Hamas fighters are once again rising up and taking back control of the streets of Gaza – even though thousands have been killed in 15 months of bloody war with Israel
Hamas gunmen are on the rise again as a dominant force” in war-torn Gaza, experts fear, just days into a crucial ceasefire with Israel.
As many as 20,000 of Hamas’ heavily-armed fighters remain, after a further 4,000 were recruited since war broke out on October 7, 2023. New recruits have swelled numbers of the terror group – which fights alongside approximately 4,000 Palestinian Islamic Jihad members.
And added to that another 6,000 armed Hamas police have re-emerged on the Strip’s rubble-strewn streets, although they are not officially fighters. It emerged as the Middle East braces for another tense hostage release in exchange for close to 100 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday. Images of fresh-looking armed Hamas men in fatigues overseeing the first three hostages released during this phase shocked the world on Sunday.
But Dr Milshtein, senior researcher at the Dayan Center (corr) in Tel Aviv University told Israeli Radio: “From Hamas’s perspective, they are making a major comeback as a dominant force in Gaza. Their situation is not bad. It’s terrible for us to say this because we wanted to see a battered, beaten, and maybe even barely existing organisation. Yesterday, the education system in Gaza announced that schools will soon reopen, even though 85% of schools no longer exist.
“And 6,000 Hamas police officers have been deployed throughout the strip, making it clear to everyone who is in charge and signaling that there’s no point in talking about the post war era. We need to get into the mindset of many Palestinians, especially Hamas – in their view, the price was worth it.. In their count, 50,000 died, and the destruction of Gaza is the justified price for the harm caused to Israel and for their national pride. I’m not justifying them, but that is their narrative, and it’s time we understand that.”
It comes as hundreds of Palestinians have fled homes in the West Bank’s Jenin town, fearing it will become the new Gaza with constant Israeli attacks. At least ten have died in Israel’s new attacks this week and 40 have been injured as Israel tracks down terror targets in Jenin. Israel has stepped up assaults on West Bank terror targets, killing two militants who carried out a bus attack in the West Bank which killed three days ago.
Troops said the two men barricaded themselves in a structure in the West Bank village of Burqin and exchanged fire with Israeli troops before they were killed overnight. The military said Mohammed Nazzal and Katiba al-Shalabi were operatives with the Islamic Jihad militant group, an ally of Hamas. The Jan. 6 attack on the bus carrying Israelis killed three people and wounded six others.
But Jenin Refugee Camp has been partially cut off for months, leading to food, water and supplies shortages. As many as 47,000 Palestinian civilians have died in Gaza, where the explosions have stopped ringing out now for five days. A shaky ceasefire has brought an influx of humanitarian aid and a rare respite from Israeli bombardment.
But there are some two million people displaced by fighting, many of them forced to shelter in makeshift tents and rubbled buildings. Heavy rains were flooding tents across the territory, leaving Palestinians shivering in the cold. At one makeshift camp in the central city of Deir al-Balah, the downpour Thursday quickly soaked through flimsy tents that seemed to float on pools of muck. Some used sandbags to keep their tents from washing away, while others tried to clear the huge puddles of mud outside their shelters.
Barefoot children trod through paths that had become filthy rivers. Tareq Deifallah, a displaced resident in Deir al-Balah originally from Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza, said water was seeping through his tent from all sides. He said “the truce is useless” when it came to changing his living conditions. Before the truce we were suffering, after the truce we are suffering, from the rain and the winter.”
Monira Faraj, a mother of two young girls, said rain flooded her tent and soaked through her mattress as her family was sleeping. She said: “We’re afraid we’re going to drown if it becomes too much.”
