The Israeli military has inflicted significant damage on Hamas in Gaza, eliminating thousands of its fighters, destroying extensive weapon stockpiles, and dismantling much of its vast underground tunnel network.
This sustained assault has fundamentally altered Hamas’s military wing. What was once an organized army has now fragmented into smaller, more mobile resistance cells. Their focus has shifted to survival and defensive operations, primarily staging ambushes against Israeli soldiers.
Wesam Afifa, former executive director of Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV, notes, “On the ground, there are no longer fixed Hamas strongholds in the conventional military sense. What remains today are small, mobile resistance cells fighting in guerrilla style.”
Despite these changes, Hamas maintains its status as a powerful Palestinian force in Gaza. This week, Israeli troops launched a full-scale ground invasion on Gaza City, an operation Israeli officials hope will finally lead to the group’s destruction.
This operation carries immense risk, particularly as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the area, many unable or unwilling to evacuate to already overcrowded regions with severely limited resources.
Hamas has adapted its battlefield strategy, largely abandoning direct confrontations in favor of hit-and-run tactics against the militarily superior Israeli forces. According to Israeli security officials, the group has been embedding explosives under roads, within residential buildings, and on Israeli military vehicles. Recent videos released by Hamas’s military wing show fighters in civilian clothing ambushing tanks, armored personnel carriers, and soldiers before swiftly retreating.
Since January, approximately 70 Israeli soldiers have lost their lives in combat within Gaza, as reported by the military.
Last week, former CIA Director William J. Burns stated that Hamas no longer possesses the capability to launch an attack on the scale of October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people and the abduction of hundreds. That devastating attack triggered the current war in Gaza, and Israel’s subsequent military response has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Current and former Israeli security officials also confirm that Hamas lacks the capacity for large-scale rocket barrages on Israel, a common occurrence in the early days of the conflict, or to effectively repel advancing Israeli ground forces.
The precise number of remaining militants in Gaza is uncertain. However, Israeli security services estimate roughly 15,000 fighters are still in the territory, according to Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency, who receives regular briefings on the war.
Ahead of the full-scale assault on Gaza City, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly asserted that defeating Hamas was within reach. However, military analysts largely believe this new Israeli operation is unlikely to deliver a decisive knockout blow to the group.
“It’s naïve to believe Israel can put an end to Hamas in short order,” explains Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs. “It just doesn’t work that way.”
As Israeli forces push into Gaza City, it is anticipated that most of Hamas’s remaining fighters will likely disperse into other parts of Gaza. A senior Middle Eastern intelligence official, who spoke anonymously due to the sensitive nature of the information, indicated that Hamas’s forces are concentrated in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, and Mawasi, a coastal area in the south.
While Israel could attempt to conquer these other areas, security officials acknowledge that it would require years of sustained fighting to prevent Hamas from re-establishing its presence.
Netanyahu has outlined principles for ending the war, including Hamas’s unconditional surrender, vowing to achieve these goals through force or negotiation. However, Hamas has rejected these demands, pledging instead to either secure a deal that ends the war on its terms or continue fighting until its last bullet. Hamas has consistently stated it would release all Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a permanent ceasefire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
On Thursday, as Israeli troops advanced into Gaza City, Hamas’s military wing issued a statement declaring it had prepared “an army of suicide fighters and thousands of ambushes.”
Conversely, some Palestinian analysts suggest that both Hamas and Israel may be exaggerating the group’s strength to serve their respective agendas.
Mohammed al-Astal, an analyst based in southern Gaza, believes Hamas is projecting power to compel Israel into accepting a ceasefire deal. Meanwhile, he contends, Israel portrays Hamas as a formidable adversary as a pretext to devastate the enclave and displace its residents.
“What Israel is practicing on the ground goes beyond eliminating Hamas,” he states. “There’s a general impression among Palestinians that Israel wants to eliminate Gaza and its people.”
The Israeli military maintains that Hamas militants and their weapon infrastructure are deliberately embedded within civilian areas.
When asked about Hamas’s continued significance, Mr. Ben Hanan, the former intelligence official, pointed to the group’s ongoing extortion of Gaza’s businesspeople and recruitment of new fighters. “All these things demonstrate that Hamas is still in power,” he concluded.
Hamas has also continued to manage certain civil institutions, operate internal security forces, and distribute payments to government employees.
“When we talk about Hamas, we’re really talking about the remnants of Hamas,” observes Esmat Mansour, a Palestinian political analyst who spent years in Israeli prisons alongside top Hamas leaders. “But as much as they’ve been weakened, they’re still the only game in town.”