40,000 fighters, tunnels: How Hamas will take on Israeli soldiers in Gaza

Terrorist organisation Hamas is ready for a protracted battle in the Gaza Strip. It believes it can stall Israel’s advances long enough to pressure its fierce rival into accepting to a ceasefire, Reuters reported its sources as saying. Two sources told the agency that Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2006, has amassed enough guns, missiles, food, and medical supplies. The group is certain its thousands of fighters can use urban guerrilla tactics to elude Israeli troops and survive for months in a network of tunnels that cut deep beneath the Palestinian territory. It also believes that as civilian fatalities increase and international pressure mounts on Benjamin Netanyahu-led country to lift the siege, a ceasefire and a diplomatic settlement could be forced, in which case the group would gain a tangible concession – like the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli hostages. According to four Hamas officials, a regional official, and a source familiar with the White House’s thinking, the Palestinian militant group has conveyed this message indirectly to the US and Israel via Qatar-mediated hostage negotiations. In the long run, Hamas stated that it wants to lift Israel’s 17-year blockade of Gaza, stop the growth of Israeli settlements, and stop what Palestinians see to be oppressive activities by Israeli security forces at Jerusalem’s most revered Muslim site, the Al-Aqsa mosque. Hamas is “fully prepared” Adeeb Ziadeh, a Palestinian expert in international affairs at Qatar University who has studied Hamas, said the group must have had a longer-term plan to follow its assault on Israel. “Those who carried out the 7 October attack with its level of proficiency, this level of expertise, precision and intensity, would have prepared for a long-term battle. It’s not possible for Hamas to engage in such an attack without being fully prepared and mobilized for the outcome,” Ziadeh told Reuters. [caption id=“attachment_13348222” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A Palestinian fighter from the armed wing of Hamas takes part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip. Reuters[/caption] Washington expects Hamas to try to bog Israeli forces down in street-by-street combat in Gaza and inflict heavy enough military casualties to also gain Israeli public support for a drawn-out conflict, said the source familiar with the White House’s thinking, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely. Israeli officials have nonetheless stressed to their American counterparts that they’re prepared to confront Hamas’ guerrilla tactics as well as withstand international criticism of their offensive, according to the person. Whether the country has the capability to eliminate Hamas or merely severely degrade the organisation remains an open question, the source added. Hamas has about 40,000 fighters, according to the sources at the group. They can move around the enclave using a vast web of fortified tunnels, hundreds of kilometers long and up to 80 meters deep, built over many years. On Thursday, operatives in Gaza were seen emerging from tunnels to fire at tanks, then disappearing back into the network, according to residents and videos. The Israeli military says soldiers from its Yahalom special combat engineering unit have been working with other forces to locate and destroy tunnel shafts, during what a spokesman called a “complex urban fight” in Gaza. Hamas has fought a series of wars with Israel in recent decades and Ali Baraka, the Beirut-based head of Hamas’ External Relations, said it had gradually improved its military capabilities, particularly its missiles. In the 2008 Gaza war, Hamas rockets had a maximum range of 40 km (25 miles), but that had risen to 230 km by the 2021 conflict, he added. “In every war, we surprise the Israelis with something new,” Baraka told Reuters. An official close to the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement Hezbollah, which is allied to Hamas, said the Palestinian group’s fighting strength remained mostly intact after weeks of bombardment. Hezbollah has a joint military operation room in Lebanon with Hamas and other allied factions in a regional network backed by Iran, according to Hezbollah and Hamas officials. Calls for Israel’s destruction Hamas, which is designated a terrorist movement by Israel, the US and the EU, called for the destruction of Israel in its 1988 founding charter. In a subsequent document known as its 2017 charter, the group accepted for the first time the idea of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders claimed by Israel after the Six-Day War, although the group did not explicitly recognise Israel’s right to exist. Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who is based in Beirut, said the Oct. 7 attack and the unfolding Gaza war would put the issue of Palestinian statehood back on the map. It is an opportunity for us to tell them that we can make our destiny with our own hands. We can arrange the equation of the region in a way that serves our interests," he told Reuters. [caption id=“attachment_13348232” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Palestinian militants attend Hamas rally Solidarity with Al-Aqsa in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Reuters[/caption] Hamas gained leverage after the Oslo peace accord, agreed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1993 to end decades of conflict, hit a wall. Netanyahu won power for the first time in 1996. Palestinians and the US negotiators said his governments’ refusal over the years to halt Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank undermined efforts to create a separate Palestinian state. Israeli officials in the past have denied settlements were an obstacle to peace and Netanyahu’s current far-right coalition has taken an even harder line against ceding occupied land. An Arab peace initiative, with broad international and unanimous Arab support, has been on the table since 2002. The plan offers Israel peace treaties with full diplomatic ties in exchange for a sovereign Palestinian state. Netanyahu has instead opted for seeking an Arab Sunni alliance with Israel, made up of Egypt and Jordan – nations Israel has peace treaties with dating from 1979 and 1994 – as well as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. Before the 7 October Hamas attack, he was in U.S.-brokered talks with Saudi Arabia to forge a landmark diplomatic deal as a united front against Iran, but that process has since been put on hold. Muasher, the former Jordanian minister at Carnegie, said Hamas’ attack had ended any possibility that Middle Eastern stability could be reached without engaging with Palestinians. “It’s clear today that without peace with the Palestinians you are not going to have peace in the region.” Latest developments in the conflict On Thursday, UN experts called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, saying Palestinians there were at “grave risk of genocide”. Many experts see a spiraling crisis, with no clear endgame in sight for either side. “The mission to destroy Hamas is not easily achieved,” said Marwan Al-Muasher, Jordan’s former foreign minister and deputy prime minister who now works for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “There is no military solution to this conflict. We are in some dark times. This war is not going to be short.” Israel has deployed overwhelming aerial firepower since the 7 October attack, which saw Hamas gunmen burst out of the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 Israelis and taking 239 hostages. The Gazan death count has surpassed 9,000, with every day of violence fuelling protests around the world over for the plight of more than 2 million Gazans trapped in the tiny enclave, many without water, food or power. Israeli airstrikes hit a crowded refugee camp in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 50 Palestinians and a Hamas commander. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to wipe out Hamas and has rejected calls for a ceasefire. Israeli officials say they’re under no illusions about what may lie ahead and accuse the operatives of hiding behind civilians. The country has braced itself for a “long and painful war”, said Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN and former member of the Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee. “We know at the end that we will prevail and that we will defeat Hamas,” he told Reuters. “The question will be the price, and we have to be very cautious and very careful and understand that it’s a very complex urban area to maneuver.” The United States has said now is not the time for a general ceasefire, though says pauses in hostilities are needed to deliver humanitarian aid. With inputs from Reuters