A Victory Coalition Virtual Briefing

A Situation Report on the Mideast Peace Deal

A Victory Coalition Briefing on the Progress to Date and the Challenges Ahead

1:00–2:15 p.m. ET
October 16, 2025

The past week has seen dramatic developments with respect to the conflict in Gaza, the agreement to a ceasefire there and the prospects for a wider regional peace. The release by Hamas of twenty live hostages in exchange for ten times as many incarcerated jihadists and others detained by Israel has been completed, but the remains of most of those Israelis who died after their seizure on October 7, 2023 have not been released to Israel. There has, moreover, been little progress on other key elements of President Trump’s 20-point plan.

Particularly worrying is the fact that Hamas has not laid down its arms. To the contrary, it has used them to attempt to take hostage withdrawing IDF personnel and to massacre some Palestinians who might have provided a peaceful alternative to the jihadists’ misrule and threats to Israel.

To his credit, President Trump has made clear that Hamas must and “will” disarm. He then declared: “If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them. And it will happen quickly and perhaps violently.” He subsequently added that, if he said the word, Israel would be able to “knock the crap out of them.”

This briefing addresses the state of play in the wake of Mr. Trump’s brief visit to the Israeli Knesset and the multilateral summit in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh; Hamas’ ongoing failure to honor its commitments; the implications of having Turkish and Egyptian forces financed by Qatar on the ground in Gaza, and possibly in Judea and Samaria; the presence of large numbers of soldiers and their equipment forward-deployed in Sinai in violation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty; the continued operation in Gaza of UN and NGO “humanitarian aid workers” known to be linked to Hamas; and sundry other as-yet-undefined and/or un-implemented commitments by the parties.

Moderator:

Frank Gaffney, President, Institute for the American Future; Member, Victory Coalition; Briefing Co-sponsor; host, “Securing America”

Panelists:

Lt. Cmdr./Dr. David Wurmser, PhD, Former Middle East Advisor to the Vice President and the National Security Advisor; Director, Middle East Program, Center for Security Policy; naval intelligence veteran
Maj. Eliott Chodoff, Israel Defense Force (Res.), combat veteran; strategic and military analyst; podcaster, “Conflict Uncovered”
Kenneth Abramowitz, founder of Save The West; chairman of Citizens for National Security; author The Multifront War: Defending America From Political Islam, China, Russia, Pandemics, and Racial Strife; co-founder and Managing General Partner of NGN Capital