Hours after the ceasefire was declared on Sunday, Hamas fighters were back on Gaza’s streets. Not many, it was true, and those who appeared were armed only with Kalashnikov rifles and some rudimentary body armour, but they were there.
In Khan Younis, a handful of pickup trucks with gunmen onboard drove through cheering crowds of young men. Dozens of uniformed fighters with Hamas headbands were visible when the three Israeli hostages were handed over in Gaza City. Elsewhere, there were reports that Hamas policemen, dressed in blue police uniform, deployed in some areas after months in hiding to avoid Israeli strikes.
These were the sights that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, wanted to avoid, but no doubt knew would come. They are the images that Hamas most want to be seen – in Gaza and the West Bank, the region and the world. They do not show a large or particularly capable force, and social media has exerted its usual magnifying effect. But, as they were meant to do, the images show that Hamas has survived the Israeli onslaught of the last 15 months and that, Hamas leaders believe, is a major victory in itself.
The reality is that Hamas has suffered huge losses. On the day of the 7 October 2023 raids, Hamas fired thousands of missiles deep into Israel. Now, it can only fire the occasional projectile at targets a dozen or so kilometres away. Supply lines have been cut, ammunition stores emptied and most new bombings use recycled explosives from ordnance fired by Israel. Much of the tunnel network built under Gaza by Hamas has been destroyed.
Its top leaders in Gaza, including Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas at the time of his death and mastermind of the 7 October attacks, are dead. So too are many experienced middle-ranking militants.
Israeli’s claims that 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed are difficult to credit. An analysis by ACLED, an independent, non-profit organisation collecting data on violent conflict, said in October that detailed reports by the Israel Defense Forces on the killing of militants containing specifics on timeframes, locations or operations accounted for approximately 8,500 fatalities, though this figure also includes militants from other armed groups and possibly other non-combatant Hamas members.
Such casualties would account for perhaps a quarter of the prewar strength of Hamas’s military wing, which tallies with reports that some big Hamas formations in central Gaza are intact.
-Antony Blinken, the outgoing US secretary of state, said in a speech last week that Hamas had recruited almost as many combatants as it has lost and that this was a recipe for prolonged insurgency, and so another reason for a ceasefire deal.
Israeli officials say recruit numbers are lower than Blinken suggests and that inexperienced teenagers cannot replace hardened, well-trained veterans.
This may be true, but even if seriously degraded, Hamas was still able to hurt Israeli forces right until the ceasefire. Recent fighting has been fierce in Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza, with Israeli commanders underestimating the size and morale of Hamas’s forces there, as well as the extent of its tunnel-network reconstruction. Hamas inflicted significant casualties as a consequence.
On the political front, Hamas has also been weakened. It has lost control of the territory it governed for 16 years, with all the prestige, power, facilities and revenue that it brought. Many Hamas officials are dead; its network of clubs, charities and religious associations scattered. Other actors – big criminal families, for example – now compete for influence. Many in Gaza blame Hamas as well as Israel for the bloody war that has caused 47,000 deaths and so much destruction.
But for the moment, without any agreed plan for a government for Gaza, there is no one else. Aid organisations still deal with many of the same administrators they knew back in the summer of 2023. A Hamas media office functions, and is ambitiously describing a “government plan” to return Gaza to its prewar condition.
The reality is that neither side can claim an outright victory, which is one reason that this moment of fragile calm has come. Tragically, it is also why any hopes of a durable peace may be dashed.
