‘Hamas has never been stronger’: Israel is stuck in a war it can’t win

Elizabeth Blade

July 3, 2024

Through April, the IDF had targeted more than 32,000 military sites belonging to Hamas and its allies. In June, Israel announced that 15,000 of the group's militants  had been eliminated. But experts are certain those measures won’t eradicate the Islamic group that has been in charge of Gaza since 2007.

“We are advancing to the end of the stage of eliminating the Hamas terrorist army,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, addressing the cadets of Israel National Defense College.

“I was very impressed by the achievements above ground and below ground, and by the commanders’ fighting spirit. With this spirit we will achieve our objectives: Returning our hostages, eliminating Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat...” he added.

Since October 7, 2023 – when hordes of Hamas militants attacked Israel and killed more than 1,500 people – Israel has eliminated dozens of Hamas tunnels. It has seized weapons depots and cash, destroyed various military sites, killed operatives of Hamas and of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and captured thousands others.

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Before the deadly October 7 attack, the Islamic group that has been in control of the Strip since 2007, boasted five brigades or 25 battalions with a total number of active combatants standing at 30,000.

In June, Israel admitted that it had only eliminated half of that original force, or 15,000 Hamas combatants. On Tuesday evening, the country’s chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, said Israeli forces had killed at least 900 militants in Rafah, south of the Strip.

Reports suggest that Hamas is now actively recruiting new cadets, many of whom are 18 year-olds, to replenish its ranks, but even if they fail to reach their initial numbers, the existing battalions are more than enough to challenge Israel.

Just on Monday, Hamas militants fired twenty rockets from Khan Yunis at Israel’s southern communities, showing they are still capable of putting up a fight. Areas that had been vacant of Hamas before are now seeing a resurgence. Israeli soldiers continue to fall in the Strip, almost on a daily basis, with the total number already exceeding 670.

“I don’t believe Israel can destroy Hamas completely,” said Shadi Abdelrahman, a political analyst and native of Gaza who left the Strip shortly before the war.

“Hamas is not like any other group. They are not outsiders. They have an ideology connected to a cause, and that cause is to fight for their lands or to avenge the death of their loves ones,” he added.

Stemming from the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist organization that’s deemed terrorist by many regional and international players, Hamas was established in Gaza in late 1980s as a response to what they call Israeli occupation and the inability of other Palestinian factions, including Fatah, to confront it. But they were far more than just a group that wanted to resist Israel militarily. Just like their patrons, the Muslim Brotherhood, they were a social movement: they established schools and hospitals, they ran charities and served as mediators in family feuds, and that made them an indispensable part of the Gazan society.

“Socially speaking, Hamas of today doesn’t have that much power and cannot provide what it used to before, simply because they cannot move freely due to Israel’s heavy shelling,” explained Abdelrahman.

“Militarily, their capabilities have also been damaged. The stocks of their weapons have been depleting, many tunnels have been destroyed, infrastructure has been devastated. Their combatants must be exhausted as they have been fighting for a long time. But from the political point of view, Hamas has never been stronger,” added the analyst.

According to a recent poll, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 67% of Palestinians – both in the West Bank and Gaza – believe that Hamas was right in launching the deadly October attack, while 61% said they would want to see Hamas, not any other group, control the Strip after the war.

Holding on to power

Hamas is already taking steps in that direction. Leading fierce negotiations with Israel through Egyptian and Qatari mediators, Hamas says loud and clear that it has no intention to relinquish its power when the war is over. Israel insists it will only stop the current confrontation if Hamas is out of the picture. But an Egyptian official involved in the talks between Israel and the Islamic group, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said the Jewish state will not have any other choice but to let Hamas play a role in the governing force of the enclave when the conflict ends.

“Israel doesn’t want to see Hamas going back to power but, whether they like it or not, Hamas will play a role in the future government of the Strip, probably together with the Palestinian Authority.”

