Here's how Israel can defeat Hamas without losing more soldiers

Israel could dismantle Hamas not with more troops or bombs, but by flipping the psychological script, making the terror group fear Gaza’s own population, according to Dr. Ofer Grosbard, a clinical psychologist and former advisor to the IDF Intelligence Directorate.

Speaking to Maariv, Grosbard, author of The End of the State of Israel?! and a member of "Mivatchei - Israel," outlined a strategy rooted in understanding Palestinian society’s fear-driven dynamics, arguing that precise psychological warfare could end terrorism in Gaza and Judea and Samaria while securing the release of hostages, all without further loss of Israeli lives.

Grosbard highlighted a critical blind spot in Israel’s approach: while Hamas has long wielded psychological tactics against Israel, most notably with hostage videos, Israel’s security apparatus lacks a counter-strategy because it fails to grasp the enemy’s mindset. “They have an external focus of control, studying us obsessively, while we, with our internal focus, don’t know them,” he said.

His plan hinges on two pillars: choking off incitement and engineering societal pressure against Hamas. Grosbard criticized Israel’s tolerance of inflammatory content in schools, mosques, and media, a misstep born of projecting Western individualism onto a society where incitement fuels terror. “Dry up incitement with AI detection and punishment, and you dry up terrorism,” he asserted.

More radically, he proposed a reward-and-punishment system to turn Gazans into informants: cash, medical care, or jobs in Israel for reporting Hamas activity; severe penalties, including family sanctions and public humiliation, for silence or complicity. “In these societies, humiliation is death,” he noted, suggesting photos of captured Hamas members be plastered publicly to shred their honor.

This fear-based approach, Grosbard argued, could collapse Hamas’ grip without divisions of soldiers. A Hamas member who surrenders or frees a hostage would be spared, but only if group pressure, fueled by betrayal from within, forces compliance. “Military pressure alone won’t work; they’ll die with the hostages to save face. Humiliate them before their own people, and behavior changes,” he said.

For Israel, long outmaneuvered psychologically, Grosbard’s vision offers a provocative path to victory: weaponizing Gaza’s social fabric to make Hamas the hunted, not the hunter.

JPost contributed to this article.