On January 14, just a few days earlier than the ceasefire in Gaza took impact, the now-former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed a crowd on the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC.
During the last 15 months, Blinken has performed a crucial role in supporting Israel’s army marketing campaign in opposition to Gaza, a marketing campaign that human rights organisations have described as genocidal, during which a minimum of 47,300 Palestinians have been killed.
The purpose for Israel, as acknowledged by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was the whole defeat and elimination of Hamas. However talking in one in every of his last appearances as Secretary of State on January 14, Blinken struck a special tone.
“We assess that Hamas has recruited nearly as many new militants because it has misplaced,” Blinken mentioned. “That may be a recipe for a permanent insurgency and perpetual conflict.”
Hamas battered however not defeated
Hamas has undoubtedly been hit laborious within the final 15 months, analysts and specialists informed Al Jazeera. It has doubtless misplaced 1000’s of fighters, together with its army chief Yahya Sinwar, and, in response to the European Council on International Relations (ECFR), its weapons stockpile is depleted.
However because the mud settles in Gaza, it’s clear that Hamas has not been eradicated and nonetheless has a presence within the Gaza Strip.
Hamas fighters have prominently featured within the handover of Israeli captives as a part of the ceasefire cope with Israel. And members of the Hamas-run civil administration have resumed work. If there’s any authority in Gaza, it nonetheless seems to be Hamas.
“Hamas has an curiosity in creating a picture of energy that’s extraordinarily orchestrated, and we must always see that as a propaganda train,” Hugh Lovatt of the ECFR, informed Al Jazeera.
Lovatt added, nonetheless, that after “over a yr of preventing, the [Hamas] fighters stay very a lot in command of Gaza”.
“Hamas is making an attempt to point out Israel that it didn’t destroy it but in addition that the motion may have a veto over Gaza’s future going ahead as a result of neither Israel, the PA [Palestinian Authority], or the worldwide neighborhood will have the ability to impose a post-conflict governance or safety association,” Lovatt mentioned.
The scenes in the course of the captive releases have caught many off guard, together with Palestinians in Gaza.
“I used to be very shocked to see the variety of the Qassam [Hamas’s military wing] fighters in the course of the launch of the Israeli captives,” Fathi al-Ladawi, 67, displaced from Rafah to Nuseirat in central Gaza and a father of eight, informed Al Jazeera. “The dimensions of the strikes and bombardment, particularly in northern Gaza, made us assume Hamas’s human and army assets had been considerably depleted. However what we noticed proves they’re nonetheless robust – even perhaps stronger than earlier than.”
“[Hamas] was in a position to maintain on to its hostages, who seemed to be in good situation, and was in a position to negotiate and signal a ceasefire settlement with the events that swore to annihilate it,” Omar Rahman, a fellow on the Center East Council on International Affairs, informed Al Jazeera.
Hamas has additionally, in response to Blinken’s assertion, been in a position to recruit sufficient fighters to exchange these it misplaced in the course of the conflict.
The precise variety of Hamas fighters killed in the course of the conflict is tough to know for sure. Hamas claims it has misplaced between 6,000 and seven,000 members from its armed and civilian wings, in response to an ECFR report, primarily based on interviews with two senior Hamas members. However, the report says, most of Hamas’s estimated 25,000 fighters are doubtless nonetheless alive and in hiding.
Netanyahu claimed that 20,000 “terrorists” had been killed as of November 2024, whereas Israel’s Navy Chief of Employees Herzi Halevi mentioned roughly 3,000 had been killed between October 6, 2024, and the ceasefire. The UN’s Human Rights Workplace says that just about 70 p.c of the verified deaths throughout this era have been women and children.
“Solely Hamas is aware of what number of members of their army wing, the Qassam Brigades, have been killed,” Hamze Attar, a Palestinian army analyst who’s from Gaza, informed Al Jazeera. “We’re seeing a number of posts mourning the family in a means that makes use of language indicating that they have been preventing, however Hamas didn’t announce something.”
Hamas can preserve rise up ‘for a few years’
Among the many few acknowledged losses are a handful of Hamas’s leaders.
On the primary day of the ceasefire on January 19, Hamas’s spokesperson, recognized solely as Abu Obeida, delivered what he claimed was a “victory speech”. He paid tribute to a few of Hamas’s fallen members, together with Sinwar, whose dying was recorded by an Israeli drone in October; political bloc chief Ismail Haniyeh, killed in Tehran in late July; and Saleh al-Arouri, killed in Lebanon in January 2024.
Attar identified that Abu Obeida didn’t embrace the identify of Mohammed Deif, the elusive determine who was one of many al-Qassam Brigades’ founders. Israel claimed to have killed Deif in late July, however the dying was by no means formally acknowledged by Hamas.
