The top commanders of Hamas are mostly dead.
The group’s rank and file has been decimated. Many of its hide-outs and stockpiles have been captured and destroyed.
But Hamas’s killing of an Israeli colonel in northern Gaza on Sunday underscored how the group’s military wing, though unable to operate as a conventional army, is still a potent guerrilla force with enough fighters and munitions to enmesh the Israeli military in a slow, grinding and as yet unwinnable war.
Hamas’s remaining fighters are hiding from view in ruined buildings and the group’s vast underground tunnel network, much of which remains intact despite Israel’s efforts to destroy it, according to military analysts and Israeli soldiers.
Some of those explosives were stockpiled before the start of the war. Others are repurposed Israeli munitions that failed to explode on impact, according to both Hamas and the Israeli military. Hamas released a video this week that appeared to show Hamas combatants turning an unexploded Israeli missile into an improvised bomb.
In open combat, Hamas’s fighters are no match for Israel’s army, as the killing of Mr. Sinwar in southern Gaza last week showed. Cornered in the ruins of Rafah, Mr. Sinwar was killed by an Israeli unit that could call on tanks, drones and snipers for backup.
Yet the aimlessness of Israel’s strategy has led to questions from both Israelis and Palestinians about why its soldiers were sent again to Jabaliya.
“We occupy territories, and then we get out,” said Michael Milstein, an Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs.
“This kind of doctrine means that you find yourself in endless war.”
.Առաջինը եղեք, ով կպատասխանի այս Ընդհանուր քննարկում ։
