The Irish experience may indeed offer useful lessons, but replicating the Belfast model in Gaza faces deep, structural differences that make it fraught with danger.
For one, disarming a resistance movement can only succeed within a political agreement that fulfils at least a significant part of that movement’s aspirations.
In Ireland, the settlement took place within the sovereignty of a single state, providing political and social alternatives for the fighters. But in the Palestinian case, the long-standing occupation, the absence of national rights, and the ongoing blockade remain unresolved realities – especially if the focus is placed solely on weapons.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Oslo Accords of 1993 led to the creation of new Palestinian security forces, which absorbed some former fighters under the emerging authority’s arrangements. Yet, this did not result in the complete dissolution of the resistance mechanisms.
Over time, new forms of armament emerged for multiple political and security reasons: locally manufactured weapons in Gaza (such as short-range rockets), smuggling through tunnels and crossings, and external technical support that helped rebuild a combat capability qualitatively different from the old arsenal of the PLO.
Another obstacle is the lack of balanced security guarantees. Israel demands protection against rockets and tunnels, while Palestinians demand civilian safety, an end to the siege, and a halt to assaults.
Disarmament without mechanisms of verification and protection would leave the population in a fragile position before a militarily superior occupying power – eroding confidence in any international arrangements meant to ensure peace.
[by Mahmoud Al-Hanafi in Aljazeera]
West Bank Tense
The West Bank today is experiencing one of its most volatile and tension-filled phases, where Israeli occupation policies intersect with the escalation of armed resistance.
While the occupation authorities justify their latest operations in Tulkarm and Nur Shams as security missions to pursue armed elements, the realities on the ground reveal that these actions have, in practice, worsened the humanitarian crisis and deepened the divide between the local population and Israeli authorities.
At the same time, it cannot be ignored that the resistance itself, when operating within crowded civilian environments, draws entire communities into the line of fire.
Observers note that Israel uses these events to expand its security grip and redraw the operational map in the West Bank. Yet it also acts under what it perceives as a complex reality, where security imperatives overlap with the absence of a unified Palestinian partner capable of managing the ground situation or offering a coherent political alternative.
The result is a vicious cycle: the resistance justifies its actions by citing the occupation, while the occupation justifies its measures by citing resistance – and caught in between, ordinary lives disintegrate. Families forced to flee their homes in Tulkarm or Nur Shams find no side able to guarantee their safety or future.
In the end, it cannot be denied that the root of the crisis lies in the occupation itself, but it is no longer the only factor fuelling it. The failure to build a unified national project, the fragmentation of local decision-making, and the loss of political direction have together turned the West Bank into an open theatre of mutual destruction.
[by Ahmad Abdul Wahhab in Elaph]
Compiled and translated by Faizul Haque