Officials in Jerusalem, however, seem to have other plans. Reports suggest that Israel is mulling assuming military control over the enclave that would gradually be replaced by the rule of moderate Arab states. Once things stabilize, Israel would then hand over the keys to the Palestinians, but this would be new players, neither Hamas, nor the Palestinian Authority, whom Israel has been accusing of supporting and funding terror.

Mistakes of the past

However, Miriam Wardak, a former aide to Afghanistan’s national security advisor, says the actions of Israel remind her of the behavior of the US two decades ago.

In 2001, after the deadly 9/11 attacks, the US invaded Afghanistan in a bid to collapse the rule of the Taliban, a radical Islamist organization. In addition to intense military pressure, the US and its allies also tried to bolster secular local governance, but two decades and $2.3 billion later, Washington failed to achieve its goal. In August 2021, the Taliban seized power again, and US forces had no choice but to pull out.

Looking back at the events that led to that fiasco, Wardak says Washington and its allies “struggled to establish strong, sustainable local governance and security forces,” a circumstance that led to widespread corruption and inefficiency within the Afghan government. They also failed to drain the support of external actors, to tackle the Taliban’s ability to exploit local grievances, and they couldn’t cope with the group’s guerrilla tactics that undermined US and Afghan forces.

Now, the former aide says, Israel seems to be repeating these mistakes.

“To start off, Israel – just like the US – might be underestimating its rival’s ability to adapt, survive and maintain support despite intense military pressure. Secondly, Israel may not be sufficiently addressing the external support Hamas receives from regional actors. Thirdly, Israel’s heavy military operations that cause significant civilian casualties only increase local and international opposition, and what’s worse they also lead to further radicalization,” she argued.

Wardak is certain that destroying Hamas will be a tough nut to crack. Drawing lessons from the American experience in Afghanistan, she believes military pressure cannot be the only answer.

 

“To effectively address the threat posed by Hamas, Israel should consider a multifaceted approach. To begin with, it needs to improve the living conditions in Gaza. It should support the development of legitimate and effective Palestinian governance structures that can counterbalance Hamas’s influence.”

“Furthermore, Israel should work closely with international partners to apply diplomatic and economic pressure on Hamas while avoiding actions that alienate the broader Palestinian population. Conducting precise, intelligence-driven operations to weaken Hamas’s military capabilities while minimizing civilian casualties is essential. Finally, exploring opportunities for indirect dialogue and conflict resolution mechanisms could help reduce hostilities and create conditions for a long-term political solution,” she summed up.

 

Israel’s starvation policy in Gaza is forcing people to eat tree leaves

Tareq S. Hajjaj

Ahmad Abdulrahim, 38, strolled the remains of the markets in Gaza City with 150 Shekels in his pocket, the amount of money he used to feed his family of five for a week before the genocide. Today, that amount can hardly buy a single meal.

The markets, now little more than bombed-out remains, are empty of all basic needs, including vegetables, meat, and fruits. For the majority of people, such luxuries are unavailable except at unimaginable prices. Most vegetables, rare though they are, come from people’s gardens.

All Ahmad could find were cleaning supplies and canned foods. Ahmad told Mondoweiss that due to his children’s long-term dependence on these foods, they’ve started to develop health problems. After a protracted search, Ahmad found some zucchini; he walked faster when he noticed the seller, who had placed them in a small pile on the ground on top of a plastic bag. When he asked about the price, he was surprised to know that one kilogram of zucchini cost 80 Shekels ($20). Before the war, it used to be 3 shekels per kilo (less than a dollar).

Such was the price for most other vegetables that could be found. One kilo of green peppers cost 250 shekels ($66), where it used to be 5 ($1.4). One kilo of cucumber and tomato cost 90-100 shekels ($23-$26), which used to be 2-3 shekels (53-80 cents).

Ahmad said that as he walked back home, disappointed, he was dreading his family’s reaction when they found out that he spent almost half of their money on two cans of beans.

“I’m starting to deal with my kids as adults,” he said. “I’m telling them this is war, and our enemy wants us to starve. I’m telling them that we should be thankful that we have been able to survive so far. I promise them that when this war ends, I will bring them whatever they want.”

