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.
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
UN investigator says possible to find ‘enough’ proof for Syria prosecutions
- Since Assad’s fall, Petit has been able to visit the country but his team still require authorization to begin their work inside Syria which they have requested
DAMASCUS: The visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria said Sunday it was possible to find “more than enough” evidence to convict people of crimes against international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.
The doors of Syria’s prisons were flung open after an Islamist-led rebel alliance ousted longtime ruler Bashar Assad this month, more than 13 years after his brutal repression of anti-government protests triggered a war that would kill more than 500,000 people.
With families rushing to former prisons, detention centers and alleged mass graves to find any trace of disappeared relatives, many have expressed concern about safeguarding documents and other evidence.
“We have the possibility here to find more than enough evidence left behind to convict those we should prosecute,” said Robert Petit, who heads the International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) set up by the UN in 2016 to prepare prosecutions for major international crimes in Syria.
But he noted that preserving evidence would “need a lot of coordination between all the different actors.”
“We can all understand the human impulse to go in and try and find your loved ones,” Petit said. “The fact is, though, that there needs to be a control put in place to restrict access to all these different centers... It needs to be a concerted effort by everyone who has the resources and the powers to do that to freeze that access, preserve it.”
The organization, known as the Mechanism, was not permitted to work in Syria under Assad’s government but was able to document many crimes from abroad.
Since Assad’s fall, Petit has been able to visit the country but his team still require authorization to begin their work inside Syria which they have requested.
He said his team had “documented hundreds of detention centers... Every security center, every military base, every prison had their own either detention or mass graves attached to it.”
“We’re just now beginning to scratch that surface and I think it’s going to be a long time before we know the full extent of it,” he told AFP.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, more than 100,000 people died in Syria’s jails and detention centers from 2011.
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
Petit compared Saydnaya to the S-21 prison in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, which came to stand for the Khmer Rouge’s wider atrocities and now houses the country’s genocide museum.
The Saydnaya facility will become “an emblematic example of inhumanity,” he said.
Petit said his team had reached out to the new authorities “to get permission to come here and start discussing a framework by which we can conduct our mandate.”
“We had a productive meeting and we’ve asked formally now, according to their instructions, to be able to come back and start the work. So we’re waiting for that response,” he said.
Even without setting foot in Syria, Petit’s 82-member team has gathered huge amounts of evidence of the worst breaches of international law committed during the war.
The hope is that there could now be a national accountability process in Syria and that steps could be taken to finally grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed in the country.
Tunisian women herb harvesters struggle with drought
- Tunisia produces around 10,000 tonnes of aromatic and medicinal herbs each year, according to official figures
TUNIS: On a hillside in Tunisia’s northwestern highlands, women scour a sun-scorched field for the wild herbs they rely on for their livelihoods, but droughts are making it ever harder to find the precious plants.
Yet the harvesters say they have little choice but to struggle on, as there are few opportunities in a country hit hard by unemployment, inflation and high living costs.
“There is a huge difference between the situation in the past and what we are living now,” said Mabrouka Athimni, who heads a local collective of women herb harvesters named “Al-Baraka.”
“We’re earning half, sometimes just a third, of what we used to.”
SPEEDREAD
Yet the harvesters say they have little choice but to struggle on, as there are few opportunities in a country hit hard by unemployment and high living costs.
Tunisia produces around 10,000 tonnes of aromatic and medicinal herbs each year, according to official figures.
Rosemary accounts for more than 40 percent of essential oil exports, mainly destined for French and American markets.
For the past 20 years, Athimni’s collective has supported numerous families in Tbainia, a village near the city of Ain Draham in a region with much higher poverty rates than the national average.
Women, who make up around 70 percent of the agricultural workforce, are the main breadwinners for their households in Tbainia.
Tunisia is in its sixth year of drought and has seen its water reserves dwindle, as temperatures have soared past 50 degrees Celsius in some areas during the summer.
The country has 36 dams, mostly in the northwest, but they are currently just 20 percent full — a record low in recent decades.
The Tbainia women said they usually harvested plants like eucalyptus, rosemary and mastic year-round, but shrinking water resources and rare rainfall have siphoned oil output.
“The mountain springs are drying up, and without snow or rain to replenish them, the herbs yield less oil,” said Athimni.
Mongia Soudani, a 58-year-old harvester and mother of three, said her work was her household’s only income. She joined the collective five years ago.
“We used to gather three or four large sacks of herbs per harvest,” she said. “Now, we’re lucky to fill just one.”
Forests in Tunisia cover 1.25 million hectares, about 10 percent of them in the northwestern region.
Wildfires fueled by drought and rising temperatures have ravaged these woodlands, further diminishing the natural resources that women like Soudani depend on.
In the summer of last year, wildfires destroyed around 1,120 hectares near Tbainia.
“Parts of the mountain were consumed by flames, and other women lost everything,” Soudani recalled.
To adapt to some climate-driven challenges, the women received training from international organizations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, to preserve forest resources.
Still, Athimni struggles to secure a viable income.
“I can’t fulfil my clients’ orders anymore because the harvest has been insufficient,” she said.
