Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli journalist who was in the forefront of the media campaign to promote the 2005 Disengagement program that ended with the expulsion of Jews and withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza, has admitted that the move aided Hamas.

"While nobody can know what would have happened on the Palestinian side without the Disengagement, it is difficult to argue with the claim that the evacuation strengthened Hamas and contributed morally to its takeover of Gaza," he wrote in the Hebrew language daily Yediot Acharonot.