INSIGHT: Diminished Hamas switches to full insurgent mode in Gaza

INSIGHT: Diminished Hamas switches to full insurgent mode in Gaza
File photo of a Palestinian fighter from the armed wing of Hamas takes part in a military parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 war with Israel, near the border in the central Gaza Strip. (REUTERS)
Updated 06 June 2024
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INSIGHT: Diminished Hamas switches to full insurgent mode in Gaza

INSIGHT: Diminished Hamas switches to full insurgent mode in Gaza
  • Hamas fighting force reduced by half — US officials
  • Group relying on ambushes, improvised bombs, such tactics could sustain a lengthy insurgency

WASHINGTON: Hamas has seen about half its forces wiped out in eight months of war and is relying on hit-and-run insurgent tactics to frustrate Israel’s attempts to take control of Gaza, US and Israeli officials told Reuters.
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 them 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 Israeli 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.
In a parallel propaganda drive, some of the group’s fighters are videotaping their ambushes of Israeli troops, before editing and posting them on Telegram and other social media apps.
Peter Lerner, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told Reuters they were still some way from destroying Hamas, which he also said had lost roughly half of its fighting force.
Lerner said the military was adapting to the group’s shift in tactics and acknowledged Israel couldn’t eliminate every Hamas fighter or destroy every Hamas tunnel.
“There is never a goal to kill each and every last terrorist on the ground. That’s not a realistic goal,” he added. “Destroying Hamas as a governing authority is an achievable and attainable military objective,” he added.
Hamas leaders Sinwar and DEIF
Netanyahu and his government are under pressure from Washington to agree to a ceasefire plan to end the war, which began on Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and seizing over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent ground-and-air campaign in Gaza has left the territory in ruins and killed more than 36,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities. The United Nations says over a million people face “catastrophic” levels of hunger.
There are about between 7,000-8,000 Hamas fighters reportedly entrenched in Rafah, the last significant bastion of the group’s resistance, according to Israeli and US officials. Top leaders Yahya Sinwar, his brother Mohammed, and Sinwar’s second-in-command Mohammed Deif are still alive and believed to be hiding in tunnels with Israeli hostages, they said.
The Palestinian group has shown the ability to withdraw rapidly after attacks, take cover, regroup, and pop up again in areas that Israel had believed to be cleared of militants, a US administration official said.
Lerner, the IDF spokesperson, agreed Israel faced a protracted battle to overcome Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2006.
“There is no quick fix after 17 years of them building their capabilities,” he added.
Hamas has constructed a 500 km (310 miles) subterranean city of tunnels over the years. The labyrinth, dubbed the Gaza metro by the Israeli military, is roughly half the length of the New York subway system. Equipped with water, power and ventilation, it shelters Hamas leaders, command and control centers, and weapons and ammunition stores.
The Israeli military said last week that it had taken control of the entire Gaza-Egypt land border to prevent weapons smuggling. About 20 tunnels used by Hamas to carry arms into Gaza were found within the zone, it added.
Egypt’s State Information Service didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Israel’s claims of arms-smuggling from the country. Egyptian officials have previously denied any such clandestine trade is taking place, saying they destroyed the tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago.
Echoes of Falluja insurgency?
The Gaza incursion is Israel’s longest and fiercest conflict since it invaded Lebanon to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1982.
Netanyahu has defied domestic and international calls to outline a post-war plan for the territory. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that the absence of such a roadmap could trigger lawlessness in the enclave.
One Arab official told Reuters that criminal gangs had already emerged in Gaza amid the power vacuum, seizing food deliveries and conducting armed robberies.
The official and two other Arab government sources, who all requested anonymity to speak freely, said the IDF could face similar threats to those encountered by America in the city of Falluja in 2004-2006 following the US-led invasion of Iraq.
A broad insurgency in Falluja swelled the ranks first of Al-Qaeda and then Islamic State, miring Iraq in conflict and chaos from which it has yet to fully emerge two decades later.
Washington and its Arab allies have said they are working on a post-conflict plan for Gaza which involves a time-bound, irreversible path to Palestinian statehood.
When the plan, part of a “grand bargain” envisioned by the United States that aims to secure a normalizing of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, is complete, Washington aims to put it to Israel, the US officials said.
A United Arab Emirates official with direct knowledge of the discussions said a Palestinian invitation was needed for countries to assist Gaza in an emergency operation, as well as an end to hostilities, full Israeli disengagement, and clarity on Gaza’s legal status, including control of borders.
The emergency process could last a year and be potentially renewable for another year, according to the UAE official who said the aim to be to stabilize the enclave rather than rebuild it.
For reconstruction to begin, a more detailed roadmap toward a two-state solution was needed, he added, as well as serious and credible reform of the Palestinian Authority.
How the United States aims to overcome Netanyahu’s repeated rejection of a two-state solution, which Riyadh says is a condition to normalizing ties, is unclear.
David Schenker, a former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, dismissed any suggestion of a clean IDF pullout from the Palestinian territory.
“Israel says it’s going to maintain security control which means that it’s going to constantly fly drones over Gaza and they’re not going to be limited if they see Hamas re-emerging, they’re going to go back,” said Schenker, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute US-based think-tank.
Gadi Eisenkot, a former Israeli military chief serving in Netanyahu’s war cabinet, has proposed an Egyptian-led international coalition as an alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza.
In a closed-door briefing last week to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he emphasized the complex nature of anti-militancy warfare.
“This is a religious, nationalistic, social, and military struggle with no knock-out blow but rather protracted warfare that will last many years,” he said.


