Hamas, the enclave’s ruling group, has been reduced to between 9,000 and 12,000 fighters, according to three senior US officials familiar with battlefield developments, down from American estimates of 20,000-25,000 before the conflict. By contrast, Israel says it has lost almost 300 troops in the Gaza campaign.
Hamas fighters are now largely avoiding sustained skirmishes with Israeli forces closing in on the southernmost city of Rafah, instead relying on ambushes and improvised bombs to hit targets often behind enemy lines, one of the officials said.
Several Gaza residents, including Wissam Ibrahim, said they too had observed a shift in tactics.
“In earlier months, Hamas fighters would intercept, engage, and fire at Israeli troops as soon as they pushed into their territory,” Ibrahim told Reuters by phone. “But now, there is a notable shift in their mode of operations. They wait for [the IDF] to deploy and then they start their ambushes and attacks.”
The US officials, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said such tactics could sustain a Hamas insurgency for months to come, aided by weapons smuggled into Gaza via tunnels and others repurposed from unexploded ordnance or captured from Israeli forces.
This kind of protracted timeframe is echoed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser who said last week the war could last until the end of 2024 at least.
A Hamas spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment on its battlefield strategy. READ MORE
