Gaza’s fragile ceasefire is unraveling into internal warfare as armed clan militias challenge the remnants of a still-lethal Hamas, which has responded with a brutal crackdown that has left more than 30 people dead, including at least eight publicly executed.

From the northern ruins of Beit Lahia to the southern border with Egypt, family-based militias known as hamulas have emerged from the shadows, seized territory, controlled aid distribution and openly defied Hamas security forces weakened by months of Israeli bombardment. 

“What’s happening now is an attempt by remnants of Hamas’s militant elements to reassert control and prove their presence on the Palestinian scene,” Hussam al-Astl, a leader of the Counter-Terrorism Strike Force militia — an Israel-backed Palestinian militant group operating in Gaza — told Washington Times Middle East correspondents Waseem Abu Mahadi and Jacob Wirtschafter. “After losing nearly all of their military leaders and equipment during the war, they’re trying to show that they still dominate the Gaza Strip.”

The developments come amid questions over whether or not Hamas will disarm. Hamas moved Friday to shore up its ceasefire agreement with Israel by reaffirming its commitment to the terms of the deal, which includes a pledge to hand over the remains of all dead Israeli hostages.

Adm. Alvin Holsey, the head of U.S. Southern Command, is retiring amid stepped-up U.S. military operations in the region, including missile strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats from Venezuela and Mr. Trump’s announcement that he has authorized the CIA to operate inside the country against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.

The admiral hasn’t publicly confirmed the reason he opted to retire after a 37-year Navy career, just as military operations in the region he commands are heating up. The New York Times reports that he had raised questions about the mission, including the attacks on the suspected drug boats. Aircraft tracking data on Wednesday showed the U.S. military flew three B-52 bombers near Venezuela.

There has been no mention on the Pentagon website of Adm. Holsey’s retirement. Mr. Hegseth issued a post on X Thursday extending his “deepest gratitude” to Adm. Holsey for his distinguished service to the nation. He is expected to retire at year’s end. Mr. Hegseth’s X post made no mention, even implicit, of any friction between the two men.

Mr. Trump’s efforts to bring peace to Gaza earned the United States enormous credibility in capitals across the Middle East — but this week’s flex of American diplomatic muscle was too little, too late for one Gulf power upset over Israel’s stunning early September strike on Qatar.

Mr. Wirtschafter offers a dispatch from the region examining how just eight days after Israeli missiles struck Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital, Saudi Arabia formalized a mutual defense pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan that Gulf officials say marked the end of the region’s exclusive reliance on American protection.

The Sept. 17 agreement came as a direct response to what Saudi officials privately describe as Washington’s failure to defend even its closest Gulf allies. The Saudi pact with Pakistan, the Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement, declares that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both” — language that has sparked intense speculation about whether Saudi Arabia now falls under Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella.

The CIA’s Russia analysts are “no doubt assessing Mr. Putin’s objectives, which include seeking to deter NATO from supporting Ukraine, probing NATO’s tactical responses to airspace violations and making it clear that the U.S., the leader of the free world, is unable to deter the gray zone military aggression in Russia’s self-designated sphere of influence,” Daniel N. Hoffman writes in a column for The Times.

“Working closely with our NATO member partners, the U.S. intelligence community must collect information on Mr. Putin’s plans and intentions so the Trump administration’s national security team can coordinate and lead the most effective NATO strategy to deter Russia,” writes Mr. Hoffman, a retired CIA clandestine services officer and opinion contributor to Threat Status.

“Public statements about how NATO is prepared to act and backchannel messages to the Kremlin are not enough. NATO needs to demonstrate with action that it has the capability and fortitude to induce the Kremlin to change course,” he writes. “Immediately increasing NATO’s military assistance to Ukraine — with the U.S. serving as the arsenal of democracy with Tomahawk missiles and more air defense — would make it clear that Mr. Putin’s brinkmanship strategy is failing to achieve its objective.”

Clifford D. May, also a Threat Status contributor and the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warns that Hamas leaders “regard the ceasefire with Israel not as ‘peace’ but only a ‘hudna,’ Arabic for a truce during which they can prepare for the next battle in the centuries-long jihad.

“Are most Gaza residents good with that? The answer may be irrelevant because they haven’t been allowed to vote since 2006. Still, I would be curious to know,” Mr. May writes in The Times.

“I’m reminded of something said by my late, great colleague, scholar Michael Ledeen, more than 15 years ago: ‘Nothing is more devastating to a messianic movement than defeat,’” he writes. “We’ll soon know whether that maxim applies to Gaza, and perhaps the broader Middle East.”

• Oct. 20 — Are Geopolitics Leading to Fragmentation of the International Financial System? Brookings Institution

• Oct. 21 — Implications of the Military Junta’s Internal Shifts on Civil-Military Relations in Myanmar, Stimson Center

• Oct. 21 — The U.S. Enduring Human Presence in Orbit: Reflecting on the Future and Past 25 Years, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Oct. 22 — Europe’s Energy Transition: From Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine to Trump’s ‘Energy Dominance’ Agenda, Brookings Institution

• Oct. 28 — How America Failed to Disarm North Korea: Implications for the Future, Stimson Center