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Brig.-Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser served as the head of the Research Division for Military Intelligence of the Israel Defense Forces in 2005 at the time of the disengagement from Gaza and parts of Northern Samaria. Because of his special vantage point, he is able to bring a new insight to the subject. Intelligence professionals were not consulted in the decision-making process. While the Prime Minister and his confidants hoped that this initiative would result in a political advantage for Israel and strengthen its security, it is clear that they did not take possible Arab and Palestinian reactions into account, particularly those of Hamas. In this article Brig.-Gen. Kuperwasser presents the issue of disengagement from a fresh perspective and describes its unintended consequences, which could have been foreseen.

Israel has in recent years been living with a dangerous phenomenon, to which it has wrongly become accustomed, without any real debate as to its advisability. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are Palestinian terror organizations committed to annihilating Israel, controlling Gaza, and threatening to launch attacks at times of their choosing if Jerusalem does not act as they demand. They use Gaza's civilian population as human shields to prevent the Israelis from hitting their military infrastructure. In response, Jerusalem has defined its goals vis-à-vis Gaza as achieving the longest possible intervals of relative calm between major eruptions of violence; in other words, it does not challenge Hamas's ability to attack Israel. The Israeli government regards Gaza as a de facto state where Hamas is accountable for the use of force, though from time to time, in 2019 and 2022, it preferred to address the PIJ threat directly.