By: Emanuel Fabian Follow and Stav Levaton, Times of Israel, November 17, 2025:

Hamas has begun amassing advanced weapons and stockpiling them abroad in hopes of smuggling them into Gaza in the future, according to a report Sunday, amid growing talk that the United States may forgo demanding the terror group’s disarmament.

An unsourced report aired by the Kan public broadcaster on Sunday evening alleged that the terror group had started amassing weapons in recent weeks and stockpiling them in unspecified African states, Yemen, and other countries.

Hamas is storing them there with the intention of moving them to “strategic locations,” including, but not limited to, the Gaza Strip, at a later date.

The report followed an Israeli TV item from the previous day, which alleged that US President Donald Trump’s administration was looking to forgo the stage in its peace plan that calls to disarm Hamas in favor of moving ahead with rebuilding the enclave, as further talks have stalled over the details of Hamas’s demilitarization and the future governance of the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli security source told Channel 13 that this option was being discussed as the White House is having trouble getting commitments from third-party countries to participate in disarming Hamas as part of an international stabilization force that will be deployed in the Strip.

Israel, however, is insisting that Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip cannot advance further until Hamas is disarmed and the enclave demilitarized.

A general view of a concrete blocks marking the “Yellow Line,” the boundary of the Gaza territory still held by the Israeli military in Bureij, in the central Gaza Strip, on November 4, 2025. (Bashar Taleb/AFP)

On Sunday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF’s efforts to demolish Hamas’s tunnels on the Israeli side of the so-called “Yellow Line” in the Gaza Strip were “progressing well.”

“I was just updated by the deputy chief of staff that the operation to destroy Hamas’s terror tunnels in Gaza is progressing well. The IDF is working to destroy the tunnels through explosions, or by filling and pumping liquid concrete into the tunnels in all areas under its control,” Katz said in a statement.

Last month, Katz and the IDF said that around 60% of Hamas’s tunnels in Gaza were still intact.

On the other side of the Yellow Line, which is still controlled by Hamas, Katz said a “multinational force led by the United States is supposed to handle the demilitarization and disarmament of Hamas in old Gaza.”

The Israeli military currently still controls 53% of the territory inside the war-torn Palestinian enclave, including much of its farmland, along with Rafah in the south, parts of Gaza City and other urban areas.

The next stage of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresees Israel withdrawing further from the so-called Yellow Line, alongside the establishment of a transitional authority to govern Gaza, the deployment of a multinational security force meant to take over from the Israeli military, the disarmament of Hamas, and the start of reconstruction.

On Sunday, however, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said the military must be ready to seize additional territory in the Strip, beyond the Yellow Line, if necessary.

“In the Gaza Strip, we control more than 50% of the territory, without controlling the population. The Yellow Line serves as a line of encirclement and control, and we continue to act to prevent Hamas’s build-up by holding the [strategic] terrain and the gateways to Gaza,” Zamir said during a visit to the Rafah area of southern Gaza.

Continued…..