In the devastated Gaza Strip, Hamas continues despite Israeli military operations

They reappeared a few weeks later. Hamas forces forced the Israeli army to redeploy two of its brigades to al-Shati refugee camp on 28 January. The soldiers are chasing them through this miserable maze of streets in Gaza, largely demolished by the air force since October 2023. The army has ordered residents surviving in the ruins of the surrounding neighborhoods – Sheikh Radwan, Rimal, Tal al-Hawa – to evacuate a large area of ​​12 square kilometers, to carry out its battles there.

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West of Metropolis, an area conquered by Israel in November 2023, the Hamas al-Qassam Brigades are thus resuming their war of attrition, far from their leaders and largely autonomous, in smaller numbers. Palestinian groups have claimed responsibility for rocket and mortar attacks in Jabalia, the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood and south of the city since mid-January, as well as rocket fire from the enclave’s north toward Israel.

The re-emergence of Islamist fighters contradicts the diagnosis of Israeli officials who claimed that, by the end of 2023, “cleaned” This dismantled all Hamas divisions in the neighborhoods and Gaza City. Then they thought that the“After the War” started in the city. The Israeli military hierarchy sent home almost all reservists, retaining only one division north of the enclave. Top officials planned only targeted raids there, while the Second Division supported key Hamas leaders and their hostages in the south with intensive bombardment.

“It is a moral and military defeat”

“Israel has deployed four divisions over the past 120 days, with the aim of destroying Hamas and freeing hostages by force. Neither objective was achieved. Despite its scorched earth policy, at the cost of nearly 27,000 dead and thousands of wounded, Hamas and Resistance (other Palestinian groups) Still standing, and they are fighting. It is a moral, military and intelligence defeat for Israel.”estimated General Wassef Erakat, a veteran of the Palestine Liberation Organization, now an analyst in Ramallah.

Hamas cannot claim victory over the ruins of Gaza and the lives of two million shattered Palestinians. But he is fighting this battle with an advantage: “He doesn’t have to do much to win, he just has to survive”, underscores Tahani Mustafa, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. The Israeli army itself has been signaling this since mid-January: its campaign is coming to an end. The blows she can withstand are no longer so numerous. It fails to deliver 136 hostages held in Gaza. Of these, about thirty were given for the dead, victims of their jailers or Israeli bombs.

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