Has Israel weakened Hamas enough to win the war on Gaza?
Smoke billowing over the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip after Israeli attacks, 20 December 2023
Zoran Kusovac writes in Al Jazeera on 30 December 2023:
Almost 23,000 people – the vast majority Palestinian – have been killed since the unprecedented Hamas attacks in southern Israel on October 7, which launched the Israeli assault on Gaza.
As the end of 2023 approaches, the Israeli offensive is showing no signs of any let-up and the death toll is certain to rise on both sides as fighting continues. Political attempts at peace have failed.
Israel has stated from the outset that its objective is to eliminate Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. To this end, it has continued the aerial bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip almost without pause, since October 7.
While Israel admits it has failed in this mission so far, it claims it is just a question of time before it achieves this goal. But does the situation on the ground support that claim?
The answer is a cautious no. A detailed and impartial analysis of various aspects of its performance leads to the conclusion that so far, Hamas has experienced more successes than failures – for the following reasons.
Hamas continues to exist
The organisation is still very much alive and kicking. Politically, it is still recognised – de facto if not de jure – as the only entity exercising control over what remains of the heavily damaged civilian structures in the Gaza Strip.
It is party to indirect negotiations that have already managed to produce a one-week-long pause in the assault on Gaza and a limited exchange of Israeli and Palestinian captives and hostages. As long as it holds on to its remaining hostages, Hamas will continue to be an inevitable “other side” without which no release of those captives will be possible.
Israel has repeatedly stated that there is “no place” for Hamas in the post-war civilian structures of Gaza but has never produced any semblance of a concrete, alternative plan.
Various vague, unfocused suggestions that the future of Gaza would be better without Hamas have been floated but nobody has produced any coherent suggestion of how to remove Hamas and what to replace it with.
The US, some Arab states and various international organisations have suggested that a post-war Gaza should be run by Fatah or a pan-Arab force, but have presented no tangible plans for how to achieve that. For now, this remains wishful thinking. For the predictable future, therefore, Hamas is here to stay.
Hamas remains an effective military force The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, has never publicly disclosed information about its structure, organisation or numbers.