Members of the Martyr Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Al-Jazeera)

The New York Times reported that US intelligence officials told Congress this week that Israel had weakened the fighting capabilities of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), but was no closer to eliminating the movement.

The newspaper revealed that the session of intelligence officials in Congress, which took place behind closed doors, did not address estimates related to human losses among the movement’s fighters.

American intelligence officials pointed out that estimates of Hamas' casualties are neither accurate nor meaningful, and do not give an indication of whether the Israeli military presence in the Gaza Strip has addressed the fundamental issues for which Israel launched the war.

The Israeli occupation government announced at the beginning of the aggression on the Gaza Strip that eliminating Hamas was one of the main goals of the war, but American and Israeli officials doubted its ability to do so.

Last November, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal quoted an informed source as saying that the American intelligence community doubts Israel’s ability to achieve its declared military goal of eliminating the Hamas movement.

The source added that the Israeli military campaign on the Gaza Strip could harm Hamas and its infrastructure, but it would not be able to eliminate it.

At the beginning of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert directed harsh criticism at his current counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his government, which he described as “ill-fated,” and stressed that eliminating Hamas and the other war goals announced by Netanyahu were impossible to achieve.

Olmert said that the goals of the war on the Gaza Strip announced by Netanyahu “were clear from the beginning that they were baseless and unachievable,” and he continued that the current prime minister “continuously declared those goals, including the final elimination of Hamas in a theatrical manner, while his hands were trembling, and he seemed detached.” About reality.

Israeli failure

As the war enters its fifth month, it seems clear that the occupation has failed in achieving its goal, as Hamas is still capable of bombing Israeli cities and towns, and reports in recent days regarding renewed fighting in Gaza City and the northern regions of the Strip indicate that Hamas and the rest of the Palestinian factions have It renewed its ability to move in those areas over which the occupation army had declared its tight control.

Last Monday, Israeli Army Radio said that the Israeli forces are still far from achieving their goal of eliminating Hamas’s missile capabilities, stressing that this requires, according to estimates, between one and two years.

The radio reported that many of the rocket launching pads in the Gaza Strip are buried underground, which makes it difficult for Israeli forces to find them.

She added that estimates indicate that Hamas still has about 1,000 rockets so far, most of which are in platforms buried underground.

Army Radio said that the missile batch that targeted the city of Tel Aviv early at the end of last January was launched from platforms in Khan Yunis that were only 20 and 30 meters away from Israeli army forces.

Source: Al Jazeera