Where Will Hamas Go Next? Why Do I Get the Feeling This War Is Far From Over?

With Hamas losing favour in the Arab world, their next stronghold may not be in Gaza but in the heart of Western societies. As sympathisers grow bolder and political blind spots widen, the fight against terror risks shifting closer to home.

As pressure mounts on Hamas from both within Gaza and the broader Arab world, a dangerous new chapter may be about to begin. Arab nations, including some that have long expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause, are now openly calling for Hamas to step down. On the surface, this seems like progress, but it raises a question no one appears prepared to answer: what happens next, and where will Hamas go?


The worry is not just about the political vacuum they will leave behind, but about the global consequences of their displacement. Hamas will not simply surrender, dissolve, or apologise for decades of terror. They will regroup, rebrand, and rearm. The ideology that fuels them, a toxic blend of martyrdom, antisemitism, and absolutist theology, does not vanish when borders shift.


If Hamas is ousted from Gaza without a clear replacement ready to govern, maintain order, and deliver for the Palestinian people, then the region risks sliding into further chaos. Worse still, Hamas operatives and sympathisers may begin migrating beyond the region, embedding themselves in sympathetic networks across the Middle East and potentially in the West.


This is not fearmongering. Hamas has always exploited the fog of war, civilian environments, and global naivety to survive. Their strategy includes mixing among the population, hiding weaponry in civilian sites, militarising children, and broadcasting carefully curated videos to manipulate global sympathy. This makes any military campaign against them a humanitarian nightmare, and any political solution deeply fragile.


But beyond Gaza lies a much broader threat: the ideological infrastructure that enables Hamas to survive and find support in the first place. With increasing numbers of left-wing voices in Europe and North America embracing anti-colonialist narratives, Hamas has found fertile ground to cloak their terrorism in the language of human rights.


Movements that begin with legitimate concern for Palestinian civilians are increasingly infiltrated by those who do not just oppose Israeli policy, but deny Israel’s right to exist. Some Western political figures, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, have expressed sympathy toward Hamas or refused to clearly condemn their actions. These networks, already angry and politically active, present an opportunity for Hamas to radicalise and recruit in the West.


What worries me most is that I have personally encountered individuals, including those I once considered friends, who are Muslims living in this country and who openly defend Hamas. Not just the Palestinian cause, but Hamas itself, a group that has murdered civilians, used children as shields, and stolen aid from its own people. Their sympathy is not for justice or peace, but for the ideology that Israel should not exist. That kind of support, harboured in supposedly safe and democratic nations, is a ticking time bomb.


Terrorism adapts. It relocates. It exploits open societies and free speech. If Hamas is allowed to melt into refugee populations, move through neighbouring states, or take root in Western diasporas, they will not be gone. They will simply shift the front line.


The West must not allow political correctness to blind them to this risk. It must not allow activists to shout down all criticism as wrong when in reality, it is about confronting a violent supremacist organisation that has caused endless suffering for both Palestinians and Israelis.


If countries continue to allow Hamas-aligned narratives to flourish unchecked in schools, universities, mosques, and political movements, they are inviting the next wave of radicalisation. This will not look like Gaza. It will be subtler, quieter, and in many ways more dangerous.


Europe, in particular, must be on high alert. With no clear international plan for what happens to Hamas’s leadership or military wing, we must ask: where will they go? Will they face justice, or fade into exile under new names, ready to launch attacks from Paris, Berlin, or London instead of Rafah or Khan Younis?


The fall of Hamas should be the beginning of peace, not the start of a new and even harder-to-contain threat. But without a global strategy, one that ensures Hamas cannot reform under any banner, in any place, the world will learn that the ideology of terror is harder to kill than the people who carry it.


The question is not whether Hamas will give up. It is whether we are ready for where they go next.


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