Six months after the war in Gaza, most estimates indicate that the Hamas movement has failed to achieve any of its goals, while the Gaza Strip is groaning under the weight of a humanitarian catastrophe, with the vast majority of its population suffering from the dangers of hunger, destruction, and disease, while the movement’s leaders are unable to offer any solutions.
Observers who spoke to Sky News Arabia believe that the movement bears responsibility as well Israel About the collapse of the situation within the sector, and it is currently unable to provide any solutions to the catastrophic crisis.
And she says agitation It carried out its attack on October 7th on the settlements surrounding Gaza, in anticipation of an Israeli plan to invade the Gaza Strip and liquidate the Palestinian issue. Then it said that it wanted to “reinvigorate the Palestinian issue,” which had fallen from international accounts and had become a hostage of Israeli practices.
On more than one occasion, movement officials explained that they were surprised by the results of this attack and the Israeli response to it.
Was Hamas defeated?
While you arrive Israel To control more than 70 percent of the Gaza Strip, observers predict the end of the movement’s rule within the Gaza Strip, with the humanitarian crisis reaching a catastrophic stage.
Estimates indicate Israeli intelligence More than 18 of the 24 Hamas battalions were disbanded as organized forces and turned into smaller guerrilla cells.
Nearly half of the group’s 40,000 fighters are believed to have been killed or wounded.
Israeli military officials said that the bulk of the remaining Hamas brigades withdrew to the southern city of Rafah and the Nuseirat and Deir al-Balah refugee camps in central Gaza.
Meanwhile, civilians in Gaza are suffering from a worsening humanitarian catastrophe.
Observers believe that Hamas had a “false assumption” that Israel’s response to October 7 would lead to popular uprisings against the Jewish state throughout the Middle East, which did not materialize.
The head of the Horizon Center for Studies in Ramallah, Ibrahim Dalalsha, told Sky News Arabia that Hamas has implicated the people of Gaza in a humanitarian catastrophe, and is unable to provide solutions after it lost its control over the Gaza Strip almost completely.
Struggle for “just” survival
Dalalsha believes that Hamas is currently trying to strengthen its political survival within the Gaza Strip, or what remains of it in light of the Israeli army’s military control over it, and has failed so far to advance the current negotiations to achieve the goal of survival, in light of the Netanyahu government’s insistence on completely eliminating the movement’s rule.
Hamas’s goal at the present time is limited to ensuring its survival as a movement, and it insists on achieving a permanent ceasefire in light of the attempt to rearrange the cards.
According to the Financial Times, Hamas officials have been engaged in talks to allow the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to reassert its control over Gaza through an “ad hoc leadership committee” or a newly formed government of technocrats.
Hamas is negotiating for its survival in Gaza
Miscalculations?
The American expert specializing in political and security affairs, Irina Zuckerman, believes that Hamas has misjudged and failed to achieve any goals. She tells Sky News Arabia:
- Hamas bet on two different issues as part of its strategy: first, it expected other Iranian-backed regional organizations such as Hezbollah to play an equal or greater role in the war than they did (after stealing the October 7 plans from Hezbollah), and second, on pressure from the international community.
- Hamas did not necessarily expect to prevail on the ground alone due to the clear disparity – despite improvements and logistics – between its military capabilities and those of the Israeli army.
- However, it expected Hezbollah to drag Israel into an all-out war much earlier than was occurring in the operation, thus manipulating Israel into dividing its forces and attention along two main fronts, while also being blown up by smaller militias and proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
- Hezbollah was more concerned about the strategic ramifications of the war for its future, and entered the war much more cautiously, increasing the level of attacks over time rather than from the beginning, which gave the IDF time to make an unsurprising combat advance inside Gaza and redistribute forces in a way that made it possible to respond on two fronts. Without causing serious damage.
- So far, Hezbollah has exercised relative restraint, firing only a limited number of missiles at Israel, which is not enough to overwhelm its defenses.
- By contrast, the Houthis turned out to be more effective and engaged as expected, but so far most of their anger has been directed toward international shipping as opposed to Israel, whose ships quickly chose to take a different route. Although the Houthis finally managed to penetrate the missile defense system and shoot down a missile in Eilat, this was still not enough to cause damage.
The result
According to Tsukerman, Hamas suffered much greater losses than it expected, and the war continued in Israel’s militarily favor without significant deviation from any other powers.
The Israelis were able to disrupt similar attacks planned by various cells in the West Bank.
The plan to open another front and cause a similar level of damage from this direction failed completely, leaving Hamas to fend for itself.
Another unexpected development for Hamas was the partial closure of UNRWA, especially the cut in US funding which appears to have benefited Hamas much more directly, so some of the reduction in funding has had a significant impact on revenues.
The most prominent Hamas leaders who were assassinated by Israel after October 7
The crisis of singular decision
For his part, the Egyptian journalist and researcher specializing in Arab affairs, Ahmed Gomaa, believes that the Hamas military leadership’s exclusive decision on this operation has confused the calculations of the Palestinian factions, which did not expect the Israeli war to extend for six months and still continue in all areas of the Gaza Strip.
He considered that this put the Hamas political leadership in great embarrassment due to its inability to force the Israeli side to stop the war on Gaza, despite having the strongest card in the equation, which is the “Israeli prisoners” card, due to the Benjamin Netanyahu government’s insistence on continuing military operations on several fronts, whether the southern with Gaza or the northern with. Lebanon and its attempt to confront Houthi attacks in the Red Sea region.
Fatah: Hamas acts unilaterally and ignores the rest of the components
Hamas’s unique decision to take military action away from the other Palestinian factions and its adherence to its conditions in the negotiating process created a kind of anger among the ranks of the rest of the factions, which saw the need for this decision to be made in consultation and not individually by the Qassam leadership, which was a cause of tension between Fatah and Hamas, as well as the situation. Pent-up anger within the Islamic Jihad leadership, which has greatly depleted its military capabilities in the May 2023 war, as well as the recent war continuing to this moment.
Hamas has largely lost control over the reins in the Gaza Strip, and this has become clear in the limited operations carried out by Al-Qassam fighters, as well as the scarcity of rockets fired at Israeli settlements, while paying a heavy bill in the blood of civilians, as 32,000 people were martyred and 74,000 others were injured, in one incident. One of the longest wars that Israel has fought over the past decades against armed factions.
Saving what can be saved?
- According to Jumaa, Hamas is seriously trying to deal positively with the negotiations currently taking place to stop the Israeli war on Gaza, to save what can be saved in the Gaza Strip after its complete destruction and the uncertainty of the political future of the movement, which refuses to be marginalized in any future political process regarding the Palestinian issue.
- The Gaza Strip is currently facing the unknown in light of Western plans that seek to displace the Palestinians from their land, which is rejected by the Arab countries, led by Egypt, which has warned against any steps aimed at displacing the Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, in addition to the state of complete rejection of any Israeli military operation in the Palestinian Rafah.
- The Palestinian side needs to unify its ranks as soon as possible, stop the media and verbal wars, and agree on a common Palestinian national vision to get out of the current impasse and confront any attempts aimed at liquidating the Palestinian issue and aborting the two-state solution.
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