Iraq ministry says two border guards killed by PKK fire

Iraq ministry says two border guards killed by PKK fire
Updated 58 min 26 sec ago
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Iraq ministry says two border guards killed by PKK fire

Iraq ministry says two border guards killed by PKK fire
  • “They were fired at by terrorists from the banned PKK organization” in Zakho district, the interior ministry said
  • The two guards were killed and a third wounded

IRBIL, Iraq: A shooting which officials blamed on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed two Iraqi border guards on Friday near the Turkish boundary in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Iraq’s interior ministry said.
The PKK, which has fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state, has several positions in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region, which also hosts Turkish military bases used to strike Kurdish insurgents.
“When the Iraqi border forces were carrying out their duties securing the Iraqi-Turkish border... they were fired at by terrorists from the banned PKK organization” in Zakho district, the interior ministry said in a statement.
The two guards were killed and a third wounded, it added.
A border guard official told AFP that the guards were patrolling a village near the Turkish border when the “shooting and clashes” with the PKK took place.
Baghdad deploys federal guards along its border with Turkiye in coordination with the government of the Kurdistan region and its forces, the peshmerga.
The Iraqi federal authorities in Baghdad have recently sharpened their tone against the PKK. Last year, Baghdad quietly listed the group as a “banned organization” — though Ankara demands that the Iraqi government do more in the fight against the militant group.
Ankara along with the United States deems the PKK a “terrorist” organization.
Türkiye has conducted hundreds of strikes against PKK fighters in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.


Israel sees more to do on Lebanon ceasefire as deadline nears

Israel sees more to do on Lebanon ceasefire as deadline nears
Updated 27 min 35 sec ago
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Israel sees more to do on Lebanon ceasefire as deadline nears

Israel sees more to do on Lebanon ceasefire as deadline nears
  • “We’ve also made clear that these movements have not been fast enough, and there is much more work to do,” Mencer said
  • Three diplomats said on Thursday it looked like Israeli forces would still be in some parts of southern Lebanon after the 60-day mark

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel said on Thursday the terms of a ceasefire with Hezbollah were not being implemented fast enough and there was more work to do, while the Iran-backed group urged pressure to ensure Israeli troops leave south Lebanon by Sunday as set out in the deal.
The deal stipulates that Israeli troops withdraw from south Lebanon, Hezbollah remove fighters and weapons from the area and Lebanese troops deploy there — all within a 60-day timeframe which will conclude on Sunday at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT).
The deal, brokered by the United States and France, ended more than a year of hostilities triggered by the Gaza war. The fighting peaked with a major Israeli offensive that displaced more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon and left Hezbollah severely weakened.
“There have been positive movements where the Lebanese army and UNIFIL have taken the place of Hezbollah forces, as stipulated in the agreement,” Israeli government spokesmen David Mencer told reporters, referring to UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.
“We’ve also made clear that these movements have not been fast enough, and there is much more work to do,” he said, affirming that Israel wanted the agreement to continue.
Mencer did not directly respond to questions about whether Israel had requested an extension of the deal or say whether Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon after Monday’s deadline.
Hezbollah said in a statement that there had been leaks talking about Israel postponing its withdrawal beyond the 60-day period, and that any breach of the agreement would be unacceptable.
The statement said that possibility required everyone, especially Lebanese political powers, to pile pressure on the states which sponsored the deal to ensure “the implementation of the full (Israeli) withdrawal and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the last inch of Lebanese territory and the return of the people to their villages quickly.”
Any delay beyond the 60 days would mark a blatant violation of the deal with which the Lebanese state would have to deal “through all means and methods guaranteed by international charters” to recover Lebanese land “from the occupation’s clutches,” Hezbollah said.
Israel said its campaign against Hezbollah aimed to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people forced to leave their homes in northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket fire.
It inflicted major blows on Hezbollah during the conflict, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and thousands of the group’s fighters and destroying much of its arsenal.
The group was further weakened in December when its Syrian ally, Bashar Assad, was toppled, cutting its overland supply route from Iran.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, said Israel had put an end to hostilities and was removing its forces from Lebanon, and that the Lebanese army had gone to locations of Hezbollah ammunition stores and destroyed them.
He also indicated there was more to do to shore up the ceasefire. “Are we done? No. We will need more time to achieve results,” he said.
Three diplomats said on Thursday it looked like Israeli forces would still be in some parts of southern Lebanon after the 60-day mark.
A senior Lebanese political source said President Joseph Aoun had been in contact with US and French officials to urge Israel to complete the withdrawal within the stipulated timeframe.
The Lebanese government has told US mediators that Israel’s failure to withdraw on time could complicate the Lebanese army’s deployment, and this would be a blow to diplomatic efforts and the optimistic atmosphere in Lebanon since Aoun was elected president on Jan. 9.


