GAZA WARCan Hamas Really Be Completely “Eliminated”?
The short answer, military analysts say, is “no.” The long answer is more complex. Israel’s campaign may degrade the group’s capabilities but defeating its ideology is likely impossible without a political solution.
The Israeli government has been clear. The militant group Hamas will be “eliminated,” many senior members of government, including the country’s prime minister, have all said.
On certain Israeli television channels, slogans such as “Together we will win” appear regularly. But is it really possible to completely eliminate Hamas and “win” in a situation like this?
The short answer, as experts have repeatedly said, is no.
Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip, home to more than two million Palestinians, since the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by Germany, the European Union, the US and others. Israel has also launched a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip and is blocking the delivery of food, water and power into the enclave.
Despite this, most analysts say that it won’t be possible to get rid of Hamas altogether, the main reason being that Hamas is more than just a militant organization.
Hamas as a Social Movement
Hamas has an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 fighters, Guido Steinberg, an expert on the Middle East at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told DW recently. But, he added, “it is also a social movement with mass support in the Gaza Strip. And that is the problem in the long run.”
Hamas has been in de facto control of the Gaza Strip since 2007, and as part of its social movement, there is a welfare network known as “dawah.” This civilian network is thought to have between 80,000 and 90,000 members.
Dawah means “call” or “invitation” and is historically defined as a way of calling or inviting more believers to one’s faith through social outreach, the Oxford Dictionary of Islam explains.
Isreal “would love to eradicate Hamas as an institution, as a political, religious and cultural structure, and as a military structure,” Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University in New York told the Spanish newspaper El Pais, in late October.
“I don’t think they can do the first two things,” he argued. “Whether they kill all their leaders, whether they kill all the armed militants, Hamas will remain as a political force, whether the Israelis occupy Gaza or leave. So destroying Hamas as a political institution, destroying Hamas as an idea, is impossible.”
