WhatsappFormer Israeli defense officials tell JNS that the terror group is losing its grip on Gaza’s civilians.
As the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Gideon’s Chariots continued to exert relentless pressure against Hamas across the Gaza Strip, multiple Israeli security observers and former defense officials assessed that the terrorist organization is facing unprecedented strategic distress, with its command structure decimated, its military capabilities severely degraded, and its iron grip on the civilian population showing significant signs of erosion.
While the path to a full dismantling of Hamas appears to remain long, recent developments, including an initiative by Israel to create a new humanitarian aid system that bypasses the terror group, suggest a significant shift in the Strip’s internal dynamics, potentially heralding the beginning of the end of Hamas’s rule.
The IDF’s ongoing operations have taken a heavy toll on Hamas. On June 3rd, the IDF announced that its Givati Brigade Combat Team continued its intensive operations in the Jabalia area of the northern Gaza Strip, eliminating numerous terrorists and destroying extensive terror infrastructure both above and below ground in recent weeks.
Simultaneously, IDF operations continued in southern Gaza, with evacuation orders issued for parts of Khan Younis and engineering work reported near the European Hospital, where former Hamas chief Mohammed Sinwar was eliminated on May 13. The intensity of the fighting was reflected by the painful loss of four IDF soldiers in recent days.
Professor Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and at the Institute for National Security Studies, who served as head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs, told JNS in recent days that “Hamas is definitely in real strategic distress. Its entire command and control mechanism has been destroyed. Other than the Gaza Brigade commander, Ezzidin al-Haddad, there is no senior figure left capable of managing the organization as an organized military framework.”
As the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Gideon’s Chariots continued to exert relentless pressure against Hamas across the Gaza Strip, multiple Israeli security observers and former defense officials assessed that the terrorist organization is facing unprecedented strategic distress, with its command structure decimated, its military capabilities severely degraded, and its iron grip on the civilian population showing significant signs of erosion.
While the path to a full dismantling of Hamas appears to remain long, recent developments, including an initiative by Israel to create a new humanitarian aid system that bypasses the terror group, suggest a significant shift in the Strip’s internal dynamics, potentially heralding the beginning of the end of Hamas’s rule.
The IDF’s ongoing operations have taken a heavy toll on Hamas. On June 3rd, the IDF announced that its Givati Brigade Combat Team continued its intensive operations in the Jabalia area of the northern Gaza Strip, eliminating numerous terrorists and destroying extensive terror infrastructure both above and below ground in recent weeks.
Simultaneously, IDF operations continued in southern Gaza, with evacuation orders issued for parts of Khan Younis and engineering work reported near the European Hospital, where former Hamas chief Mohammed Sinwar was eliminated on May 13. The intensity of the fighting was reflected by the painful loss of four IDF soldiers in recent days.
Professor Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy and at the Institute for National Security Studies, who served as head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs, told JNS in recent days that “Hamas is definitely in real strategic distress. Its entire command and control mechanism has been destroyed. Other than the Gaza Brigade commander, Ezzidin al-Haddad, there is no senior figure left capable of managing the organization as an organized military framework.”
Michael elaborated on the degradation of Hamas’s military strength, stating, “The organization’s military capabilities have been severely damaged. In fact, Hamas today has no ability to operate as an organized military framework. What remains is entirely residual.”
As a hybrid organization, which prepared for this in advance, he said, Hamas has “switched to sporadic terror and guerrilla warfare, making efforts to place mines, and place IEDs on [military] traffic routes and quickly emerge from tunnels to fire anti-tank missiles and then swiftly escape back into the tunnels.”
Beyond its military capabilities, Hamas’s control over the civilian population is also faltering, according to Michael. “Hamas is losing its grip on governing civilians. The civilians’ fear barrier of Hamas is eroding, and the humanitarian aid distribution centers are operating in a way that draws many civilians there, despite Hamas’s attempts at disruption,” he stated.
Michael noted that Hamas, in its desperation, is resorting to disseminating propaganda. “Hamas is so lost that it tries through fabricated videos and reports to create a narrative of operational failure of the distribution centers and to claim mass harm by the IDF of civilians,” he said. “Their lies are being exposed and it’s clear to them that the continuation and establishment of this trend spells functional doom for the organization.”