UN suspends all trips into Houthi-held areas of Yemen over staffers being detained

UN suspends all trips into Houthi-held areas of Yemen over staffers being detained
Updated 24 January 2025
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UN suspends all trips into Houthi-held areas of Yemen over staffers being detained

UN suspends all trips into Houthi-held areas of Yemen over staffers being detained
  • The statement comes after the Houthis detained UN staffers

DUBAI: The United Nations on Friday suspended all travel into areas held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels after more of their staff were detained by the rebels.
The statement comes after the Houthis detained UN staffers, as well as individuals associated with the once-open US Embassy in Sanaa and aid groups.
“Yesterday, the de facto authorities in Sanaa detained additional UN personnel working in areas under their control,” the UN statement read. “To ensure the security and safety of all its staff, the United Nations has suspended all official movements into and within areas under the de facto authorities’ control.”
The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the UN’s decision, which came as they have been trying to deescalate their attacks on shipping and Israel after a ceasefire was reached in the Israel-Hamas war.
US President Donald Trump separately has moved to reinstate a terrorism designation he made on the group late in his first term that had been revoked by President Joe Biden, potentially setting the stage for new tensions with the rebels.
The Houthis earlier this week said they would limit their attacks on ships in the Red Sea corridor and released the 25-member crew of the Galaxy Leader, a ship they seized back in November 2023.


Israel building military installations in Golan demilitarized zone

Israel building military installations in Golan demilitarized zone
Updated 24 January 2025
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Israel building military installations in Golan demilitarized zone

Israel building military installations in Golan demilitarized zone
  • UN: Israeli construction along Area of Separation is ‘severe violation’ of 1974 ceasefire agreement
  • Israeli forces have been operating in southern Syria since fall of Assad regime in December

LONDON: The Israeli military is building installations in the demilitarized zone between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria, satellite images published by the BBC have revealed.

Israeli forces moved into the Area of Separation agreed in the 1974 ceasefire with Syria, crossing the so-called Alpha Line following the fall of the Assad regime in December.

The satellite images, taken on Tuesday, show construction work and trucks around 600 meters inside the Area of Separation, including a track linking the site to another Israeli-administered road in the area.

Footage obtained by a drone operated by a Syrian journalist on Monday also identified excavators and bulldozers at the location.

The Israeli military told the BBC that its “forces are operating in southern Syria, within the buffer zone and at strategic points, to protect the residents of northern Israel.”

The UN Disengagement Observer Force has said Israeli construction along the Area of Separation is “a severe violation” of the 1974 ceasefire agreement.

Jeremy Binnie, Middle East specialist at defense intelligence company Janes, told the BBC: “The photo shows what appear to be four prefabricated guard posts that they will presumably crane into position in the corners, so this is somewhere they are planning to maintain at least an interim presence.”

It is not the first time that the BBC has identified Israeli forces inside the Area of Separation. Soldiers were spotted near the town of Majdal Shams, around 5.5 km from the new site, while satellite pictures taken in November found a trench being dug by Israeli personnel along the Alpha Line near the town of Jubata Al-Khashab.


Hamas says to provide names of 4 Israeli hostages on Friday for next swap

Hamas says to provide names of 4 Israeli hostages on Friday for next swap
Updated 24 January 2025
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Hamas says to provide names of 4 Israeli hostages on Friday for next swap

Hamas says to provide names of 4 Israeli hostages on Friday for next swap
  • Four Israeli women hostages to be freed on Saturday as part of a second release
  • Hamas has not released definitive information on how many captives are still alive or the names of those who have died

CAIRO: A senior Hamas official told AFP that his group will provide on Friday the names of four Israeli women hostages to be freed the following day as part of a second release under the ceasefire with Israel.
“Today, Hamas will provide the names of four hostages as part of the second prisoner exchange,” said Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Doha.
“Tomorrow, Saturday, the four women hostages will be released in exchange for a group of Palestinian prisoners, as agreed upon in the ceasefire deal.”
Naim also said that once the exchange takes place, war-displaced Palestinians in southern Gaza will be able to begin returning to the north of the territory.
“An Egyptian-Qatari committee will oversee the implementation of this part of the agreement on the ground,” he said.
“The displaced will return from the south to the north via Al-Rashid Road, as Israeli forces are expected to withdraw from there in accordance with the agreement.”
The ceasefire agreement was brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States after months of intense negotiations.
The truce, the second in the more than 15 months of war, began on Sunday, with the first three hostages released in exchange for around 90 Palestinian prisoners.
The war between Hamas and Israel broke out after the militants’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
During the attack, militants took 251 hostages, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are deceased.
The first truce, implemented in late November 2023, lasted just one week but involved the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Since then, Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,283 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures which the UN considers are reliable.