What Is Hamas Capable of After a Year of War?
The Palestinian militant group fired rockets at Israel on the anniversary of its Oct. 7 attacks.
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Workers in orange vests and hat at the site where a rocket hit.
The scene of a rocket assault in Kfar Chabad, Israel, on Monday.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
By Eve Sampson
Oct. 8, 2024
A year ago, Hamas’s deadly attacks on southern Israel prompted an Israeli military offensive against the group in Gaza. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli attacks, including children; Israel says it has killed many Hamas fighters and commanders.
But even with much of Gaza in ruin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stated aim of destroying Hamas remains elusive. The group, while weakened, is continuing to wage a guerrilla war.
On Monday, to coincide with the first anniversary of its Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas fired several rockets at Israel, showing that at least some of its more sophisticated military capabilities are still intact. A spokesman for Hamas’s military wing vowed to “continue a long and painful war of attrition” against Israel.
What do we know about Hamas’s remaining capabilities?
Here’s what you need to know:
Personnel
Weapons
Tunnels
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Personnel
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Mourners crows a street while paying respects an assassinated Hamas leader.
The coffin of Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas leader, being carried on a truck in the streets of Iran’s capital, Tehran, in early August.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Israel says it has killed and captured more than 17,000 militants in Gaza — an unverifiable number. Hamas’s fighting ranks before the war were estimated at roughly 25,000, although the group has never confirmed this.
Until the war began, Hamas had dominated Gaza, controlling civilian institutions including government ministries and the police. Israel has targeted some of these officials as well, arguing that they formed an integral part of Hamas’s control of the enclave.
But there is still very little clarity about which Hamas members have been killed. Hamas has also generally not confirmed or denied Israel’s claims to have killed specific leaders.
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“It’s unclear if the majority of fighters killed so far are foot soldiers,” said Matthew Levitt, director of the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research organization. “How many of these people were the hard-core believers, and how many of them were doing this because it was a job that was available and was paying?”
It is clear, however, that many Hamas commanders and leaders have been killed, Mr. Levitt said.
In July, Ismail Haniyeh, the Qatar-based leader of Hamas’s political bureau, was killed in an explosion in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Both Hamas and Iran blamed Israel, which has not publicly confirmed its involvement.
In August, Israel said it had killed Muhammad Deif, the leader of Hamas’s military wing and a key architect of the Oct. 7 attacks, in an airstrike in southern Gaza the month before. Hamas has not confirmed or denied Mr. Deif’s death. Dozens of people were killed in the Israeli airstrike, which hit a densely populated area that the Israeli military had designated a “humanitarian zone.”
Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader, is thought to be alive, though there have been no definitive audio or video recordings from him for months. Mr. Sinwar, who stopped using electronic devices long ago and stays in touch with his organization through a network of human couriers, has long believed he will not survive the war, according to U.S. intelligence assessments.
Whatever strength Hamas may have at the moment, the devastation of the war may create motivation for future recruits. Israeli troops have frequently returned to Gaza neighborhoods from which they had already withdrawn, saying that Hamas fighters had re-emerged there.
“What comes next will be more important,” Mr. Levitt said. “Is Gaza left as a failed state or is something positive built on the rubble with some kind of Palestinian self-government other than Hamas? If what comes next is worse than what was there before, that is what will lead to fast and furious radicalization.”
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Weapons
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Three soldiers stand in a workshop littered with pipes and construction materials.
Israeli soldiers standing in what they say is a rocket factory that was photographed in January during an escorted tour by the military for international journalists in the central Gaza Strip.Credit...Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
Information about Hamas’s weapons capabilities and stockpiles is murky.
Several years before the war, Israeli intelligence had estimated that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups had about 30,000 rockets and mortar projectiles stashed in Gaza. The rockets were said to vary widely in range and sophistication.
Some were smuggled into Gaza through tunnels or hidden inside shipments of food and aid. Others were assembled from scavenged materials — including unexploded Israeli munitions — in underground labs.
In preparation for the war, Hamas also began scaling up production of explosives and anti-tank missiles, a Hamas junior officer told The Times in July.
Since last October, Hamas and other armed groups fired about 13,200 rockets from Gaza into Israel, a quarter of them on Oct. 7 itself, according to the Israeli government. Israeli soldiers have captured and destroyed other caches of munitions and weapons laboratories across the enclave, according to the Israeli military.
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On Monday, the four projectiles fired from Gaza fell in open areas in central Israel, and one was intercepted, according to the state broadcaster, Kan, which also said that one woman was slightly injured. Israel responded with an airstrike in southern Gaza that it said destroyed a rocket launchpad.
Tunnels
Hamas spent years developing an enormous underground labyrinth of tunnels, fortified with blast doors and able to withstand repeated Israeli attacks.
Early in the war, Israel estimated that the tunnel network stretched for about 250 miles. Now they believe it is up to twice as long. (By comparison, the New York City subway system has about 850 miles of tracks.)
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A soldier walks out of a large circular opening.
An Israeli soldier exiting what the Israeli military said was the largest Hamas tunnel it had discovered to that point in Gaza, near the Erez border crossing, during an escorted tour by the military for international journalists last December.Credit...Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times
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Israel has been systematically mapping out and destroying the Hamas tunnels, a slow and dangerous process that could take many years. Hamas fighters have also hidden at least some of the roughly 250 hostages taken by Hamas last year in their underground warrens, complicating Israeli efforts to destroy the tunnel network.
Though Israeli officials searched for and dismantled some tunnels before the Oct. 7 attacks, a senior Israeli official said the underground had not been a priority because an invasion and full-scale war in Gaza seemed unlikely.
After the attacks, the calculus changed as officials realized the group had been preparing for such an invasion. Without the tunnels, experts say, Hamas would have fared far worse against the Israeli military.
The network shielded Hamas leaders from Israeli attacks in the past. Mr. Deif spent decades underground, Israeli intelligence officials said, before health problems forced him out.
It has also probably become a primary means of communication for the group. The tunnels have their own landline telephone network that is difficult for Israel to monitor. The group’s leaders have also eschewed technology like mobile phones and pagers for communication, instead using underground couriers who deliver messages through the tunnels by hand.
Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Eve Sampson is a reporter covering international news and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Eve Sampson
