Hamas On The Ropes: A Progress Report

Excerpt

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) announced today, September 12, that the southern army of Hamas in Gaza, called the Rafah Brigade, had been dismantled. The spokesman’s office said 2,000 Hamas fighters had been killed, and that 80 percent of the tunnels in the area had been destroyed. This comes just days after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that Hamas no longer existed as a military force in Gaza, and that it was time for Israel to head north because a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon is looming.

What to make of this?

There can be no doubt that Hamas is a spent force. The estimates of Hamas fighters killed during this war vary, but it’s safe to say that the number stands at 18,000 or even more. That’s roughly two-thirds of the fighting force Hamas boasted on October 7. Thousands more Hamasniks have been injured and will not be returning to the battlefield (many have received treatment in Turkey). Still more thousands have been captured during the fighting and are in Israeli custody, where interrogators are extracting intelligence that continues to help Israel neutralize Hamas across the Gaza Strip.

Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. Follow him on X @JSchanzer.