The collective has lost a number of its customers as a result, she said.
Civilians suffer as rival forces seek foothold in wider Darfur region
- Rapid Support Forces seize back control of key logistical base
DUBAI/CAIRO: Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) seized back control of a key logistical base in North Darfur on Sunday, the paramilitary group said, a day after it was taken by rival forces allied with Sudan’s army.
The conflict between the RSF and the army erupted in April 2023, and some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in North Darfur as the army and allied Joint Forces — a collection of former rebel groups — battle to maintain a last foothold in the wider Darfur region.
The Joint Forces and the army said in statements they had taken control on Saturday of the Al-Zurug base, which the RSF has used during the 20-month war as a logistical base to channel supplies from over the nearby borders with Chad and Libya.
BACKGROUND
• The conflict between the RSF and the army erupted in April 2023, and some of the fiercest fighting has taken place in North Darfur.
• Since fighting picked up in Al-Fashir in mid-April, at least 782 civilians have been killed, according to a UN human rights report.
Dozens of RSF soldiers were killed, vehicles destroyed and supplies captured as they captured the base, they said.
The incident could inflame ethnic tensions between the Arab tribes that form the base of the RSF and the Zaghawa tribe that forms most of the Joint Forces, analysts say.
The RSF accused Joint Forces fighters of killing civilians and burning down nearby homes and public amenities during the raid.
“The Joint Forces carried out ethnic cleansing against innocent civilians in Al-Zurug and intentionally killed children, women, and the elderly and burnt and destroyed wells and markets and homes and the health center and schools,” it said in a statement on Sunday.
The Joint Forces said the base had been used by the RSF as a “launching point for barbaric operations against civilians” in areas including Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur state and one of the most active frontlines in the fighting.
Since fighting picked up in Al-Fashir in mid-April, at least 782 civilians have been killed, according to a UN human rights report, the result of attacks via “intense” heavy artillery and suicide drones from the RSF and airstrikes and artillery strikes by the army.
On Sunday, activists from the Al-Fashir Resistance Committee reported an onslaught of at least 30 missiles fired on different parts of the city.
Seizing control of the city would bolster the RSF’s attempt to install a parallel government to the national government in Port Sudan, analysts say.
Jordanian minister criticizes ‘sensational’ reporting of Middle East events
- Mohammad Momani stressed the importance of obtaining verified information
- He said media freedom should not be misused to distort regional events
LONDON: Jordanian Minister of Government Communication Mohammad Momani emphasized the importance of professionalism and accuracy in reporting Middle Eastern events during a meeting with local, Arab and international media representatives on Sunday.
Momani said that a few international media outlets “sensationalize” regional events at the cost of accuracy, arguing that “this does not serve the public and undermines professional standards.”
He discussed with media representatives the importance of obtaining verified information to ensure accuracy, serve public opinion and uphold the right to knowledge, the official Jordanian news agency, Petra, reported.
Over the past year, some Western media outlets reporting on the Israeli war in the Gaza Strip and the conflict with Lebanon, as well as the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, have investigated some details in the stories they ran.
CNN investigated a recent video report that captures the moment a Syrian prisoner was freed from a secretive prison in Damascus. Critics have claimed that the report was staged and that the man featured in the CNN video was not who he claimed to be.
Momani said that media freedom should not be misused to distort regional circumstances or promote political and ideological agendas, Petra added.
He called on media outlets in Jordan to report on the country’s political and security realities professionally, accurately representing the event in all its aspects while rejecting false or misleading narratives.
Momani said that the Jordanian government was dedicated to transparency and communication with media representatives, including Arab, international and local outlets.
He praised the professional reporting on regional events by Jordanian state agencies and commended the country’s balanced political stance and commitment to stability.
Jordan’s Ministry of Government Communication regularly holds meetings and briefings to enhance communication with media representatives in Jordan.
Weakened Iran could pursue nuclear weapon, White House’s Sullivan says
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is concerned that a weakened Iran could build a nuclear weapon, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, adding that he was briefing President-elect Donald Trump’s team on the risk.
Iran has suffered setbacks to its regional influence after Israel’s assaults on its allies, Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, followed by the fall of Iran-aligned Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Israeli strikes on Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses, have reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, Sullivan told CNN.
“It’s no wonder there are voices (in Iran) saying, ‘Hey, maybe we need to go for a nuclear weapon right now ... Maybe we have to revisit our nuclear doctrine’,” Sullivan said.
Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful, but it has expanded uranium enrichment since Trump, in his 2017-2021 presidential term, pulled out of a deal between Tehran and world powers that put restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.
Sullivan said that there was a risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.
“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Sullivan said, adding that he had also consulted with US ally Israel.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, could return to his hard-line Iran policy by stepping up sanctions on Iran’s oil industry. Sullivan said Trump would have an opportunity to pursue diplomacy with Tehran, given Iran’s “weakened state.”
“Maybe he can come around this time, with the situation Iran finds itself in, and actually deliver a nuclear deal that curbs Iran’s nuclear ambitions for the long term,” he said.
