On Wednesday, May 22, 2024, the American magazine Politico reported that Hamas has lost only about 35% of its fighters despite the intense military pressure and bombing that has devastated Gaza over the past eight months. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is concerned that Israel is “catastrophically” squandering its opportunity to achieve victory.
According to the magazine, the Biden administration fears that Israel is losing its best chance to eliminate Hamas’s control over Gaza, with senior officials publicly describing Israel’s strategy in Gaza as “self-defeating.”
U.S. intelligence estimates that 65% of Hamas’s tunnels remain intact and that a significant number of its fighters are still active, although it believes that the group’s internal communications have been greatly damaged.
The Biden administration has also expressed increasing concern over Hamas’s ability to recruit thousands in recent months.
Amid an 18-year Israeli blockade on Gaza and escalated violations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, launched a surprise attack on Israeli military sites and settlements near the Gaza border on October 7. During the attack, at least 239 people were captured, according to Israeli media estimates.
At the time, these factions stated that their attack aimed to “end the unjust blockade on Gaza and thwart Israel’s plans to liquidate the Palestinian cause and impose its sovereignty over the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
While Israel managed to recover dozens of its captives in Gaza through an exchange deal that included a temporary humanitarian truce lasting seven days and ending in early December 2023, Hamas claims that Tel Aviv killed 71 of its captives in random airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.
The ongoing Israeli war on Gaza since October 7 has resulted in over 114,000 Palestinian casualties, most of them children and women, with about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of children and the elderly.
Israel continues its war on Gaza despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the International Court of Justice demanding immediate measures to prevent acts of “genocide” and to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
