Some political statements are open to debate. Some assessments can reasonably be interpreted in different ways. And then there are assertions that simply do not survive contact with documented facts. On 22 September 2026, speaking from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, French President Emmanuel Macron declared, “Hamas has never operated in the West Bank.”
Only two days later, reality offered a far sharper response than any diplomatic argument could. In Qalqilya, just a few kilometers from Kfar Saba and major Israeli transport arteries, security forces uncovered a tunnel under construction reaching at least 25 meters below ground. At the same compound, they found weapons, a sniper rifle, an M16, magazines, different types of ammunition, bags of fertiliser that can be used as a component in explosives, mobile phones, and recording equipment. The beginning of another tunnel was also discovered.
For someone studying a map from Paris, New York, or Brussels, Qalqilya may look like just another small name in the Middle East. For me, it is not an abstract dot on a map. It is only minutes from my home, around a quarter of an hour from Tel Aviv and a few minutes from several other densely populated cities in central Israel. When underground infrastructure, weapons, and ammunition are found in an area this close to civilian population centres, the threat is neither theoretical nor remote. It is next door.
That is precisely why Macron’s statement matters. Not because this is merely another disagreement between Israel and France, and not because one must endorse the policy of one government or another. It matters because the public record contradicts it. United States terrorism reports have explicitly stated that Hamas has operated in the West Bank. In March 2025, Reuters reported that Israeli forces killed Aysar al Saadi, described as the head of the Hamas network in the Jenin area, and that Hamas confirmed his death. Reuters also described Hamas as having built up a significant presence in the West Bank. This is not a semantic dispute. There is a documented public record of Hamas activity in the territory.
The problem, therefore, is not an unfortunate choice of words. It is strategic blindness. When the leader of a nuclear power makes an absolute assertion from the UN podium that can be disproved by open sources, government reports, and major international news agencies, the obvious question is not ideological. It is professional: what intelligence picture, what briefing, and what basic fact-checking produced that conclusion?
The Middle East is a particularly unforgiving place for absolute statements built on partial knowledge. Terror organisations do not need to hang a flag over a government building in order to operate. They work through cells, intermediaries, financing networks, smuggling routes, recruitment, local infrastructure, weapons caches, and remote direction. Anyone searching only for a signboard marked ‘Hamas’ may fail to see the organisation even when its operatives are active in plain sight.
The Iranian dimension is equally real. In March 2024, Reuters reported that Israeli security forces said they had intercepted advanced weapons being smuggled from Iran into the West Bank. United States terrorism reports have for years documented Iranian support for Hamas and other designated Palestinian terrorist organisations, including through weapons, funding, and training. This is part of a broader regional method in which Tehran uses proxies, partners, and covert networks to apply pressure on its adversaries far beyond Iran’s own borders.
Turkey and Qatar play roles that are different from Iran’s, and serious analysis should not blur those distinctions. Both, however, have for years been important political, financial, and diplomatic actors in the wider ecosystem surrounding Hamas. That is precisely why a responsible assessment must distinguish between operational support, financing, political sponsorship, diplomatic shelter, influence, and smuggling rather than compressing the entire region into one convenient slogan.
The central lesson of 7 October is that catastrophe does not begin on the morning terrorists cross a border. It begins years earlier, when warning signs are repeatedly explained away, when growing capabilities are mistaken for temporary deterrence, and when institutions become accustomed to believing that an enemy will not do tomorrow what it openly declares and prepares to do today. After 7 October, Israel cannot afford that failure again, certainly not in an arena lying minutes from its largest population centres.
This is where the responsibility of foreign leaders becomes relevant. No one expects the President of France, the British Prime Minister, or any other foreign leader to know every alley in Jenin or every village in Samaria. But there is a reasonable expectation that an absolute claim about whether a terrorist organisation operates in a particular territory should be checked before it is delivered from one of the world’s most prominent diplomatic stages. Speaking at the United Nations does not reduce the obligation to verify facts. It increases it.
The United Nations itself has faced persistent criticism from governments, scholars, and publics across the world over its effectiveness, consistency, and ability to prevent wars, enforce resolutions, and confront authoritarian regimes and terrorist organisations. Those criticisms are contested, but they cannot simply be dismissed. Precisely because the UN repeatedly faces questions about its relevance and credibility, factual accuracy from its podium should be treated as a minimum standard, not an optional extra. A prestigious stage does not transform an inaccurate statement into reality.
Anyone who seeks to speak authoritatively about the Middle East should first do the homework. Not in order to adopt an Israeli, Palestinian, French, or American narrative, but in order to understand the region before prescribing policy for it. The balance of power here is not defined only by armies and governments. It is shaped by non-state actors, financing networks, smuggling systems, foreign patronage, influence campaigns, and local cells operating inside a much larger regional strategy.
The tunnel discovered in Qalqilya does not prove that every worst-case scenario will materialise tomorrow morning. It does, however, underline how detached it is to describe the West Bank as a place where Hamas has never operated. When weapons, ammunition, and underground infrastructure are uncovered only kilometers from Kfar Saba, and when the public record documents Hamas activity in the area over many years, denying the organisation’s presence is not a serious strategic assessment. It is a refusal to engage with the facts.
And facts in the Middle East have a habit of eventually reaching those who prefer not to see them. Sometimes they arrive in an intelligence report. Sometimes in a Reuters headline. And sometimes they are found 25 meters underground, five minutes from home.