Sunday Times: After Israel failed to destroy it… How strong is Hamas now?
The Sunday Times, published an analytical report assessing the situation of Hamas after 17 months of fierce war between it and the Israeli army.
The report’s author, Michael Clarke, visiting professor of defense studies at King’s College London and former director of the Royal United Services Institute, said Hamas wasn’t defeated in Gaza, and was still there, and that its survival was due to clever preparation and the Israeli army’s reliance on aerial bombardment.
Hamas hasn’t been defeated in Gaza, and it still exists, and its survival is due to smart preparation and the Israeli army’s reliance on aerial bombardment.
He explained that Hamas has recently broadcast defiant messages showing that it still controls Gaza and isn’t nearing its end.
He cited confirmation of this by Hamas’s response to US President Donald Trump’s threats, which he described as empty, saying that its responses were strong and thoughtful, as well as its organization of hostage handover operations, which suggests that its far from its end, in addition to its deliberate humiliation of Israel.
However, Clarke says, Hamas was hit hard by the Israeli assault on Gaza, with its three top leaders killed, its 24 known battalions dismantled, and Israel reporting that 18,000 Hamas members were among the 48,200 killed in Gaza.
He added that Hamas has failed to provoke a multi-front war on Israel that would have motivated many movements in the region and Palestinians in the West Bank to attack Israel.
However, the expert says that Hamas simply surviving and continuing to exist is the most it has to do.
Clarke said that the Israeli army acknowledges that it will take many years to return Hamas to what it was before 2006, the year it took power in the Gaza Strip, adding that Hamas may never be able to return to that situation.
He pointed out what former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in his last week as US Secretary of State about Hamas recruiting new militants whose number is close to the number it lost.
Among the reasons that enabled Hamas to succeed, the expert said, was its willingness to maintain its structure intact through its own intelligence operations, regardless of the number of its leaders, forces or weapons production plants it lost, as well as its ability to maintain the flow of some Russian and Chinese weapons provided by Iran.
Clarke said that no defeated organization could do all of this, adding that the other side of the operation is the strategic incompetence of the Israeli army, given that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t set an achievable war goal for himself, and he quoted many analysts and those at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs as describing the Israeli army’s operations as random.
Clarke pointed out that about 40% of Gaza’s tunnels still exist and can be used adequately as shelters for Hamas members against Israeli air strikes.
Clarke concluded his report by saying that Hamas still enjoys the highest level of support among all Palestinians compared to any other political group.
