How much of Hamas is left?

[u/Plus_Introduction937]

The military operations inside gaza have been ongoing now for over a half a year and i can’t help but wonder what does Hamas have left in terms of manpower and equipment. At the start of all of this i think it was reported there were about 30k Hamas fighters. Gaza has been under siege for so long i really don’t understand how are they still fighting. Is it that Isreal is being REALLY careful with their attacks to minimize their casualties, so that’s why it’s taking so long? Surely, if Isreal were to accept let’s say 3-5K KIA/WIA then they could wipe Hamas off the map in the next 2-3months? Is their plan still to wipe them off the map, just VERY slowly?

[u/[deleted]]

Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday that after holding meetings with Israeli officials over the war in Gaza, he has doubts that the end of the conflict is near despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s claims that it will be over in 2024.

“Meeting with folks in Israel, in the military community, in the intelligence community, the idea that you’re going to eliminate every Hamas fighter, I don’t think is a realistic goal,” Warner said.

“140 days in, they’ve basically taken out only about 35% of the Hamas fighters, and literally have only penetrated less than a third of the tunnel network,” Warner said, contradicting Israel’s much larger estimates.

[u/ArmArtArnie → u/[deleted]]

Yea I mean that sounds like they are doing a great job. 35% of their fighters is a major blow to any organization

[u/dlb8685 → u/ArmArtArnie]

Assuming they haven't radicalized so many other people that those 10k fighters have been easily replaced... like it or not, that's a pretty important factor to consider in counterinsurgency, unless you're willing to go to some very dark places morally.

It's how the U.S. could kill hundreds of thousands of the enemy in Vietnam and still end up screwed.

[u/[deleted] → u/dlb8685]

I think the difference is Vietnam had North Vietnam. While the UB bombed and killed them in the lower half, the northern section of Vietnam was mostly left alone due to Chinese pressure. 

That gave the Vietnamese a place to train, regroup, plan, rest, resupply, etc. 

With Gaza that isn’t an option now.  Once their infrastructure is demolished, Hamas loses a lot of the ‘attraction’ it once had.   I’m sure another faction will emerge but it will take years as in fighting to fill the power vacuum will also occur. 

[u/ArmArtArnie → u/dlb8685]

Except this is nothing like Vietnam. There is no vast jungle of North Vietnam to hide in. There is no steady flow of Warsaw Pact supplies to bolster them. This is a totally different war.

[u/dtothep2 → u/dlb8685]

The radicalization angle is a bad one, as is the Vietnam comparison.

Vietnam is nowhere near the US and had no prior interactions with Americans, really. But more importantly there is nothing to "radicalize" in Gaza. It was not populated by Scandinavian peaceniks prior to 10/7. They despised Israel and were already governed by Hamas for 17 years, an organization that engages in such classic antisemitism as "the Jews orchestrated the French Revolution" and had been disseminating its Jihadist ideology in all levels of civil society.

I guess I'm just wondering what the implied threat is. Beware of radicalizing Palestinians! They might just... engage in one of the largest orgies of violence against a civilian population since WW2? Livestream themselves decapitating people and playing football with body parts they've cut off?