A year ago, hundreds of militiamen from Hamas they infiltrated Israel surprisingly and They murdered around 1,200 people. Also They took about 250 hostages, of which almost 100 remain captive in Gaza between the living and corpses.
The same day, Israel declared war on Hamas and launched an extensive military operation in Gaza that has left more than 41.900 muertos, 69% of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health of the enclave, controlled by Hamas. Furthermore, much of the Palestinian territory has been practically destroyed.
Gaza health authorities
They estimate that there are around 10,000 bodies under the rubble that still cannot be rescued.
Las raids of the forces of Israel have caused the forced displacement of almost 90% of the population of 2.3 million of people who had Gaza When the war began, many of them did so on several occasions following the evacuation orders issued by the Army.
Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 Hamas militants in Gaza since it began its offensive, dismantling most of its 24 battalions. It has also eliminated key leaders such as Mohamed Al Deiffounder of the Brigadas al Qassam; already Ismail Haniyathe top political leader abroad.
Some 85,000 tons of explosives have been dropped in Gaza
during the war, leaving at least 80,000 homes uninhabitable, 125 schools and universities completely destroyed and more than 600 mosques collapsed.
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Hamas and the tactics of guerrilla warfare
On Sunday, the head of the Israeli army, Herzi Haleviassured that after a year of war, “The military wing of Hamas is defeated.”
However, according to a study by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), Hamas maintains “some operational capabilities” that allow it to continue carrying out clashes with Israeli forces throughout the Gaza Strip.
ACLED emphasizes that the group could still keep about half of its militiamen and adds that, although Israel estimates that more than 17,000 members of the armed wing died in combat, out of a total of between 25,000 and 30,000, “detailed reports (published by the Israeli Army) identify only 8,500 deaths among the militiamen.”
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“Hamas has demonstrated its ability to regroup. This forced the Israel Defense Forces (FDI) to continue launching smaller ground raids to prevent Hamas from reestablishing a full presence.”says the ACLED report.
“As their capabilities decline and many of their brigades are dismantled, Hamas has been increasingly resorting to guerrilla warfare tactics, ambushing Israeli soldiers with explosives. In several cases, the militants of Hamas Land mines, buildings and tunnel shafts were detonated as Israeli soldiers approached the targeted locations. Hamas’s extensive network of tunnels, which remains operational in many areas, has likely played an important role in allowing its fighters to carry out hit-and-run operations.ACLED highlights.
An example of Hamas’s resurgence occurred on October 6, when the FDI launched a new cleanup operation in the refugee camp of Jabaliain the north of Gazato interrupt the reconstitution efforts of Hamas.
The last time the IDF operated in the area was in May 2024, when it encountered significant resistance from three Hamas battalions.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Hamas has rearmed and reorganized in the four months since the FDI they withdrew from Jabalia.
An Israeli military correspondent said the IDF senses that There are thousands of original Hamas fighters and thousands of new but poorly trained recruits in the northern Gaza Strip.
Why is it so difficult to completely defeat Hamas?
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Carlos Novoa Shuñajournalist specialized in issues of Middle Easthe told The Commerce what for Israel It is difficult to completely defeat Hamas because it is a movement that, in addition to having an armed wing, has an ideology that seeks the destruction of Israel and is mixed with the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip. “To eliminate Hamas, Israel would have to kill the 2 million people who live there,” he claims.
“One thing is Hamas as military leadership and something else is Hamas as a Palestinian government mixed with the peoplebecause the Gaza Strip has those characteristics. In 2006, an internal struggle between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority led to Hamas remaining the absolute owner of the territory, it has complete control, for better or worse. So from that point of view I I see it as an unattainable goal to completely defeat him”Novoa points out.
“What Israel can do is defeat the armed wing of Hamasbut not to the population that is mixed with Hamas,” he adds.
Novoa compared the movement Hezbollah in Lebanon with Hamascurrently both at war with Israel. “In Lebanon there is a shared government, there is a prime minister. Hezbollah is a large political party that has an armed wing and that political party is the one that is fighting against Israel. That’s why Israel, eliminating Hezbollah’s leadership, has practically disarmed itbecause there are other actors in Lebanon. However, not in the Gaza Strip. Their lives revolve only around Hamas.”
Regarding the impact that this year of war is having on the Gazans, Novoa states that there is a lot of anger towards Hamas. He adds that this anger is also transferred to the Palestinians of West Bankto those who are in the diaspora and in general in the Arab world.
“We are on a war front in which Israel has destroyed the Gaza Strip. There are more than 2 million people who live in conditions of absolute abandonment, everyone has lost a friend, a family member, a father, a son”Novoa said.
“We are very far from reaching a political agreement on Gazabut from the moment it is achieved, It will take at least a generation to heal the wounds that they are very open, and that they open even more with each attack. So there is anger towards Hamas among the Palestinians because Hamas is finally a dictatorship that does not let people be free”Novoa notes.
The journalist explains that the work for a political agreement in Gaza “It has to go through the international community, which must see what to do with Hamas,”because if he remains in power there will be many more deaths. Something has to be done because Palestinians who deny Hamas alone will not be able to defeat that movement”, he concludes.