# Proof Narrative: The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza removed every settlement and military outpost AND resulted in Hamas winning the January 2006 parliamentary elections followed by its complete takeover of the territory in 2007.

## Verdict

**Verdict: PROVED (with unverified citations)**

Every part of this compound claim checks out. The disengagement was total, the election outcome is unambiguous, and Hamas's seizure of Gaza two years later is well-documented — the chain of events holds from beginning to end.

## What was claimed?

The claim bundles two things together: first, that Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza was complete — no settlements left standing, no military boots on the ground; and second, that what followed was a specific political sequence — Hamas winning the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, then seizing full control of Gaza in 2007. This is the kind of claim that circulates widely in debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, often used to argue about the consequences of territorial concessions. Getting the facts straight matters.

## What did we find?

The withdrawal itself was as complete as claimed. All 21 Israeli civilian settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled during August and September 2005. Multiple independent sources — including Britannica and Wikipedia — confirm this without qualification. The Israeli military also pulled its ground forces from Gaza soil, finishing the withdrawal by September 12, 2005.

On the elections: Palestinian legislative elections were held on January 25, 2006. Hamas ran under the name "Change and Reform" and won 74 of 132 seats — 56 percent of the legislature, a clear parliamentary majority, not just a plurality. Two independent sources confirm the seat count. This result ended Fatah's long dominance of Palestinian political institutions.

The 2007 takeover followed a period of escalating violence between Hamas and Fatah. The confrontation peaked in June 2007. By June 15, Hamas had seized every Palestinian Authority government institution inside Gaza, replacing all officials with its own people. Both Wikipedia's account of the Battle of Gaza and the Economic Cooperation Foundation describe it as a complete Hamas victory. No part of Gaza remained under Fatah or Palestinian Authority control after that date.

The one caveat worth noting on the withdrawal: Israel retained control of Gaza's airspace and coastline after the pullout. The United Nations and various human rights organizations argue this constitutes a continued form of occupation. That debate is real. But it does not change the factual record — no Israeli settlement and no Israeli ground military installation remained on Gaza soil after September 2005.

## What should you keep in mind?

The claim uses the phrase "resulted in," implying the disengagement caused Hamas's election win. That causal link is contested. Scholars point to multiple factors behind Hamas's 2006 victory — Fatah's corruption, poor governance, and Hamas's extensive social service network among them. The disengagement may have been a contributing factor, but it was not the sole or proven cause. What this verification established is the temporal sequence: withdrawal completed in September 2005, elections held in January 2006, takeover completed in June 2007. That sequence is uncontested. Causation is a separate and harder question.

One citation used to confirm the election result required a less reliable verification method on the automated side. However, a second independent source confirmed the same facts with a clean match, so the conclusion does not rest on the weaker citation alone. Three of the seven sources consulted also come from organizations whose credibility the automated system could not fully classify — the ADL, GlobalSecurity.org, and the Economic Cooperation Foundation. Each of those claims is corroborated by higher-tier reference sources, but readers who want full confidence should verify those sources independently.

## How was this verified?

This claim was broken into four testable sub-claims and checked against independent sources for each. Every sub-claim required at least two confirming sources before it could be considered established, and counter-evidence searches were run for each. You can read the full findings in [the structured proof report](proof.md), examine every citation and computation step in [the full verification audit](proof_audit.md), or [re-run the proof yourself](proof.py).