Depleted but Dangerous, Hamas is Holding Its Fire Against Israel. The Quiet May Not Last

The war that Hamas ignited on October 7, 2023, has since expanded far beyond Gaza, drawing in Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. But as Israel found itself under attack from multiple fronts in recent months, the group that started the conflict has been strikingly absent from the battlefield, largely holding fast to a ceasefire that halted fighting in October.

That absence, however, should not be mistaken for defeat, experts warn. Despite two years of sustained Israel Defense Forces operations and months of diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the war for good, Hamas remains armed and in control of most of Gaza’s territory east of the ceasefire line.

“On their side of the Yellow Line, [Hamas has] a monopoly on force,” Jonathan Ruhe, a military expert at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told The Times of Israel. “That feeds into their whole strategic concept, which, at this point, is to show that they won the war because they survived.”

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Read the original article in the Times of Israel.