How is Hamas still able to fight back against the Israeli military?

Eight months into the Gaza war, the military capacity of Hamas remains intact as the Palestinian resistance group continues to launch rockets at Tel Aviv and carry out hit-and-run attacks on the Israeli military.

Over the weekend, Abu Ubaida, the spokesman of the Al Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, claimed that fighters had killed and captured Israeli soldiers, highlighting the group’s resilience on the battlefield.

"Despite the genocidal war and random annihilation, our fighters were and still are on the lookout for them (the Israeli army) and have carried out many operations against its soldiers over the course of two weeks, in Jabalia and Rafah and Beit Hanoun, in all the axis of incursions,” the spokesman said on Sunday.

“The last of these operations was a complex operation carried out by fighters this Saturday afternoon in the northern Gaza Strip, where the fighters lured a Zionist force into an ambush inside a tunnel in the Jabalia camp and trapped it in an ambush inside this tunnel and at its entrance,” the spokesman added.

The trap was successful, resulting in “dead, wounded, and captured” Israeli soldiers, said the Hamas spokesman. The Israeli army denied its soldiers were captured by Hamas.

“When Hamas says that they are still killing some Israeli soldiers, that’s true. They have published videos for the past one or two weeks of snipers directly killing Israeli soldiers or at least hitting them. That’s possible,” says Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst on armed groups at International Crisis Group, an American think-tank.

But as to Hamas claims of taking Israeli soldiers hostages, Drevon says he would be “more hesitant to confirm the claim” because in a small country like Israel such news quickly comes out as family members of the soldiers put pressure on the government for early recovery.

“It would be hard for Israel to hide it.”

If Hamas captured soldiers, the group would share his/her pictures or videos. Then, it could be confirmed that the group was able to capture Israeli soldiers, the analyst tells TRT World.

Edward Erickson, a former American military officer and a retired professor of military history at the Department of War Studies at the Marine Corps University, also sees a possibility that “Hamas remains capable of ambushing or capturing an Israeli soldier or two” because the Gaza war has been a long campaign in which Israeli soldiers could become “tired and careless”.

Hamas holds the ground

If Hamas captured Israeli soldiers nearly eight months into the Gaza war, that would mean that the group continues to have a lot of military capabilities to fight back.

Also over the weekend, Hamas fired long-range rockets targeting Tel Aviv “in a demonstration of the capability it retains”, reported Financial Times.

Despite heavy Israeli bombardment and ongoing ground attacks, Israel has failed to reach hostages held by Hamas since October 7.

Hamas’s strategy is to avoid large-scale confrontation with the Israeli army and instead rely on quick hit-and-run attacks, resulting in lesser casualties while keeping pressure on the Israeli military, says Drevon.

By firing rockets at Tel Aviv, Hamas wants to show that it can still launch long-range attacks despite suffering “military setbacks”, says Drevon.

Israeli claims of dismantling most of Hamas’s brigades doesn’t amount to much, says Drevon, adding that the group’s military strength rests with small units which can conduct hit-and-run attacks. Analysts estimate that the Al Qassam Brigades has between 30,000 and 50,000 members.

According to recent US intelligence assessments, after nearly eight months of intense fighting, Israel is only able to kill 30 to 35 percent of Hamas fighters as 65 percent of Hamas tunnels in Gaza remain intact.

Hamas does not need large brigades, it needs small-scale units comprising two individuals with light weaponry to attack Israeli tanks as well as using snipers against Israeli targets, says Drevon.

“Hamas (is) very much adapted to Israel’s ongoing offensive, so now it's operating more in a cell-based configuration and as a result, most of the Hamas members have survived,” says Drevon.

At the same time, “what seems to be happening” is that Hamas leadership enables a plan in which those small units of fighters can be active in different areas of Gaza to implement two different objectives, the analyst says.

According to this plan, Hamas fighters can either launch “targeted attacks” on Israeli soldiers to put pressure and inflict casualties on them or return to areas from which the Israeli army withdrew to reestablish the Palestinian group’s control, the analyst adds.

While Israel claims to inflict many casualties on Hamas, the group is also able to recruit potentially thousands of fighters, according to Drevon. This also means that focusing on the number of Hamas fighters is not a good measure to estimate the group’s strength, Drevon adds.

“I don’t think Hamas wants to fight a lot. I think it aims mostly to preserve its fighters in the tunnels while avoiding a large-scale confrontation,” he says.