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The kingdom of Israel is clear. The terrorist group Hamas will be “destroyed”, according to many senior members of the government, including the country’s prime minister.
On Israeli television channels, phrases like “we will win together” appear regularly. But can Hamas really be destroyed and “win” in such a situation?
The short answer, as experts often say, is no.
Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million Palestinians, ever since the attack on October 7 on Israel by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Germany, the European Union, the US and others. Israel has also carried out a ground attack in the Gaza Strip and is stopping the delivery of food, water and energy into the crisis.
However, many researchers say that it will not be eliminated Hamas Overall, the main reason is that Hamas is more than just a fighting organization.
Hamas is a social movement
Hamas has about 20,000 to 30,000 fighters, Guido Steinberg, a Middle East expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told DW recently. But, he added, “it’s a social organization with a lot of support in the Gaza Strip. And that’s the problem in the long run.”
Hamas has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, as part of its regime there is a social welfare network called “dawah.” This social network is thought to have between 80,000 and 90,000 members, Steinberg said.
Dawah means “calling” or “inviting” and is historically defined as a way of inviting or inviting many believers to one’s faith through public outreach, the Oxford Dictionary of Islam explained.
Isreal “will be happy to destroy Hamas as an organization, as a political, religious and cultural system, and as a military structure,” Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University in New York said in the Spanish newspaper, El Paísat the end of October. “I don’t think they can do the first two,” he argued. Because, “whether they kill all their leaders, or they kill all the militants, Hamas will remain a political power, whether Israel occupies Gaza or leaves. The destruction of Hamas is a political organization. , destroy Hamas as an idea, it is impossible.
Hamas does not recognize the state of Israel. The group believes that religion should be the foundation of any Palestinian state. But perhaps it is a self-defined form of protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the Gaza Strip, which is the most popular.
However, added Khalidi, what Israel may be able to do is destroy the military power of Hamas, “but only to a limited extent and for a period of time.”
Destroy Hamas’s military power
Israel has one of the strongest militaries in the world, ranking 18th out of 145 countries in 2023. Global Firepower annual list the armed forces. For comparison, Germany ranks 25. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report that last year Israel spent 4.5% of its national income on defense – more than the US or Germany, which spent 3.5% and 1.4% respectively.
Currently, the military group Hamas is operating as a terrorist group, and has smuggled most of its weapons into the Gaza Strip.
So Israel certainly has the resources to destroy Hamas and overthrow its leaders. Although the numbers cannot be independently verified, the Israeli government recently said it believed that between 5,000 and 7,000 Hamas fighters had been killed.
If true, it can be seen as a partial success because weakening Hamas is probably the best that can be hoped for. “Some Western officials believe that Israel’s offensive so far, along with improved border security, has ensured that Hamas will not carry out another attack like on 7 October,” experts at the International Crisis Group. written last week.
“As Hamas did after the conflicts with Israel in 2009, 2012, 2014 and 2021, the group will almost certainly be rebuilt and restored,” Dennis Ross, a former US ambassador to Middle East, wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times at the end of October. That is why, he explained, he opposes the ceasefire until Hamas is removed from power.
Aggressive groups are very difficult to overcome
At the same time, very few national armies have been able to defeat extremist organizations in the past.
Unsuccessful examples include US efforts against the Taliban in Afghanistan and terrorist group in Iraq. The Sri Lankan government defeated the separatist rebels Tamil Tigers in the civil wars of that country, it is often said that a case was won by a national army. However, as has often been said, the victory took 26 years of war, a death toll of between 80,000 and 100,000, and war crimes done by both parties.
In fact, in some cases, where the power of a disturbed group was destroyed but it was able to survive, the group later emerged in a more disturbed state. A classic example is the violent group “Islamic State”, which arose from the remnants of Al-Qaida.
Israel itself has never been able to defeat Hamas, despite killing several of its leaders, including the group’s two founders.
How to destroy an idea?
“The (Israeli) military can do the best job they can. They can destroy the leadership. They can destroy the launch sites,” said Justin Crump, a person specialist in terrorism leading Sibylline Ltd, a global specialist media and consultancy. “But they don’t take away the idea of Hamas.”
Destroying Hamas through military means makes no sense, Crump told DW, because “while some Gazans are turning against Hamas, other people in Gaza love Hamas. The if they hate Israel for these actions and it will reinforce the cycle (of violence). as always – unless there is a big change at the end of this.”
“After more than two months of intense Israeli operations, it is clear that eliminating Hamas, even if it is a war, will be a tall order and the push to do so is when it destroys what is left of Gaza,” a basic explanation by the think tank International Crisis Group, or ICS, published on December 9, concluded.
According to the Hamas health ministry, Israel killed more than 18,000 people and wounded more than 49,500 in just two months; about 61% of those killed were civilians, according to an analysis by Yagil Levy, a sociology professor at the Open University of Israel and said the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. More than half of all Gaza’s homes have been destroyed and 90% of the population has now been displaced.
“Netanyahu says that the destruction of Hamas will allow the ‘destruction’ of Gaza, but the opposite seems to be the case,” wrote the experts of ICS. “The ongoing campaign and its aftermath will bring new, perhaps even stronger, pressures.”
Edited by: Andreas Illmer