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While Hamas’s high-ranking leadership has been largely eliminated in targeted strikes, Israeli intelligence believes the group’s command structure remains functional at the tactical level.
By Aaron S, Jewish Breaking News
A new Israeli intelligence assessment aired by Channel 14 finds that the terror group still commands roughly 20,000 terrorists reorganized into six brigades divided into 24 battalions, each operating at varying levels of capability.
While Hamas’s high-ranking leadership has been largely eliminated in targeted strikes, Israeli intelligence believes the group’s command structure remains functional at the tactical level. Junior commanders have been promoted rapidly, while Hamas retains hundreds of rockets and thousands of small arms, including AK-47 rifles, RPGs, and improvised explosive devices.
Only a small number of rocket launchers capable of short- and medium-range fire are believed to remain, yet the group’s extensive smuggling and local production capabilities continue to worry Israeli officials.
“Hamas was damaged very severely in its military capabilities, but I think it would be fair to say that it wasn’t crushed,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Reichman University. “Maybe the threat isn’t in the days to come or the near future, but their potential is still there.”
Perhaps most alarming is the intelligence finding that more than half of Hamas’s tunnel network remains intact—a revelation that led Defense Minister Israel Katz to declare the tunnels Israel’s next major war objective.
“The major challenge for Israel after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas’s terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under U.S. leadership and supervision,” Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. “This is the primary meaning of implementing the agreed principle of demilitarizing Gaza and disarming Hamas.”
Meanwhile, Hamas is already moving to reestablish its hold over parts of the Gaza Strip that Israeli forces recently vacated under the current cease-fire plan. Some 7,000 of its security-force members are reported to have been recalled to active duty, and five new “governors” installed in Gaza’s five districts. Hamas, of course, has dismissed the claims as “fabrications.”
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