Israel’s Top General Vows to Disarm Hamas — and Says the IDF Isn’t Leaving Gaza

Standing with soldiers inside the Gaza Strip on June 7, 2026, Israel’s most senior officer drew a hard line. The Israel Defense Forces, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said, would not abandon the war’s central objective — the complete disarmament of Hamas. “We will continue to act until we achieve the goal of disarming Hamas,” he told troops, according to the Jerusalem Post. “This is a goal we are not giving up on.”

It was a statement aimed in two directions at once. Outward, at a Hamas that has refused to surrender its weapons eight months into a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. And inward, at a political leadership that, by Zamir’s own account, has yet to answer the question his soldiers keep posing back to him: if disarmament must be forced, who governs Gaza when it is done?

The IDF, Zamir said, is “strengthening operational control on the ground and continues to erode Hamas’s power.” The army holds extensive territory behind the so-called Yellow Line and is prepared, he warned, for a return to combat “to do whatever is necessary to complete the mission.” The phase-two diplomacy that was supposed to follow the hostages home has not arrived.

• 60% — of the Gaza Strip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel controls, with the IDF holding the line at the Yellow Line · Source: Netanyahu via Fox News / Jerusalem Post
• ~20,000 — Hamas operatives Netanyahu says still remain in Gaza, alongside roughly 60,000 rifles, in a group the ceasefire requires to disarm · Source: Netanyahu via Fox News / JNS
• Oct. 10, 2025 — date the U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect; its second phase — disarmament — remains stalled as Hamas refuses to give up its weapons · Source: CBS News / Gaza peace plan

Zamir made his remarks during a visit with soldiers in the Gaza Strip, his latest in a string of front-line appearances in which he has repeated a single message in escalating terms. The IDF’s determination to disarm Hamas, he had said earlier in the year, is “absolute.” On June 7, he framed it as a commitment that no political timetable or diplomatic stall would dislodge: the army would keep acting until Hamas is stripped of its arms.

The language matters because of who is speaking. A chief of staff does not set Israeli policy — the cabinet does. But Zamir has used these visits to publicly stake the military to the maximalist version of the war’s goal, even as the government around him debates what “the day after” in Gaza is supposed to look like. “We will continue to work to eradicate terrorism in all sectors and to strengthen the defense of our communities,” he told the troops.

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Central to Zamir’s account of “operational control” is the Yellow Line — the boundary inside Gaza to which Israeli forces pulled back when the ceasefire took effect, and which the IDF now treats as a fortified frontier. In a December 2025 visit, Zamir called it Israel’s new border. “We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip, and we will remain on those defense lines,” he said then.

The line is not static. Netanyahu has said Israel controls roughly 60 percent of the Strip and expects that to climb toward 70 percent, and aid groups and Gaza authorities have reported the Yellow Line creeping westward over the course of the truce. For Zamir, the line is both a shield for the border communities attacked on October 7, 2023, and a launch point: it “allows Israel security control and the ability to go on the offensive when necessary.”

“The Yellow Line is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity.”

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, IDF Chief of Staff · December 2025

Disarmament is the hinge the entire ceasefire turns on. Under the 20-point plan President Donald Trump announced in late September 2025 and that took effect on October 10, the second phase calls for Hamas to surrender its weapons, an international stabilization force to deploy, and a technocratic Palestinian administration to take over governance. Hamas has rejected the disarmament prerequisite outright, insisting instead on full implementation of phase one.

Netanyahu has called the group’s refusal to give up its arms the central obstacle to stabilizing Gaza in 2026, telling Fox News that Hamas still fields roughly 20,000 operatives and some 60,000 rifles. Times of Israel reporting, citing sources, has described the group as quietly stockpiling advanced weapons abroad even as mediators set and missed deadlines for it to accept a disarmament proposal. The result is a frozen middle: the guns are still in Gaza, and phase two has not begun.

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Behind the unified message of resolve runs a deeper, documented friction between Zamir and the political echelon. In a closed security discussion with Netanyahu and senior defense officials, the chief of staff pressed the prime minister to decide who would govern Gaza if the international stabilization force never materializes and the IDF is left to disarm Hamas itself, warning that Israel “could find itself back in a situation in which Hamas regains strength.” According to Ynet, Netanyahu did not provide an answer.

It is not the first clash. Earlier in the war, Zamir warned that a full assault on Gaza City would imperil the remaining hostages and push exhausted troops into what he called a “death trap” — an extraordinary public dissent from a serving chief of staff — before ultimately approving the operation’s framework once the cabinet ordered it. Zamir opposes the prospect of a long-term Israeli military government in Gaza, but has told ministers it may become the fallback if no one settles on an alternative.

“We will continue to act until we achieve the goal of disarming Hamas. This is a goal we are not giving up on.”

Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, addressing troops in Gaza · June 7, 2026

The first phase of the deal delivered its headline promises: a pause in the fighting, the release of living hostages, and a surge of humanitarian aid. The recovery of the remains of the last hostage, Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, in late January 2026 closed the chapter Zamir had vowed not to relent on — the return of every captive — and, in principle, cleared the way for phase two.

In practice, that next phase has stalled. The international stabilization force has not deployed, no technocratic government has formed, and the disarmament at the core of the plan has not happened. The truce itself has frayed: Israel has conducted repeated strikes on what it calls ceasefire violations, and Gaza health authorities — figures Israel disputes — have reported hundreds of Palestinians killed since the ceasefire began. The shooting never fully stopped; it only slowed.

Zamir’s message to his soldiers was, in the end, a message about uncertainty managed by force. The army will hold the Yellow Line, keep eroding Hamas, and stand ready to resume combat — because the political path that was supposed to make a renewed offensive unnecessary has not opened. Even a commentary in the Jerusalem Post conceded the obvious: Israel’s policy for Gaza and the West Bank is one that “nobody really knows.”

That is the bind Zamir keeps naming aloud. The military can take and hold ground, kill commanders, and intercept weapons indefinitely. It cannot, by itself, decide who runs Gaza the morning after Hamas is disarmed. Until the cabinet answers that question, the chief of staff’s vow describes a mission with a clear objective and no defined end — the IDF dug in along a line it calls a border, in a war the ceasefire was supposed to have ended.

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Last updated June 7, 2026