I would argue that the 2005 Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza created the vacuum that allowed Hamas to grow. Palestinians and Hamas interpreted that withdrawal as a validation of their resistance strategy [0]—including suicide bombings—and it boosted their confidence in the goal of liberating all of Palestine “from the river to the sea,” which effectively means the elimination of Israel.

So no, what really happened was precisely the opposite of “eliminating all other avenues of Palestinian political expression.”

0: https://besacenter.org/gaza-disengagement-lessons/