Michael added that the heavy IDF military pressure, civilian departures from northern Gaza, and strikes on multi-story buildings and civilian facilities used by Hamas for terror are further destabilizing the Iranian-backed terror group, suggesting that even mediators such Qatar and Egypt are tiring of Hamas, increasing pressure on it to accept the American proposal for a hostage deal presented by U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
The assessment of Hamas’s weakening civilian control was echoed by Oded Ailam, a former head of the counterterrorism division in the Mossad and currently a researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.
Speaking on a Jerusalem Press Club call on May 29, Ailam described the situation as “quite phenomenal because it’s for the first time that Hamas is losing its grip on the population. They were asserting and they were threatening and they did everything in their power in order to discourage the population from reaching those points and receiving the food, because controlling the food and controlling the supply is controlling the population, and they are losing it.”
He added, “Right now what we are seeing is the first step for the collapse of the Hamas regime in Gaza, and it’s extremely important that it will continue, and we should encourage those steps that not just Israel but all the Western world that wants to get rid of these jihadists, extremists, and let the people of Gaza for the first time in I think in their history to live a decent life.”
The hostage negotiations reflect Hamas’s difficult position, Israeli observers said. While Hamas political bureau official Bassem Naim told Al Jazeera on June 3 that Hamas was ready for new talks, though not based on the so-called “Witkoff document” without a guaranteed end to the war, reports from the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ghad suggested Hamas had retreated from many disputed points and was closer to agreeing to the American proposal, subject to conditions.
Lt. Col. (res.) Shaul Bartal, a senior research fellow at the Begin Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, who served extensively in various security capacities in Judea and Samaria, told JNS that “Hamas is under pressure. A significant portion of its prominent field commanders are dead. And the fighting right now is guerrilla warfare made up of IEDs and RPG fire from individual operatives.”
Bartal noted a marked change in Hamas’s public posture, stating, “At the beginning of the conflict, we would see Hamas operatives launching Qassam [rockets] from all sorts of places, videos showing the explosion of tanks or IDF vehicles. Today, there are almost none of these things. There is tough guerrilla warfare of planting IEDs in booby-trapped houses or booby-trapped shafts, and sniper fire”.
Bartal emphasized the strategic importance of aid distribution. “Hamas understands that whoever distributes aid at distribution points effectively controls the population.”
Hence, he said, Hamas is under increased pressure, “which is expressed by firing at refugees trying to reach aid centers, as an IDF drone recently documented, the agitation of international aid organizations like UNRWA, which accuse the American company [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] of being unprofessional and not meeting its mission. And an unprecedented propaganda campaign by Hamas in all its media outlets, trying to portray hunger in the Strip.”
Bartal cited a recent Hamas website article from June 3 as an example of this propaganda, which claimed the U.S.-led Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) system is inefficient and amounts to using hunger as a “war crime.”
The GHF, however, reported on June 3 that it had successfully supplied over seven million meals in eight days of operation, even with a one-day pause for logistical and security improvements.
“Hamas looted the aid that entered the Strip in coordination and cooperation with recognized international organizations like UNRWA and distributed it to the population, thereby creating the population’s dependence on it. The moment the food is distributed by an external American company, Hamas loses its power,” Bartal assessed.
Despite these signs of Hamas’s decline, the path to its fuller removal remains complex.
Michael warned of Hamas’s possible desperate responses: “Alongside reactions of despair in the form of guerrilla warfare that uses new, unskilled, and untrained young recruits as cannon fodder sent on suicide missions, we should assume their efforts to launch rockets from their remaining accessible stockpile,” he said.
“In their desperation, they will continue to kill their own people in an attempt to prevent them from leaving northern Gaza and reaching aid centers. They have mostly lost the ability to protect their depots, and in an attempt to still do something, they will not hesitate to slaughter their own people and then blame Israel,” he cautioned.
The ‘day after’ Hamas remains a critical question. Bartal outlined several scenarios, from population emigration, which he views as best from Israel’s perspective but difficult, to a temporary Israeli military administration focusing on clearing territory and facilitating aid, potentially followed by a gradual transfer of control to the Palestinian Authority or an international force, he said.
However, he cautioned that if the war does not end with Hamas’s complete surrender or the exile of its leadership—and Hamas currently signals its intent to fight to the end—Israel faces a protracted guerrilla war.
Michael suggested that a “Somaliazation” of Gaza is theoretically possible but unlikely if Israel implements an effective military administration to prepare for a governing alternative and completes the military dismantling of Hamas.
The Israeli observers all agreed that any Gaza solution leaving Hamas in power would signify a dangerous victory for the terror group.
