Hamas has been shattered. Now it is fighting to survive

The coffin of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri is carried at his funeral in January in Beirut, Lebanon, where he was killed in a suspected Israeli drone strike. Photograph: Marwan Tahtah/Getty ImagesOn the 14th floor of Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv, high up in the defence minister’s office, a large pyramid adorns the wall made up of images of, those still alive greatly outnumber the mostly mid-ranking commanders whose fate is illustrated by a giant red X across their faces.

Israel has yet to achieve all its wartime goals. But for Hamas, an Islamist militant group founded to destroy the Jewish state, victory now has largely narrowed to one thing: survival. Israeli soldiers on the grounds of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 16th. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/New York Times

Hamas, meanwhile, has reportedly said it has only lost 6,000 fighters. Whatever its numbers, US intelligence analysts foresee Hamas being able to continue a “lingering armed resistance for years to come”, using its underground tunnel network to “hide, regain strength and surprise Israeli forces”. The bulk of the remaining Hamas battalions, according to the senior Israeli military official, have retreated to the southern city of Rafah and the refugee camps of Deir al Balah and Nusseirat in central Gaza., despite international warnings that it would have a disastrous impact on the 1.5 milion people who have sought sanctuary in the city.

Hamas’s fighters on the ground think “they are doing well militarily”, said the Arab diplomat, simply by holding out against one of the world’s most sophisticated armies in what has already been the longest Arab-Israeli war in decades. “This isn’t about helping civilians but about making the resumption of the war more difficult,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, head of the Ramallah-based Horizon Center think-tank.

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