Media coverage
Al-Quds Al-Arabi · 2024-11-04
Al-Quds Al-Arabi's account of a Financial Times report on what remains of Hamas in Gaza after the killing of Yahya Sinwar. Shaban says Hamas is a movement with institutions that will need time to recover but has not been wiped out; it cannot control society or deliver the services expected of it, yet it is still present and trying to keep its role in civilian life.
Al-Quds Al-Arabi's account of a Financial Times report on what remains of Hamas in Gaza after the killing of Yahya Sinwar. Shaban says Hamas is a movement with institutions that will need time to recover but has not been wiped out; it cannot control society or deliver the services expected of it, y…
London – *Al-Quds Al-Arabi*:
The *Financial Times* published a report by its correspondents Mehul Srivastava, Andrew England, and Neri Zilber, asking what remains of Hamas in Gaza after the killing of Yahya Sinwar last month.
They said that Youssef, a software engineer, has been astonished since he and his family left Gaza City this year that Hamas has remained as it is. Youssef, who let his wife go without a hijab, was not an admirer of the Islamists who have ruled Gaza for nearly two decades. By the time Youssef left Gaza, Israeli forces had seized most of Gaza from Hamas’s military wing, killed thousands of fighters, and had earlier killed Sinwar.
Israeli officials believe they have destroyed most of the movement’s military power. But what remains of Hamas, as shown by Youssef’s journey between the displaced persons camps in Rafah and Deir al-Balah, demonstrates how difficult it is to destroy the movement. Youssef, who now lives in a tent with his wife and two children, said: “Everywhere you can smell Hamas.” When he needed a blanket and a place, he was told to speak to an employee in the Ministry of Social Development, whom he recognized as a local Hamas official from northern Gaza.
He says that imams appointed in consultation with Hamas take people in the evening to pray amid the ruins of a mosque. And when a series of thefts of jewelry, mobile phones, and money took place in another camp, the complainants went to a plainclothes policeman from Khan Yunis, the city that was once considered a stronghold of Hamas.
Video footage appeared on Hamas’s Telegram channel showing images of the alleged thieves being beaten, evidence of what the remaining personnel of the Interior Ministry are doing to preserve the appearance of security and order.
A day or two later, video footage appeared on Hamas’s Telegram channel showing images of the alleged thieves being beaten, evidence of what the remaining personnel of the Interior Ministry are doing to preserve the appearance of security and order. The policeman returned with a bag of mobile phones. Youssef says: “They are not going anywhere,” adding, “They are here and waiting for the end of the war.”
Israeli officials say they have destroyed 23 of the 24 Qassam battalions and reduced the movement from a military group capable of launching hundreds of rockets at Tel Aviv at once to a small group of cells waging guerrilla warfare. These cells appear to be independent and to reassemble themselves in surprising ways, as in Jabalia camp in northern Gaza.
But Hamas was not only a military force; it is part of the social fabric and formally and informally ran a number of ministries and social services. What remains of the movement has become weak, but it is holding on.
After the confrontation in 2007, which led to the expulsion of Fatah from Gaza, the movement became involved in governance through political figures linked to Hamas taking over the ministries.
Today, despite the destruction of these ministries and the dispersal of their officials, the survivors are running semi-governmental services that are ineffective and depleted, while the military wing has turned into a guerrilla movement. They are waiting, as interviews with Gazans such as Youssef, Israeli military officials, and analysts showed, describing what remains of Hamas as a strong player amid the rubble in Gaza, and capable of returning should the Israelis withdraw.
Omar Shaban, founder of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies in Gaza, says: Hamas is a movement and they have institutions, and they will need time to recover, but they have not been erased.
Omar Shaban, founder of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies in Gaza, says: “They are a movement and they have institutions, and they will need time to recover, but they have not been erased,” and “of course they cannot control society and provide the services expected of them, but they are here and trying to maintain their roles in civilian life.”
The newspaper says that what remains of Hamas is crucial, especially after the killing of Sinwar last month in a chance encounter with Israeli soldiers in Rafah, southern Gaza. American officials and diplomats in the region expressed hope that Sinwar’s killing would lead to a ceasefire that could free the Israeli captives held by Hamas, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the terms of the agreement and said it would leave the remnants of Hamas effectively controlling what remains of the Strip.
An Israeli military official acknowledged: “They have lost their military capabilities and lost the chain of command, but they are still in Gaza and have administrative capabilities,” and that “dismantling military power is easier than dismantling administrative capacity,” adding: “The killing of Sinwar helps, but Hamas is stronger than one man.”
The newspaper says that before the war, Sinwar used to inspect military forces during mass exercises, meet regional diplomats, and deliver fiery speeches to admiring crowds at public gatherings. His successor, who has not yet been officially appointed, is likely to be assassinated by Israel and forced to live in the shadows, which will lead to a shift in the nature of Hamas.
A year after the decision to attack Israel on 7 October, Gaza has turned into ruin, and more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, while the population has been forced into displacement on barren, inhospitable land.
Gaza has turned into ruin a year after the decision to attack Israel on 7 October, and more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
Although many Gazans blame Hamas for the attack and the reckless gamble of confrontation with Israel, it remains the most popular movement and the standard-bearer of resistance against Israel. According to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, support for Hamas, although it has declined as the war has continued, still coincides with an overwhelming majority seeing that 7 October brought them closer to a Palestinian state by returning their suffering to the international stage. Outside Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas remains active despite the killing of the head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, during a visit to Tehran. The movement has an office in Doha, Qatar, holds conferences in Beirut and Tehran, and its envoys travel around the world to hold consultations with officials, including the Chinese in Beijing.
Michael Milshtein, a former military intelligence official and a fellow at the Dayan Institute at Tel Aviv University, says: “You can hurt them, but you cannot force them to raise the white flag. You can smash their heads, as we did with Sinwar, but let us admit it, in Gaza, we are not getting close to the goal” set by Netanyahu’s government at the start of the war. He added: “Even if they have suffered unparalleled damage, they are still the dominant player in Gaza and have basic military capabilities.”
In an interview with a wounded Qassam fighter, conducted some time ago through a Palestinian journalist, he said that the Al-Qassam Brigades had prepared for this moment, namely disappearing from the battlefield to avoid overwhelming military force and then reappearing to pursue and wear down Israeli forces. The wounded fighter told the newspaper: “Protecting the homeland means more than one thing.” He asked to be identified by the name Ibrahim al-Turki, and said: “Today, it means humiliating the enemy with a thousand wounds and expelling it from our holy Palestine.” He said Hamas is well equipped and can resist for a long time. It relies on light weapons, small quantities of explosive devices, and small teams of three to five fighters who move quickly and then disappear into the ruins of Gaza.
Hamas’s ability to wage guerrilla warfare has become increasingly clear: an Israeli colonel was recently killed in a Hamas explosion on the outskirts of Jabalia during the fourth offensive launched by the Israel Defense Forces on the refugee camp since the start of the war. A second Israeli military official said the fighting there was fierce and could spread to other areas of Gaza. The newspaper quoted Ibrahim Dalalsha, director of the Horizon Center in Ramallah, as saying that Hamas’s apparatus “is reproducing itself, and this fighting has nothing to do with personalities; they are important. Rather, it is about beginning a new process that benefits from the elimination of [Sinwar].” He said: “I am old enough to have seen figures rise and fall over many years, through intifadas and conflicts.”
Text © Al-Quds Al-Arabi — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source