The Israeli army has announced that it will reduce its operations in northern Gaza after “dismantling” Hamas in the region. According to Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the army has “completed the dismantling of Hamas’ military cadre in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Israel released a list of names of slain Hamas commanders, suggesting that the two northernmost Qassam brigades – a total of 12 battalions – were decapitated and out of action.
If 12 battalions were indeed destroyed, it would constitute a significant strategic victory for Israel and a loss that Hamas is unlikely to be able to overcome by fighting in other parts of the Gaza Strip.
But a careful reading of Israeli claims and an analysis of the performances of both sides suggests that the situation is not a simple “Israeli victory/Hamas defeat.” A more accurate description would be “Israel’s recognition of Hamas’ disengagement in a single theater.”
There is no doubt that Hamas suffered heavy losses in the face of a determined and prolonged Israeli offensive using far superior technology and numbers. It is also very likely that a significant number of commanders and deputies were killed.
Israel uses all means to decapitate Qassam Brigades units by targeting their commanders, often using precision rockets fired from helicopters and drones.
But Hamas has known this for a long time and its units operate according to the principle that each commander always has at least one deputy trained and briefed at the same level. When a person falls in combat, the chain of succession moves up a notch and units rarely remain “headless” for more than a few hours.
There is also a fundamental difference in the way the Israeli army and the Qassam Brigades operate on the battlefield.
Israel has a well-equipped and very classically organized army, where each unit or battle group is precisely assigned tasks, means at its disposal and areas of responsibility.
It uses these forces in a very flexible manner, with each unit commander highly independent so that they can exploit military opportunities as they arise without waiting for approval from headquarters.
Yet while flexible, Israeli units still operate under the rules of a hierarchical army where ranks and positions determine the thinking of commanders.
Hamas’ armed units follow a different fundamental principle: as a non-state force, the Qassam Brigades’ primary concern is secrecy, protection of chains of command, and maximum separation of units on the ground.
Although not guerrillas in the full sense of the term, Hamas forces aim for a structure designed to ensure the survival of the combat capabilities of other units when one is compromised or lost.
Hamas battalions apparently operate in simple coordination with their brigade commands. If higher command is lost, as may have happened with the Northern brigades when their commanders and deputies were killed in a short period of time, the battalions can still operate according to their last set of coordinated orders.
Having virtually independent battalions may prove entirely insufficient for offensive actions that require precise coordination, but, for defense – which Hamas has done almost exclusively since the start of the Israeli ground offensive on October 27 – it is usually more than enough.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) classifies the Northern Brigade and the Hamas Gaza Brigade as “degraded” – one step below “combat effectiveness”, but far from destroyed.
Of the 12 battalions of the two brigades, the ISW classifies eight as “degraded” and three as “combat ineffective”, designating units virtually broken down, and only one as “combat effective”, practically intact.
An objective reading of this assessment suggests that Hamas is seriously weakened but remains capable of fighting, particularly on defense.
So why would Israel claim that the two northern brigades have been defeated and slow down its attacks?
In fact, a careful reading of the statements shows that Israel never openly claimed that Hamas forces in the north had been destroyed. He talked about “elimination of senior commanders”, etc., and mentioned “dismantling”, a very vague and PR-friendly term, but not “destruction” or “defeat”.
The last two words are used by semi-official social media influencers, bloggers, etc., but not by the Israeli military.
In modern warfare, units are rarely “destroyed,” that is, they cease to exist, collapse, are killed, incapacitated, or stopped down to the last soldier. The nature of today’s battles and the level of knowledge, skill and information of unit commands favors disengagement when units cannot fulfill their tasks.
The imagination of the lay observer is often conditioned by films in which courageous defenders make a last stand and fight to the last soldier, such as The Alamo, or in which exhausted, emaciated and disillusioned defenders surrender en masse , like Stalingrad.
Such dramatic endings are rare. Whenever defenders have the opportunity to disengage from combat, they usually do so when they realize that they are disproportionately weaker than the other side or when their supplies or support are compromised.
A sensible commander decides to stop to save whatever forces he may still have, withdraw them from combat to rest and either reform the units or ask surviving combatants, with valuable recent combat experience against the enemy, to join other units.
This is exactly what is likely to happen in northern Gaza. Realizing that maintaining a separate defense against overwhelming force is becoming less and less effective, the Hamas leadership has likely decided to disengage and reform.
Using the tunnels still under their control, several thousand Hamas fighters likely retreated for several days towards the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip where they are expected to reinforce the remaining three full brigades.