We’ve been documenting evidence which strongly suggests Hamas is far from being eradicated even after 475 days of war in the Gaza Strip. For example, on Saturday when four Israeli female captives were finally freed in exchange for 200 Palestinian prisoners, Hamas crowded a large city square with a well-armed battalion-sized force.
And now newly revealed US intelligence has indicated that Hamas, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, has actually been able to embark on a successful recruiting drive since the Israeli offensive began in Gaza in the wake of October 7.
“The Palestinian militant group Hamas has recruited between 10,000 and 15,000 members since the start of its war with Israel, according to two congressional sources briefed on U.S. intelligence, suggesting the Iran-backed fighters could remain a persistent threat to Israel,” Reuters reports.
“The intelligence indicates a similar number of Hamas fighters have been killed during that period, the sources said,” the report continues. “The latest official U.S. estimates have not been previously reported.”
Israeli government figures have put the number of Hamas dead at 20,000 or more. The group has been able to wage a guerilla insurgency using the Strip’s sprawling tunnel networks. Hamas sends small teams to ambush Israeli tank and infantry units, popping up from concealed tunnel entrances.
Just days before Trump entered the White House for a second time, then Secretary of State Antony Blinken assessed, “Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Hamas militants regroup and re-emerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void.”
President Trump is meanwhile taking a hawkish stance in his rhetoric, as expected. On the one hand he’s hailed the truce deal as a result of his early diplomacy, but on the other he has just declared that Gaza should be “cleaned out”…
President Donald Trump said on Jan. 25 that he wants Egypt, Jordan, and other Arab nations to accept more Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip, with the goal of moving out enough of the war-torn area’s population to “just clean [it] out” and create a virtual clean slate of the Palestinian territory.
As for Hamas’ ability to still recruit, many analysts have pointed out that each time Israel’s military occupies the Strip, more and more young people are radicalized.
Scenes of Hamas openly parading around the Gaza Strip sporting combat rifles and gear…
🫡 pic.twitter.com/OuRmjTRtlk
— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) January 25, 2025
It also remains that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are internal refugees and are homeless. This is likely to contribute to the trend of men signing up to enter Hamas’ armed ranks.
Trump’s ‘cleaning out’ Gaza would certainly complicated by the fact that Israel’s military would have to fully eradicate Hamas first – which is a tall order and something the IDF clearly has not been able to do up to this point.
Tyler Durden
Sun, 01/26/2025 – 19:15
