Nearly 18 months have passed since the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and, despite Israel’s impressive achievements against the terrorist group, the cold, hard truth is that the war is far from over.
This salient fact was underlined earlier this week by several revelations about the terrorist group’s renewed strength and determination to perpetrate further atrocities, which highlight why Israel has at last resumed taking much more aggressive measures to achieve victory.
Shortly after Oct. 7, it was estimated that Hamas had up to 30,000 terrorists in its ranks – some 20,000 of whom, including many of its senior leaders, have been killed in the fighting since then.
This led many observers to believe that Hamas had been reduced to a shell of what it once was, having lost two-thirds of its gun-toting members.
How Hamas remains as dangerous as ever
But this past Sunday, the extent to which the brutal terrorists have been able to bounce back and regroup was revealed in a letter penned by former IDF chief of staff MK Gadi Eisenkot and other opposition figures to MK Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
In the missive, Eisenkot and his colleagues said they had received information indicating that “the military power of Hamas and Islamic Jihad has been restored, to the point where Hamas has over 25,000 and Islamic Jihad has over 5,000 armed terrorists.”
In other words, the size of Hamas’s terrorist manpower is now nearly the same as it was when the war began.
Concerns were raised still further on Monday, when Israel’s Channel 12 news revealed that the IDF had identified what was described somewhat vaguely as “an unusual incident” in Gaza, which suggested that Hamas is preparing to launch another terrorist infiltration into the Jewish state.
The report, which was approved by the military censor, was short on details but did note there has been a “sharp rise” in attempts by Hamas to carry out attacks against Israeli towns and kibbutzim adjacent to Gaza.
The report also quoted Defense Minister Israel Katz, who told residents of those communities that “Hamas has sustained a heavy blow but has not been defeated. There are ongoing efforts for its recovery. Hamas is constantly gearing up to carry out a renewed infiltration into Israel similar to Oct. 7.”
In other words, the threat posed by Hamas remains critical and real, and the danger of a repeat of Oct. 7 has not been eliminated.
And lest there be any doubt as to what Hamas is up to, testimony from a released Israeli hostage points to the ongoing expansion of the terror group’s network of underground tunnels.
In an interview with Fox News, Tal Shoham revealed that his captors had continued to dig additional tunnels even as they held him. “Hamas never stopped digging tunnels. Not for a single day,” he said.
For a country still gripped by the trauma of Oct. 7 and its aftermath, this is the last thing that Israelis needed to hear.
After all the sacrifices made by our brave soldiers over the past year and a half, it seems inconceivable that Hamas has managed to rise again from the ashes and threaten the Jewish state.
There are, of course, many reasons for this, ranging from the various restrictions imposed by the Biden administration on Israel to the pauses in fighting as part of the ceasefire deals, both of which gave the terrorist group time and opportunity to reconstitute itself. But regardless of how we got here, it is essential that Israel now proceed with the war until total victory is achieved.
This past Tuesday, in the wee hours of the morning, the Air Force launched a wide-ranging series of attacks on Hamas throughout Gaza.
In light of Hamas’s renewed effort to rearm and plot another Oct. 7 style attack, it is critical that this extensive bombing from the air serve as a prelude to a much more ambitious ground offensive.
We cannot and must not allow Hamas to make a comeback nor risk another massacre. No more dithering and no more delays. The time has come for Israel to eliminate Hamas and put an end to its deadly dreams of destruction once and for all. <
The writer served as deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.