How strong is Hamas?
Hamas fighters take part in a military parade
"Does Hamas still exist militarily? Yes. Is it organised? No. The path to completely dismantling them goes on."
That was the view of a senior Israeli military official in March this year, but two months later – and more than seven months since the 7 October attack that led to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge to "eliminate" the Islamist group – Israel has "failed to destroy Hamas as a military and political force" Beverley Milton-Edwards, co-author of a forthcoming book "HAMAS", wrote in The Times.
What did the commentators say?
At the time of the surprise assault that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken hostage, Israel put Hamas's military strength at between 30,000 and 40,000 fighters.
Three months later, in an article published by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, military analyst Yoav Zitun admitted the Israeli army had been "amazed every day by how strong Hamas is" in the face of intense airstrikes and ground operations by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
"It is a real army that was established 50 minutes from Tel Aviv over the past years" he said. Hamas has a stockpile of "hundreds of thousands of weapons", including advanced rocket launchers, explosive drones, machine guns and Kalashnikov rifles, supported by advanced communication systems and supplied by a network of tunnels spread across Gaza.
By spring of this year,the war appeared to be finally taking its toll on the Islamist group. Following months of bombardment by air, land and sea, insiders and regional experts were clear that the overall picture for Hamas was "grim", the Financial Times said in March.
Estimates of Hamas's strength are "notoriously difficult", but Israeli intelligence assessments indicate that at least 18 of its 24 battalions have been "dismantled as organised fighting forces". Half its fighters, including a number of top field commanders, are believed to have been killed, leaving behind "small guerrilla cells, emerging to fire rocket-propelled grenades or place explosive devices" said the FT. The majority of fighters are now believed to be hiding in and around the southern city of Rafah ahead of a planned assault by Israeli forces.
What constitutes victory for both sides remains wildly different, however, and this is a problem for Israel and for hopes of a peaceful post-war settlement. "Let's assume that all of Gaza lies in ruins, and someone will stand there left from Hamas, a wounded soldier, and will raise a Hamas flag — they've won the war," said Micha Kobi, a retired former senior official in Israel’s Shin Bet security agency. "That’s what they believe."
What next?
Strength can be measured in more than just numbers. Support for Hamas within the enclave "remains relatively undiminished", said Milton-Edwards, and a majority of Gazans recently polled still believe Hamas will win the war.
Hamas may have lost as many as half its fighters, Michael Milshtein, an ex-military intelligence officer and now a researcher at Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center told DW, "but this gap can be closed quickly".
"In Gaza there are plenty of young Palestinians that wish to join the Hamas militia," he said, echoing the belief of the group's founder Sheikh Yassin that behind every martyr are a thousand others ready for the battle.
Whatever its numbers, US intelligence analysts foresee Hamas being able to continue a "lingering armed resistance for years to come", using its extensive underground tunnel network to "hide, regain strength and surprise Israeli forces".
For Hamas, "strategic patience is a virtue" said Foreign Affairs. In order to achieve its primary goal of initiating a "longer and inexorable process leading to Israel's destruction" Hamas "needed to get out from under the burden of governing the Gaza Strip, which it had concluded was undermining rather than enabling its attacks on Israel".
Freed of that responsibility, Hamas can now carry through with its promise "to repeat the October 7 attack, time and again, until Israel is annihilated."
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Gaza war to determine lives of Israelis for decades, says Gallant
Defence Minister of Israel Yoav Gallant speaks during a memorial ceremony for Israel's fallen and victims of terrorism.
The outcome of the ongoing Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinian extremist organization Hamas will determine the lives of Israelis in the coming decades, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday.
"This is a war with no alternative," said Gallant during a speech to mark the country's official memorial day to commemorate its fallen soldiers.
"This is a war that will continue until we return our hostages, smash Hamas' rule and its military capabilities, and return the State of Israel to its prosperity and creativity and bring back a smile to citizens' faces," the minister said.
Israel began its military campaign to eliminate Hamas following the unprecedented October 7 attacks on southern Israel when the Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took a further 250 people hostage to the Gaza Strip.
Israel responded with massive airstrikes and launched a ground offensive into the sealed-off coastal area at the end of October.
Some 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war so far, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled health authority.
Gallant said one of the aims of the Israeli military campaign was to enable the roughly 250,000 Israeli citizens who had to leave their homes near Gaza and Lebanon, amid fighting with the Shiite Hezbollah militia, to return.
