If Israel doesn't hold Hamas to the terms of the ceasefire, who will?

Sent to the Boston Herald November 24, 2025

To the editor:

Re the Associated Press article "Israel launches strikes in ceasefire's latest test" (Boston Herald, November 23):

Israel's strikes were indeed another test of the ceasefire with Hamas, but not quite in the way misleadingly implied by the Associated Press.

Hamas has been constantly violating the terms of the ceasefire, with its failure, more than six weeks after the start of the ceasefire, to return all the hostages it kidnapped October 7, 2023 despite the agreement that it would do so within 72 hours, being one of its smallest, albeit more dramatic, violations.

The only party making Hamas pay any price for its constant violations is Israel, whose enforcement of the terms provides the only hope that that ceasefire will endure and lead to the disarmament of the Hamas and destruction of its terror infrastructure. Unless those provisions are enforced, this ceasefire will simply repeat the failures of all previous ceasefires, leading  once again to the rearming and strengthening of Hamas and yet another destructive war with its attendant devastation in Gaza.

It's ironic that Israel, whose citizens were the target of Hamas' barbaric October 7 slaughter, provides the best hope for the self-induced misery of the people of Gaza being replaced by normal, peaceful and productive lives.

A similar, albeit not quite exact, analogy holds when it comes to Hezbollah and Lebanon.

Sincerely,

Alan Stein

Newton, Massachusetts and Netanya, Israel

The writer, a retired college professor, is founder of PRIMER-Massachusetts (Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting) as well as PRIMER-Israel and president emeritus of PRIMER-Connecticut.

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