Middle EastAnalysis

Hamas renews its ranks in face of Israeli military onslaught

Binyamin Netanyahu’s aim of returning 200,000 Israelis to southern and northern communities abandoned during war is unlikely until Gaza has been pacified by political means

Binyamin Netanyahu: the Israeli prime minister has failed in his publicly stated objection to eliminate Hamas. Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP
Binyamin Netanyahu: the Israeli prime minister has failed in his publicly stated objection to eliminate Hamas. Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP
Michael Jansen's picture
Michael Jansen
Thu Jan 16 2025 - 17:05

In the wake of the Gaza ceasefire and hostage-release deal, Hamas’s fate will be decided by political rather than military means. Although the end of the war could be in sight, Israel, the US, its Western allies, Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority have failed to draw up a detailed postwar plan for Gaza which would exclude Hamas.

During 15 months of war, Hamas’s civil administration and police have been wiped out, resulting in anarchy. But Hamas’ military wing remains a potent force and must be demobilised.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has failed to achieve his primary Gaza war objective: the elimination of Hamas. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted this week that Hamas’s military wing has recruited as many fighters as it had lost since its October 2023 attack on Israel.

The Israeli army’s most recent figure for Hamas and Islamic Jihad dead was 17,000 to 20,000 out of a combined troop strength of 20,000-23,000. However, The Jerusalem Post reported on January 1st that the number was closer to 12,000 and that Hamas’s forces are being renewed. It quoted a source who said the quality of the new recruits was “far inferior” to the original fighters as “many of them are untrained minors”.

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These youths may want vengeance because their families are decimated, they are homeless, and their futures are bleak. Their trauma and thirst for revenge will have to be addressed.

Netanyahu has resorted to negotiations to achieve his second war aim: the release of the remaining Israeli hostages taken into Gaza.

While Netanyahu’s third war aim was to enable the return of 200,000 Israelis to southern and northern communities abandoned during the Gaza war, this is unlikely until Gaza has been pacified by political means and an administration acceptable to Palestinians has been installed. This is unlikely to happen without the agreement of Hamas.

A December poll showed that 55 per cent of Palestinians respect Hamas due to its resistance to Israeli occupation, which they see as the only route to a Palestinian state

Hamas emerged during the first Intifada of 1987-1993, when protests broke out in the West Bank and Gaza and developed into a sustained uprising. The movement was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had established itself in Gaza in the 1950s by building mosques and founding welfare organisations which Hamas inherited.

In competition with the secular Fatah political party which dominated the Palestinian national movement, Hamas drew up a charter and built a military wing to resist Israel’s occupation.

Hamas opposed the 1993 Oslo accords which failed to end the occupation and produce a Palestinian state. The second intifada erupted in 2000, during which both Hamas and Fatah mounted gun and bomb attacks in Israel. This ended in 2005 and, a year later, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections, prompting Fatah to exclude it from governance.

In 2007, Hamas seized control of Gaza from repressive Fatah security agencies. Israel responded by allowing Qatar to fund Hamas, in order to divide Gaza from the West Bank. Israel then launched wars on Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021 and 2023.

A December poll conducted by Palestine-based Arab World for Research and Development showed that only 7 per cent of Gazans support Hamas’ political agenda, but that 55 per cent respect Hamas due to its resistance to Israeli occupation, which they see as the only route to a Palestinian state.

Most Palestinians back a Palestinian-led postwar arrangement for Gaza and the West Bank, rather than governance by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, which is seen as corrupt and compromised by its security co-operation with Israel.