Israel Falls Short In Quest to Destroy Hamas

"Israeli forces have killed 20% to 30% of Hamas's fighters, U.S. intelligence agencies estimate, a toll that falls short of Israel's goal of destroying the group and shows its resilience after months of war that have laid swaths of the Gaza Strip to ruin.

The U.S. estimate of the group's casualties also found that Hamas still has enough munitions to continue striking Israel and Israeli forces in Gaza for months, and that the group is attempting to reconstitute its police force in parts of Gaza City, said U.S. officials who confirmed a classified report.

Israeli officials have conceded that, despite an aggressive air and ground campaign inside Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians, they haven't achieved their goal of destroying Hamas, which has run Gaza since ousting the Palestinian Authority in 2007. The group's fighters have adjusted their tactics, operating in smaller groups and hiding between ambushes on Israeli troops, while individual fighters are likely taking on more tasks to pick up the slack from their dead comrades, military analysts said.

Israel has withdrawn thousands of troops from Gaza following pressure from the U.S. to transition to a more surgical phase of its war against Hamas, but military officials say the war could continue for many more months. Hamas's survival has raised questions within Israel, the Palestinian territories and abroad about whether Israel can achieve its war aims.

Meanwhile, Biden administration officials have begun to scale down their expectations for the war, to Hamas's degradation as a security threat from its utter destruction. And the U.S. has urged Israel to shift the war toward more targeted operations aimed at Hamas's leadership.

Though Hamas has suffered thousands of casualties, according to U.S. and Israeli assessments, it aims simply to survive this conflict, current and former Israeli military officials said.

Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed more than 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and took more than 200 others hostage. It prompted Israel to attempt for the first time to uproot the group entirely and eliminate it as a threat. Before that, most Israeli and American officials and analysts regarded the group as posing a manageable threat to Israel.

On Sunday, the Palestinian health ministry said that more than 25,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began. Those figures don't distinguish between combatants and civilians. Some 1.9 million Gazans, about 85% of the population of Gaza, have fled their homes, according to the United Nations' humanitarian-affairs office.

Hamas has denied that its forces have suffered heavy losses.

The U.S. estimated that the group, an American-designated terrorist organization, had between 25,000 and 30,000 fighters before the war in addition to thousands of police and other forces. Israel also estimated the group had 30,000 or more militants.

The U.S. estimate, included in a classified report this month, was drawn from intercepted communications, analysis of the ruins in Gaza, drone surveillance of the territory, and intelligence provided by the Israelis." [1]

1. World News: Israel Falls Short In Quest to Destroy Hamas, U.S. Says.Youssef, Nancy A.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 22 Jan 2024: A.7.