Israel marked its annual Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the Wars of Israel and Victims of Actions of Terrorism on Monday.
According to the Defence Ministry, more than 25,000 soldiers and and Jewish fighters have been killed in conflict since 1860.
The count begins with the immigration of Jews into what is now Israel, long before the founding of the state in 1948. Sirens sounded for two minutes across the country on Monday morning to commemorate the dead.
Since October 7, more than 700 Israeli security forces have been killed, including 620 soldiers, according to the Defence Ministry.
The figures include both those killed by militants in the October 7 attacks and during the Gaza war.
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Israeli Defense Forces push deeper into southern Rafah
The Israeli military is pressing deeper into Rafah to fight against Hamas as tensions have soared between the U.S. and Israel over the potential for major fighting in Gaza’s southernmost city that is sheltering some 1.3 million Palestinians.
The Israeli army reported Sunday that troops are conducting “precise operations” in specific areas of eastern Rafah. Israeli forces have dismantled tunnel shafts and rocket launchers and killed at least 10 Hamas fighters, according to the army.
Israel issued evacuation orders for eastern Rafah on Saturday and claims that 300,00 Palestinians have moved to a humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, a small town on the coast of Gaza.
Israel first moved into Rafah last week, seizing a border crossing with Egypt that has been crucial for the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The operations appear to still be limited. The U.S. is warning against a major operation in Rafah, as President Biden is holding up some 3,500 heavy bombs over concerns about their use in the densely populated city.
Biden has drawn a red line on Rafah, saying he will not support an operation there and would not provide offensive weapons for such an attack, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would fight on alone if needed.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated the U.S. threat that further weapons shipments could be suspended if Israel launches a wider operation into Rafah.
“What we’ve been clear about is that if Israel launches this major military operation into Rafah, then there are certain systems that we’re not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation,” he told CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Despite the rift, Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command, arrived in Israel over the weekend to coordinate and discuss the war against Hamas.
Israeli forces also returned to fight in northern Gaza in areas the military had previously cleared of Hamas, underscoring the resiliency of the Palestinian militant group despite intense pressure from Israel.
Palestinian news agencies reported heavy bombardment at the Jabalia refugee camp, with clashes between Israeli forces and Hamas near schools.
The Israeli army said on Telegram it moved into Jabalia “based on intelligence information regarding attempts by Hamas to reassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area” and also reported operations in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, which had been previously cleared months ago.
Israel has repeatedly returned to areas it has cleared of Hamas fighters to fight a resurgence, but fighting in the north largely ended at the end of 2023, before Israeli troops turned to focus on the south, including the city of Khan Younis.
The fighting comes as United Nations has said there is a full-blown famine in northern Gaza and as the rest of the territory struggles to access basic supplies such as food and water.
After seizing the Rafah checkpoint, Israel now controls all of the humanitarian aid border crossings. The Israeli army claimed Sunday that it opened another crossing, western Erez, the third such checkpoint in northern Gaza after eastern Erez and Gate 96.
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But the United Nations warned over the weekend that food distribution was expected to run out Sunday.
“That means people will be left only with what has already been distributed,” said Georgios Petropoulos, the head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) said fuel supplies are running low, forcing local bakeries to shut down, while the few remaining hospitals are also at risk of suspending operations.
“The IRC urgently calls on Israel to halt further violence in Rafah and across the Gaza Strip,” the humanitarian aid group said on the social platform X. “It is imperative that all viable crossing points are opened immediately to ensure unfettered access to more than two million Palestinians in desperate need.”
There Are Only Three Ways Out of Israel and Hamas’ War
The problem with all the peace plans for Gaza that U.S., Egyptian, and other foreign diplomats have offered in the past few months is that the parties fighting the war—Israel and Hamas—have very different requirements for stopping it, and therefore they won’t stop it unless and until some allied power forces them to do so.
The question is whether those allies have the leverage and the will to make them stop. Seven months into this war, it doesn’t seem that they do. The horrible irony is that neither Israel nor Hamas could keep fighting for long without the material support of their allies. The allies—some of whom are the ones tirelessly but fruitlessly negotiating the terms of a cease-fire—clearly want the war to stop. So, what’s the hang-up?
