In early January, Israel announced that it was withdrawing part of its forces from northern Gaza after “dismantling” Hamas’ military activities in the region.
Three months have passed since the start of its war on Gaza, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and Israel has increasingly turned its attention to central and southern Gaza, here it has surrounded and targeted the city of Khan Younis in particular.
But on January 16, Hamas launched 25 rockets from the northern Gaza Strip at the southern Israeli town of Netivot. Although no civilians were killed, the attack undermined Israel’s claim that it was on its way to destroying Hamas, even after more than 100 days of war.
Since Hamas’ deadly attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has insisted it wants to “eradicate” Palestinian armed group.
At the time, many analysts warned that destroying the group was an unrealistic goal that would only worsen the costs imposed on Gaza’s civilian population. Now, new signs that Hamas is regaining the ability to target Israel from northern Gaza further reinforce these predictions.
“I think (the rocket attacks) send a message to all Israelis that their goal of eradicating Hamas is a failure,” said Omar H Rahman, an expert on Israel-Palestine at the think tank Middle East Council on Global Affairs.
“If you can still fire rockets and attack troops – in the north of all the places where Israel has besieged for 112 days – then (the war objective of destroying Hamas) fails,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Remove tunnels?
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas’ vast network of tunnels under Gaza. But so far, Israel has failed to substantially hinder the clandestine movements of Hamas fighters, according to Oren Ziv, an Israeli commentator and journalist for +972 magazine, a Tel Aviv-based publication.
“I believe that Israel does not have a complete idea of where the tunnels connect and how. And the fact that we are still seeing attacks from northern Gaza means that the tunnel system is still functioning,” Ziv told Tel Aviv Tribune.
According to Israeli military officials, as well as previous statements by Palestinians in Gaza and official Hamas statements, the tunnels in the Gaza Strip are hundreds of kilometers long.
For decades, they were used to smuggle all kinds of civilian supplies, as well as weapons, from Egypt.
Hide the captives
Hamas has used the tunnels for other purposes, including to ambush Israeli troops in Gaza and hide many of the 240 captives captured by its fighters on October 7.
Many captives were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a short break in fighting negotiated in November.
Israel estimates that around 100 prisoners remain inside the tunnels and estimates that 25 were killed in captivity – perhaps as a result of its own intense and indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Despite the danger that Israel’s war tactics pose to the captives, the Israeli military attempted to blow up a number of tunnels in Gaza and flood some with water from the Mediterranean. But the freed prisoners fear this strategy could drown out the Israelis still there, according to conversations between them and Netanyahu, which were leaked to the press.
“The Israeli government continues to exaggerate what it can accomplish through military means. He said he could free the Israeli hostages by military means, but with the exception of one hostage which did not turn out to be the case,” said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations with the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“The military action did kill hostages,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Human cost
Despite the hardships the captives face, Palestinian civilians have borne the brunt of Israel’s vaguely defined and unrealistic war goals, Lovatt said.
He said Israel claims to have killed 9,000 Hamas fighters out of a total of more than 25,000 Palestinians killed in the enclave, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. However, 70 percent of the victims are believed to be women and children.
“My feeling is that Israel treats every dead man (in Gaza) as Hamas,” Lovatt told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Lovatt said he doubted the Israeli figure of 9,000 Hamas fighters killed so far. But “even if we consider this figure to be accurate,” he said, the vast majority of the armed group’s personnel remain alive and ready to fight. According to the CIA, Hamas has about 35,000 fighters in Gaza alone, Lovatt noted. “This shows that there are still many fighters in Gaza who will survive Israeli military operations.”
Although analysts agree that Hamas will not be “eradicated,” they recognize that the group’s military capabilities have been degraded and are likely to be further degraded.
But they stressed that Israel’s war tactics will ultimately embolden – not destroy – Hamas.
“Israel is capable of reducing Hamas’ military capacity, but its collective punishment against Gaza’s civilian population fuels generations of resistance in every way possible,” Rahman, of the Middle East World Affairs Council, told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“And when it comes to capacity, that’s one thing that can always be rebuilt.” »