The state of starvation in Gaza has not ended. In northern Gaza, it has dramatically increased, but in ways that are different from how it was at the war’s outset. Protracted periods of malnutrition and deprivation from vital nutrients are having a cumulative impact on Gaza’s population, especially for those who most need it, such as children and pregnant women.

“Before this crisis, there was enough food in Gaza to feed the population,” WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said back in March. “Malnutrition was a rare occurrence. Now, people are dying, and many more are sick. Over a million people are expected to face catastrophic hunger unless significantly more food is allowed to enter Gaza.”

Only 0.8% of children under the age of five were suffering from acute malnutrition before the war, the WHO also said. By February, that figure had jumped to 12.4% – 16.5%.

Ever since those numbers were reported, Israel’s genocidal war has only worsened the systematic deprivation of food to the population. But Israeli propaganda would have us believe that there is no famine, and there is no Israeli policy of deliberate starvation. Many Israeli media outlets misleadingly focus on technical definitions of what constitutes a famine and dishonestly misquote passages from the UN’s ICP reports on conditions in Gaza.

The reality on the ground tells an opposite story, one in which the systematic deprivation of Gaza’s population from sources of nutrition is leading to long-term consequences. Gaza health officials and medical workers have already observed it for weeks.

Hussam Abu Safia, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, told Aljazeera that the specter of famine was once again sweeping northern Gaza, stressing that the lack of availability of foods with diverse nutritional values will have a long-term impact on the population. Since the start of the Israeli army’s second invasion of the Shuja’iyya neighborhood in Gaza City last week, access of residents in northern Gaza to food has only worsened.

Abu Safia said that no basic materials have entered the northern Gaza Strip for weeks, leaving flour as the only available staple. This is far from sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of children, the elderly, and pregnant women, all of whom require fats and proteins, Abu Safia asserted.

“Within 14 days, 214 children have arrived at the hospital showing signs of malnutrition,” Abu Safiya told Al Jazeera well before the second invasion of Shuja’iyya began. “Including over 50 cases of advanced malnutrition and 6 cases in critical condition in the intensive care unit.”

“These children are living solely on fluid replacements, and we do not have any milk or special food for them, which puts their lives at risk,” he said.

Eating tree leaves

People in the north of Gaza can tell that this wave of hunger is the worst to visit the strip so far, leaving many wondering about their prospects for survival if these conditions do not change.

Some residents of Gaza City have resorted to using tree leaves, such as mulberry leaves, to prepare dawali, a dish typically comprised of fragrant rice wrapped in grape leaves.

“People are cooking weeds,” Mahmoud Issa, a local journalist and resident of Gaza City, told  Mondowiess shortly before the Shuja’iyya invasion. “They cook leaves in water and spices. Even using the water is risky, because there’s no power to run the desalination plants.”

“Solar power is no longer available in Gaza either. Israeli drones have systematically targeted every solar panel on every roof across Gaza. They want people to lose hope and starve,” he continued.

Issa explained that people believe expired canned foods, when made available in Gaza, are making their children sick. This has led some to try to avoid such foods for fear that they would not be able to get treatment for their kids should they fall ill, given that northern Gaza no longer has any health system to speak of.

“Families know there is no way to treat their children if they get poisoned, so they are abandoning canned foods,” he said.

But even though cases of food poisoning due to the consumption of expired food products have been reported in Gaza, reports are also emerging of additional cases of food poisoning from forage eating.

Fruits, vegetables, chicken, meat, and fish are all unavailable in Gaza, Mahmoud explained.

“Three months ago, the Israeli checkpoint in the Kuwaiti Square was closed, and the checkpoint in al-Rasheed Street was closed, too,” he said. “The Israeli army allows the entrance of food trucks from the Erez crossing, but that is not enough for the population in northern Gaza.”

“When the Rafah crossing was working, over 60 trucks used to arrive, including frozen vegetables, meat, chicken, and other necessary food,” he explained. “We could survive then. It was tolerable. But now every crossing is closed, and people have started to starve.”