Report: A month after Israel’s war on Gaza, Hamas maintains control over Strip

An Israeli military analyst said yesterday that despite Israel’s fierce attacks against the besieged Gaza Strip, which have not stopped for a month, the leadership of Hamas continues to maintain control over the Strip.

The military analyst in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Amos Harel, said the Israeli army is using a “dismemberment tactic”, where troops are advancing slowly and methodically, accompanied by massive amounts of firepower, including from the air.

However, contrary to the Israeli army’s statements, Harrel said one of the existing weaknesses is the army’s inability to kill many fighters from the Al-Qassam Brigades in ground battles, explaining that Israeli army officers believe that reports of the killing of hundreds of Hamas fighters to be “not sufficiently confirmed”.

“The difficulty lies, among other factors, in defining the mission, as the Israeli government and army described the mission as destroying Hamas’s rule and depriving it of its military capability, however, this is a goal with a completely unclear path… [Israeli army] commanders and reservists who participated in previous operations in Gaza say there is no comparison between the severity of the destruction this time and what they had witnessed in previous rounds of fighting,” he added.

Harel said in Beit Hanoun in the north-eastern Gaza Strip, where Israeli reserve forces operate, entire neighbourhoods had been completely levelled during the battles, noting that the Israeli army is in a real state of war, and is not just carrying out a limited operation.

According to Harel, the Palestinian resistance relies on its network of defensive tunnels, where it sends its fighters through openings to launch anti-tank missiles, and deploys explosive devices near the Israeli army’s armoured vehicles.

“Hamas also uses attack drones, which may lead to several problems. The Israeli army has brought large forces into the northern Gaza Strip and moved large numbers of armoured vehicles. This, in the war against guerrilla forces hiding underground, provides the enemy with many targets,” he said.

He pointed out that “at the present time, despite the pressure exerted by the Israeli army, there is no clear significant impact on Hamas’s leadership and control, which is still operating.”

On 29 October, the Israeli occupation army began a ground aggression in Gaza, and since then 29 soldiers have been killed and at least 260 others injured, according to Israeli figures.

For a month, the Israeli army has been launching a devastating aggression against Gaza, killing 9,770 Palestinians, including 4,800 children and 2,550 women, and injuring more than 24,000 others.

Meanwhile, as many as 151 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since 7 October and 2,080 arrested.

READ: Palestinian children killed in Israeli attacks: Intifada 30 September 2000 to Gaza 5 November 2023