December 8, 2023. After two months of war, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant tells troops: “I see signs that Hamas is beginning to crumble in Gaza.” Eight months later, and after showering the Strip with corpses (almost 40,000, mostly children and women, according to the Islamist government’s Ministry of Health), the signs have yet to materialize into victory. Or at least, the “total victory” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised at the beginning of the war, which he saw “within reach” in February and expects closer than ever at the end of this week, after dealing Hamas its most severe and symbolic blow since the beginning of the conflict. It has been twofold: the assassination of its top political leader, Ismail Haniya (Israel does not acknowledge responsibility, but almost no one has any doubts), and the announcement (about which the Islamists remain silent) that it killed the head of the armed wing, Mohamed Deif, in July in a bombing that took the lives of another 90 people. These are its two most important casualties, although Hamas is much more than a matter of names.
Both assassinations are a voluntary display of power. Deif’s was for “eliminating” (in Israeli military jargon) a leader with a reputation for being elusive, whom he had tried to kill about 10 times since 2001 and who was left dead before his time. It is not his surname, but rather a nickname in Arabic, “guest”, for always moving from place to place. He was number two, only below the man who makes the most decisions in Hamas, Yahia Sinwar, whom Israel has still not captured or killed, despite its satellites, spies on the ground and information obtained through torture. Israel already finished off the number three in the Strip, Marwan Issa, in March.
Haniya, on the other hand, did not live in hiding, but in Qatar, above all. As the top political leader and in charge of foreign relations, he participated in public events and in the negotiation of a ceasefire. Israel could have killed him months ago in Qatar, but it is one of the three countries mediating the agreement, so it chose Tehran to send a triple message: no one is safe, because the secret services abroad, the Mossad, maintain their ability to reach every corner intact; we are not afraid to humiliate the arch-enemy at home, even if it causes a regional war; and Iran is incapable of protecting a guest at the presidential inauguration.
Joost Hiltermann, director of the Middle East and North Africa programmes at the International Crisis Group think tank, believes that – beyond the moral blow, the display of capabilities thousands of kilometres away and the aftertaste of revenge – the last two assassinations “do not change anything strategically”.
“Hamas is weakened as an armed group, but it is still capable of causing harm. And as a political movement, it is more popular than ever, which gives it more chances of gaining a greater share of power in the Palestinian national movement,” he says in an exchange of messages. Hiltermann considers that the ten months of resistance against the most powerful army in the Middle East, showered with weapons by the United States, is “a surprise for the Israeli leaders,” but also the result of “telling the Israeli public that it is a problem that they can solve” by force. “The Israeli intelligence services see the Palestinian groups strictly through a security prism. And so a lot is lost,” he adds.
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Two weeks ago, the Israeli military estimated that it had killed or wounded some 14,000 members of Hamas’s armed wing, including half of its leaders, and spoke of a low motivation to fight among the rest. Before the war, the number was estimated at between 20,000 and 30,000 men.
Even if the figure, which Hamas denies, is correct, it means that the war is approaching a year with thousands of militiamen for urban guerrilla tactics: snipers, ambushes with grenade launchers, mines attached to tanks… Israeli troops have ended up returning up to two times to parts of Gaza (Khan Yunis, Shuyaiya, Jabalia…) that they had given up on in the first months of the invasion, in the face of Hamas’ attempts to “reorganize”.
Furthermore, the intensification and regionalization of the war that is emerging after the double murder this week of Haniya and Hezbollah’s number two in Beirut, Fuad Shukr, (the latter claimed by Israel) benefits him. a prioriIt is something that has been waiting since October 7, but neither Iran nor the Lebanese militia have since stepped back from their calculated support in defense of their Palestinian ally.
Avi Issajarof, military affairs commentator at the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonotinterprets Hamas’s almost non-existent response as “a clear testimony to its great military weakness”. Barely a bunch of rockets (intercepted by the anti-missile shield or falling in uninhabited spaces), compared to the more than 3,000 it managed to launch in a few hours on October 7, 2023, as a decoy for the massive infiltration of militants. “Is this a ‘total victory’ over Hamas? The answer is no. Such a victory only exists in the campaigns of some media outlets. However, in practice, Hamas is losing the battle for Gaza,” he wrote on Friday.
“A tactic of the 20th century”
Mohammad Abu Hawash, senior research assistant at the Global Affairs Council for the Near East, think tankThe Doha-based analyst sees the recent assassinations of leaders as “a 20th-century tactic” that is no longer valid in the 21st century. He compares them to Operation Wrath of God, the Mossad hunt around the world not only for the perpetrators (Black September) of the famous attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, but also for leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization. It worked, he argues, because the Palestinian leadership of the time depended on charismatic figures (Abu Iyad, Abu Yihad, Ali Hassan Salame… all assassinated by Israel) to win over supporters and diplomatic support.
That same tactic, however, “repeatedly fails against established organizations” such as Hamas or Hezbollah, where “the brand“overcomes the cult of personality” and decentralized structures ensure that no one “has disproportionate influence.”
Assassinations, moreover, “tend to be followed by an increase in both recruitment and diplomatic interaction,” recalls Abu Hawash. Any Hamas leader knows, in fact, that death accompanies the position. From the number two politician, Saleh el Aruri, last January in Beirut, to Sheikh Ahmed Yasin (67 years old and in a wheelchair) and his successor Abdelaziz Rantisi, in just one month in 2004; or to two other leaders of the armed wing, such as Salah Shehade (2002) or Ahmed Yabari (2012).
It is also part of a way of looking at the world, both as Palestinians and as Islamists: leaders pass away, but ideas remain; everything is in the hands of God; leaving this world as a martyr is an honour and – in a different conception of time – the important thing is not to see with one’s own eyes the “liberation of Palestine”, but to contribute to its eventual occurrence. One of the examples they often bring up in conversations is the expulsion of the Crusaders, a millennium ago.
While Israel speaks of Hamas as a shopping list to be ticked off and with no role to play in postwar Gaza, Palestinians see an unprecedented push toward factional reconciliation. Dalal Iriqat, a Palestinian assistant professor of conflict resolution and diplomacy at the Arab American University (based in the West Bank city of Jenin), envisions a “more pragmatic” Hamas.
Two weeks ago, and with all the skepticism provoked by almost two decades of pompous unfulfilled announcements, they signed a pact of national unity in Beijing. “Hamas is a reality, a power that exists. More exclusion always generates more radicalization, and would only lead us to another October 7,” the surprise attack (almost 1,200 dead and 251 hostages) that triggered the war.
“Hamas has two options. Either it recognises Israel’s right to exist or it continues not to do so, but still adopts a more pragmatic approach. It does not need to be represented in a national unity government for its positions to be represented,” he said by phone after recalling that the Islamist movement “already recognised to a certain extent” in practice the existence of Israel when it decided to participate (and win) the 2006 elections and modified its founding charter in 2017. Even with the bombings in Gaza, Haniya reiterated its willingness to form a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, rather than in “all of Palestine”, the designation that includes Israel.
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