Many news reports have focused on the disputes over how many Israeli hostages will be freed for how many Palestinian prisoners, during a cease-fire lasting how many days. But these matters are trivial. The crucial, much harder issue to resolve is what happens next.
Hamas is demanding that, in tandem with the exchange of hostages and prisoners, Israeli troops pull out of Gaza entirely and that the cease-fire turns into a permanent truce. Israel is saying it will resume the war after the hostages come home until Hamas is destroyed as a political and military force. Meanwhile, some of the outside powers—mainly the U.S., Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, as well as vocal observers in Europe and the United Nations—are pushing for a peaceful settlement of the wider, long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, preferably through the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will never stand for such a state. The leaders of Hamas don’t want one, either; they want to keep fighting their “war of resistance” until Israel and its 7 million Jews are wiped out.
That’s the problem in a nutshell. Hamas and Israel have opposing war aims. (This is why most wars throughout history begin and keep raging, despite unspeakable carnage and destruction.) And neither side, for different reasons, has any interest in the outside would-be peacemakers’ vision of a postwar settlement.
There are only three ways out of this impasse. One side wins; both sides, exhausted, limp to an armistice; or outside powers impose a peace upon them.
In this case, each combatant thinks it can win, so neither is inclined to make concessions. In this sense they share a delusional frame of mind. Hamas’ delusion is rooted in millenarian fantasy, bolstered by the fervent wish that their fellow jihadists in the region will join the war. When Hamas plowed across Israel’s southern border on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 Jews, most of them civilians, its leaders hoped—perhaps they’d been led to expect—that Hezbollah would simultaneously launch massive missile strikes from the north and Iran would do the same from the east. Israel would thus be enveloped in a three-front war far more perilous than the last such war, in 1973, which Israel just barely won.
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For various reasons, Hamas’ dream didn’t materialize. But what did happen served Hamas’ interests nearly as well. Israel’s leaders, in their understandable rage, overreacted, razed whole neighborhoods all across Gaza, mainly with 2,000-pound bombs, before collecting intelligence on the precise whereabouts of Hamas leaders. In a bigger failure still, they sent tanks and infantry rolling into Gaza without first devising a plan on how to pacify the area after the war is over. (In recent days, Israeli military officers have begun to criticize Netanyahu openly about this failure.) Finally, the Israelis neglected to reach out diplomatically to their Sunni Arab allies, especially the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who want to pursue good relations with Israel (which they see as a potent ally in their struggle against Iran and its Shiite militias) but who also have to worry about alienating radicals in their own countries.
And so, as Palestinian casualties inevitably mounted (the Gazan health ministry puts the death toll now at 35,000; Israel estimates that a third of them were armed militiamen, not civilians), world opinion turned against Israel. Some of the more vocal Western protesters not only assailed Israel’s excesses, but also hailed Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis (who were shelling commercial vessels in the Mediterranean) as heroes.
The more extreme protesters are driven by propaganda, antisemitism, and ignorance of Middle East history, but many others are motivated by Israel’s insensitivity to the plight of Palestinian civilians. And the Israeli government has done itself no favors by waving off all its critics. Israelis have long had a problem with hasbara, the Hebrew word for public diplomacy. They are aware that much of the world is hostile toward their country and their religion, but rather than try to deal with the hatred, they tend to sneer at it, defy it, and proudly proclaim a determination to go it alone, bolstered by a pride in how they transformed their land into an economic powerhouse and improbably won a series of multifront wars. A widespread attitude emerged: If the world can’t sympathize with us after Oct. 7, when more Jews were killed in a single day than any time since the Holocaust, then to hell with what the world thinks.
And so, as even President Joe Biden—the most pro-Israel occupant of the White House ever—steps up his criticism of Israel’s war policy, threatening to suspend the shipment of certain weapons if it mounts an all-out offensive against the southern Gazan town of Rafah, where more than 1 million Gazan refugees have settled and as many of them starve, Netanyahu gives him the finger. Israel will go into Rafah, he declares, no matter what the world says or how many civilians are killed in the process. And, if America pulls back its support, Israel will “stand alone” and “fight with fingernails,” if necessary.
This sort of rhetoric helps nobody. It is particularly inappropriate, even preposterous, coming just weeks after a massive Iranian air strike—more than 300 missiles and drones, including 110 ballistic missiles, all in the air at the same time, headed toward Israeli targets—was staved off, thanks to a combined, coordinated air-defense campaign mounted by Israel, the U.S., England, France, and Jordan. If Israel had tried to repel the attack on its own, many—well over 100—of those Iranian weapons would have pierced the shields and wreaked a lot of damage.
