Signs of a Hamas resurgence in the Gaza Strip’s largest city underscore the group’s resilience despite Israel’s deadly air and ground campaign against it over the past four months.
This from newsmax.com.
Four residents and a senior official in the militant group said Saturday:
Hamas has begun deploying police forces and making partial salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days, resurfacing in areas from which Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its troops a month ago.
Israel has said it’s determined to crush Hamas militarily and prevent it from returning to power in Gaza, an enclave it has ruled since 2007.
In recent days, Israeli forces renewed strikes in the western and northwestern parts of Gaza City, including in areas where some of the salary distributions were reported to have taken place.
Four Gaza City residents told The Associated Press:
[I]n recent days, uniformed and plainclothes police officers deployed near police headquarters and other government offices, including near Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest.
The residents said they saw:
[B]oth the return of civil servants and subsequent Israeli airstrikes near the makeshift offices.
A Hamas official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media:
The return of police marks an attempt to reinstate order in the devastated city after Israel withdrew a significant number of troops from northern Gaza last month.
The official further said:
[T]he group’s leaders had given directions to reestablish order in parts of the north where Israeli forces had withdrawn, including helping prevent the looting of shops and houses abandoned by residents who had heeded repeated Israeli evacuation orders and headed to the southern half of Gaza.
During Israel’s ground offensive, many homes and buildings were left half-standing or reduced to piles of scrap, rubble and dust.
Saeed Abdel-Bar, a resident of Gaza City, said:
[A] cousin received funds from a makeshift Hamas office near the hospital that was set up to distribute $200 payouts to government employees, including police officers and municipal workers.
Since seizing control of Gaza nearly 17 years ago, Hamas has been operating a government bureaucracy with tens of thousands of civil servants, including teachers, traffic cops and civil police who operate separately from the group’s secretive military wing.
The partial salary payments of $200 for at least some government employees signal that Israel has not delivered a knock-out blow to Hamas, even as it claims to have killed more than 9,000 Hamas fighters.
Ahmed Abu Hadrous, a Gaza City resident, said:
Israeli warplanes struck the area where the makeshift office is located multiple times earlier this week, including Saturday morning.
These initiatives by Hamas may be mostly for show, but they still are a disturbing development. Israel claims to have already killed or captured at least 9,000 Hamas fighters. How many could there be left? And where are they getting cash to hand out to civil servants? The obvious answer would be Iran, but their ability to move freely in the area has clearly been diminished by the Israeli invasion.
Even if these reports are accurate, these are not uniformed Hamas fighters that are showing up. They are civil servants from the “civilian” portion of the Hamas government.
Yet this serves as a reminder that most if not all of the Palestinian ‘civilians’ in Gaza are supporters of Hamas.
Israel has clearly crippled Hamas’ militant capabilities, but there will be many people in the Strip willing to step up and take the place of those that have been killed or captured.
Flooding and sealing the terror tunnels was an excellent strategic choice, though many remain to be dealt with. But all that’s really doing is driving Hamas to the surface where they can blend in with the supposed civilian population.
Israel has been establishing a swath of “no man’s land” around the border of the Gaza Strip which will make it far more difficult for the enemy to launch a ground attack into Israeli territory, particularly with the tunnels being sealed. But there are still more than a million Palestinians and hidden Hamas fighters remaining.
This war could drag on for another year without eliminating all of them. Eventually, Israel will be forced to answer the ongoing question of what sort of government can be established to replace Hamas when this is over. Unfortunately, no clear answers have emerged.
Israeli leaders have said they will keep fighting until Hamas is crushed, even while agreeing to long pauses that are accompanied by the release of hostages.
International mediators continue to work to close wide gaps between Israel and Hamas over a proposed cease-fire deal put forth last week. The United States has negotiated tenants of a deal along with Israel, Egypt, and Qatar, however, progress is at a standstill.
