Hamas remains ‘resilient’ on battlefield despite Israeli war: US think tanks

In a report published on Tuesday, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) highlighted Hamas’s ability to reconstitute amid the occupying regime’s failure to eliminate it.

“Hamas remains resilient and able to reconstitute its military capabilities, despite its military losses in the war thus far,” the report said.

It noted that any deal that keeps Hamas in Gaza would be “tantamount to Israel’s defeat” because it would preserve the group as a governing body and military force in the besieged Palestinian territory and enable it to threaten the usurping regime.

Israel waged the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7 after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

However, 82 days into the offensive, Tel Aviv has failed to achieve its objectives of destroying Hamas and finding Israeli captives in Gaza.

On Tuesday, Israel’s minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant said the regime is in a “multi-arena war”, warning of a long fight ahead.

Gallant’s comments followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks Monday that the Gaza war is far from over.

The Tuesday report by the US war monitors stressed that Israeli officials have stressed the need for a “prolonged” war to achieve their declared objectives in Gaza.

It added that Hamas continues to engage in battles in the northern Gaza cities of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement “conducted a combined complex ambush using standard and thermobaric rockets against Israeli forces sheltering in a home in Jabalia city”, according to the report.

Palestinian fighters are also engaged in “heavy fighting” against Israeli troops in southern Gaza using mortars and rockets.

The US report further referred to clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters across the occupied West Bank and attacks by the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement on the occupied territories.

Since the start of the Israeli aggression, the regime has killed at least 20,915 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 54,918 others.

Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble in the Gaza Strip, which is under “complete siege” by Israel.