The fact is, Israel cannot fight alone, and has never been able to do so. In the 1948 war, it depended heavily on weapons provided by Czechoslovakia. And in all the wars since, it depended heavily on weapons—and intelligence—provided by the United States.
Similarly, Hamas cannot fight alone. It receives weapons, training, and technical assistance from Iran and its proxy militias. It also receives economic and political support from Qatar, which also hosts many of its political leaders in luxury. The Qatari connection is strange, since the tiny, oil-rich Gulf state also hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, as a result of which it has been declared “a major non-NATO ally.”
In any case, neither side in this war can achieve the “total victory” that its leaders say they seek. Hamas can’t drive Jews out of Israel, especially if Iran is unwilling to join in. Israelis can’t destroy Palestinian militancy, even if they wipe out Hamas’ last battalion, especially if they keep killing civilians and have no plan to rebuild Gaza—or reform Palestinian political authority—after the war is over. (Even as troops close in on Rafah, hoping to kill Hamas’ last holdouts, Israeli officials told the Times of Israel that Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, isn’t in Rafah, as the government has publicly claimed, but is still hiding in Khan Younis, which was heavily bombarded, apparently to little strategic effect.)
One lesson of history is that all of the Israeli-Arab wars over the past 76 years—since Israel’s founding as a state—have been ended by pressure from outside powers. In some cases, it was the U.S. pressuring Israel; in other cases, during the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union pressuring Syria or Egypt; in some cases, it was the United Nations pressuring all the combatants.
In those earlier wars, at least one outside power—in some cases all of them, working jointly—had the leverage and legitimacy to exert that pressure. But in crucial ways, they no longer do. The Soviet Union and its empire folded long ago. Some thought that the U.S. would thus emerge as “the sole superpower,” but in fact, it lost influence; some countries felt they could go their own way, no longer needing to tie their fates to the U.S. in exchange for protection from the Red Bear across the horizon. Israel, meanwhile, built up a powerful lobbying organization that made it much harder for American presidents to apply pressure. (President Ronald Reagan’s administration, hardly anti-Israel, cut off weapons to Israel on a few occasions and voted in favor of seven U.N. resolutions condemning Israel for some action or another. Reagan was never accused of being anti-Israel or antisemitic. Now presidents are lambasted on the few occasions they abstain from, rather than veto, critical resolutions.)
Meanwhile, the Sunni Arab leaders in the region have never stepped up to a leadership role in creating or preserving peace—though it’s time they do so. The Saudi royals very much want to “normalize” relations with Israel, but fear the response from their own people if they get too close while Israel is still bombing Gaza and refusing even to pay lip service to the idea of resuming negotiations toward a Palestinian state. Egypt tries to play it both ways. Its leaders never wanted any part in dealing with Palestinians; they have erected a wall on Egypt’s border with southern Gaza much higher than the wall Israel built on the northern border. They allowed Israeli troops to enter the Gaza–Egypt border on their way to Rafah—the troops couldn’t have crossed the border without Egypt’s active cooperation. And yet Egyptian officials now say they might rip up their peace treaty with Israel—which has been in effect for 50 years—if those same troops invade the town of Rafah outright.
“The first casualty when war comes is truth,” as the old saw has it. This goes to the nth degree when it comes to war in this region, where illusion, hypocrisy, and mendacity reign as in few others. The players that have the power to exercise leadership need to start acting like leaders.
U.S. warns Israel has no plan to eliminate Hamas as IDF battles regrouped militants in northern Gaza
The Israeli military intensified its attacks on northern Gaza on Monday, battling a regrouped Hamas in areas it said it had cleared and renewing questions over Israeli strategy in the war as the United States issued some of its harshest public criticism yet.
Israel has insisted that it must invade Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where more than 1 million people had sought refuge, in order to accomplish its core objective of "eliminating" Hamas' presence in the enclave after months of fighting further north.
But Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Sunday that even a full-scale ground assault on Rafah would fail to achieve that goal.
Israel is "on the trajectory, potentially, to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy and probably refilled by Hamas,” he said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
"Even if it goes in and takes heavy action in Rafah, there will still be thousands of armed Hamas left," Blinken said, noting that "we’ve seen, in areas that Israel has cleared in the north, even in Khan Younis, Hamas coming back."