Among the many residing embrace the reported de facto head of Hamas in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, a determine Israel considers extra hardline, well-trained and extra of a mastermind than his late brother, Yahya, and Ezzedine Haddad, who oversees the Qassam Brigades in northern Gaza.
Israel’s acknowledged targets additionally included destroying Hamas’s infrastructure, most notably its huge community of tunnels. Nonetheless, in response to Israeli media, Hamas’s tunnel community remains to be largely operational, although estimates about how a lot of it’s nonetheless intact fluctuate considerably. Hamas members informed ECFR that lots of the tunnels have been restored or preserved and, in some circumstances, even expanded.
Hamas’s rocket arsenal could have been considerably depleted by Israel. Nonetheless, the improvised and primitive rockets might be rebuilt with unexploded ordnance that is still round Gaza.
Hamas recycles “unexploded Israeli rockets, bombs, and artillery shells to make use of as improvised explosive units and produce new projectiles”, the ECFR report mentioned.
Hamas’s adaptability as a preventing power, developed through the years as a response to Israel’s ways in opposition to it, means it has been constructed to take quite a few blows and nonetheless have the ability to keep on as an organisation.
Hamas recognition
Hamas will not be solely a army organisation however has run the Gazan authorities since 2006, when it beat Fatah within the elections.
And whereas Hamas’s recognition has grown within the West Financial institution, particularly because the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in Gaza, some have expressed dissenting opinions in the direction of the group. Nonetheless, Hamas’s recognition has not been enormously impacted by Israel’s conflict on Gaza, as instructed by the Palestinian Middle for Coverage and Survey Analysis’s polls.
Opinions on the group fluctuate extensively amongst Palestinians in Gaza. Help for Hamas in Gaza was at about 35 p.c, in response to the newest polling in September 2024, down three proportion factors from June 2024.
Some criticisms have attacked Hamas’s failure to foretell Israel’s prolonged and brutal response to the assault. Others have claimed Hamas dragged them right into a conflict the folks of Gaza, almost all of whom have misplaced household, associates and their houses, didn’t ask to be part of.
Certainly one of their critics was 45-year-old Wael Darwish, from northern Nuseirat.
“This was a disaster, not a victory,” he mentioned. “We’ve suffered the best catastrophe in historical past. If there’s any minor triumph, it’s due to the folks’s resilience, not Hamas.”
“Whereas I don’t deny the sacrifices of the resistance, we’re drained,” Darwish mentioned. “The resistance should additionally take into account its folks. We’ve shed sufficient blood.”
“If Hamas stays in energy, I’ll depart Gaza instantly,” he continued. “Many really feel the identical.”
Even earlier than October 7, Hamas confronted home opposition – together with protests in opposition to the group’s insurance policies. Some Palestinians in Gaza, nonetheless, mentioned the final 15 months had modified their opinion of the group.
“I used to be blissful to see the folks, their numbers, and the security of the Hamas fighters,” Fatima Shammali, 64, a mom of 11, informed Al Jazeera. “Though I don’t normally help Hamas, my help for them grew in the course of the conflict as a result of they managed to counter, even barely, the Israeli army arsenal.”
Nihal Barakat, 43, a mom of eight who was displaced from the Shati refugee camp to Nuseirat, agreed. “I count on Hamas’s recognition has elevated after this conflict,” she mentioned. “As for its energy, it stays intact, and we hope it’s channelled for the advantage of the folks.”
“It’s clear that many Gazans are annoyed and offended at [Hamas],” Lovatt mentioned. Folks have been offended that Hamas didn’t assume by means of the results of their October 7 assault and didn’t plan for the “inevitable, disproportionate violent response in opposition to Gaza”, Lovatt added.
Lovatt mentioned that criticism of the group was “felt in Hamas itself”, particularly among the many reasonable wing of the group. There have been “a variety of criticisms of [late Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar’s actions and that of some others who took unilateral choices”, the analyst mentioned, primarily based on his interviews for the ECFR report.
However even disapproval shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement of Israel’s ways or its occupation of Palestine, specialists mentioned.
“Through the genocidal conflict on Gaza, folks didn’t collaborate [with Israel] as a result of they’re the enemy and an occupation,” Attar, the army analyst, mentioned. “It’s not about Hamas. It’s about id, the resilience and the continuity of Palestinian folks. It’s not as a result of they love Hamas, however as a result of they love Palestine.”
“The occupation of our land should finish. The world wants to face with us to find out our destiny,” al-Ladawi, the displaced father of eight, mentioned. “Spare us from extra conflict; we’re exhausted. We shouldn’t be punished just because amongst us are members of Hamas, Fatah, [Palestinian Islamic] Jihad or another faction.”
