Gaza Had No Israeli Troops Since 2005 and Still Failed

A Moroccan journalist who writes about Morocco-Israel relations and Jewish-Muslim coexistence made his case in a recent essay on Gaza. Looking back to Israel's 2005 pullout, he wrote that the territory "became a monument to political irresponsibility." That line sums up his argument: Gaza's troubles come from how it was governed, not from occupation alone.

His claim is that "since Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Gaza has been the one place where Palestinians do not live under direct Israeli presence." By that he means Israeli settlements, soldiers and checkpoints were gone from inside the strip, along with nightly raids and seizures of land by settlers. That description covers the inside; it does not mean Gaza was open. Israel kept control of most crossings, the airspace and the coastal waters, and even his essay says crossings were shut and controls grew stricter after attacks, while trucks, fuel, food, electricity and water still moved in.

He points to what happened next as support. After Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist movement that also runs a militant wing and refuses to recognize Israel, won elections in 2006, he notes, it plunged Gaza within a year into violent conflict with both Israel and rival Palestinians, followed by wars in 2008-09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022 and 2023-25. For him, that sequence shows a leadership that put fighting ahead of building independent courts, economic policy and civil pluralism.

He closes the case with duration. He argues that "Nearly two decades of uncontested rule have produced no vision beyond confrontation, no economy beyond aid dependency, no politics beyond repression," with opponents punished, reporters curbed and voting put off. In his words, "History is unforgiving to leaders who mistake noise for achievement."