Already, he said, Israel's offensive has led to a "horrible loss of life of innocent civilians," with the death toll in the Gaza Strip soaring over the weekend past 35,000, according to local health officials. He also noted the Biden administration's recent report, which found that Israel's use of weapons provided by the United States likely violated international humanitarian law.
Blinken said that instead of focusing on an assault on Rafah, Israel should prioritize presenting a credible post-war plan for Gaza.
"We’ve been talking to them about a much better way of getting an enduring result, enduring security," said Blinken, who spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday in a call reiterating U.S. opposition to "a major military ground operation in Rafah," according to the State Department. Gallant's office said he had discussed issues including "the precise operation in the Rafah area against remaining Hamas battalions."
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The call came amid mounting splits between the two close allies over Israel's handling of its deadly military offensive in Gaza.
Talks for a new cease-fire deal have seemingly broken down, and President Joe Biden threatened last week to halt the shipment of certain arms to Israel should it launch a full-scale assault on Rafah.
Nearly 360,000 people have fled the city since Israel ordered a partial evacuation a week ago and sent tanks in, according to the United Nations.
That led to the closing of two main border crossings into the Palestinian enclave, sparking outcry from doctors and aid groups, while officials warned Monday that the health system was on the verge of collapsing because of dwindling supplies of food and fuel.
"We are only a few hours away from the collapse of the health system in the Gaza Strip as a result of the failure to bring in the fuel needed to operate electricity generators in hospitals, ambulances and transport employees," the Gaza Health Ministry said.
The Israel Defense Forces said last week that the Kerem Shalom crossing — where four IDF soldiers had been killed in a Hamas attack — had reopened and announced Sunday the opening of a separate crossing in northern Gaza, the “Western Erez” crossing, in coordination with the U.S.
The Palestinian Crossings Authority has disputed claims that Kerem Shalom has been open in recent days, while a senior U.N. official told NBC News that while it was technically open, it has been extremely difficult for humanitarian organizations to reach and distribute aid entering through the crossing.
“The U.N. is only able to collect very limited types of aid under very challenging circumstances,” said Georgios Petropoulos, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) mission in Gaza. The Rafah crossing, the main lifeline for aid into Gaza, has been closed since it was seized last Tuesday by Israeli forces.
On Monday, the office of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres confirmed the death of a staff member in a strike in Rafah as a U.N. vehicle was on its way to a hospital. Another staff member was injured.
Guterres called for a full investigation in a statement from his deputy spokesperson.
"With the conflict in Gaza continuing to take a heavy toll — not only on civilians, but also on humanitarian workers — the Secretary-General reiterates his urgent appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and for the release of all hostages," the statement said.
The IDF said earlier in the day that two of its soldiers were seriously injured in southern Gaza, as well as a civilian contractor working on behalf of Israel's Defense Ministry. According to the military statement, two other people who were on missions in the area were "lightly injured."
The military said later in a statement that the incident involving two members of the U.N. Department of Safety and Security is under review and that the IDF had not been made aware of the vehicle's route.
"An initial inquiry conducted indicates that the vehicle was hit in an area declared an active combat zone," the IDF said.
Meanwhile, northern Gaza has been isolated for months, with the head of the World Food Programme telling NBC News earlier this month that she believes there is a “full-blown famine” in the area.
Yet, despite the toll of Israel's military operation on civilians in Gaza, Hamas appeared far from beaten.
The IDF said Sunday that its forces had launched an operation around the Jabalia camp in northern Gaza after issuing calls for civilians to "temporarily evacuate" the area. The IDF said it was acting on intelligence regarding "attempts by Hamas to reassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area."
The IDF said the assault was unfolding alongside military action in the area of Zeitoun in Gaza City as its troops also pushed deeper into Rafah.
Hamas' military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement on Telegram early Monday that militants were still "engaged in fierce clashes" east of the Jabalia camp, as well as in the south.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested in a phone call with his Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi, on Sunday that instead of invading Rafah, "alternative courses of action" could be necessary to ensure that Hamas is defeated "everywhere in Gaza," according to a readout of the call.
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Israeli forces launched their assault following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli officials, marking a major escalation in the decadeslong conflict. More than 130 people remain held captive in Gaza, with at least a quarter of the hostages believed to be dead.
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