Can Hamas Actually Win This War?
To answer the question as to whether Hamas can win this war with Israel, we need to first define what constitutes a win.
An Israeli Win
Israel’s criteria for winning the war are the destruction of Hamas’ military capability to launch a significant attack and the return of the hostages. To that end, the IDF has driven Hamas from most of northern and central Gaza, killed 12,000 Hamas terrorists, demolished miles of tunnels and destroyed almost all of Hamas’ organized fighting brigades and command and control structure. Hamas in Khan Younis has been, for the most part, neutralized, and the remaining Hamas brigades are hiding deep underground, primarily in Rafah.
However, an estimated 15,000 armed Hamas terrorists remain and 135 hostages are still being held in Gaza, alive or dead. Killing or neutralizing the remaining Hamas forces is extremely challenging, since they are choosing to stay underground and mount small scale terror attacks rather than engaging Israeli forces in above ground warfare, which they know they cannot win, given Israel’s air and ground superiority.
The only way Israel can hope to achieve its victory objective is to move large forces into Rafah to attempt to destroy the Hamas brigades there and to destroy the tunnels that still connect Gaza with Egypt. To do that, the IDF has to worry about evacuating or safeguarding around 1,000,000 civilians living or taking refuge in Rafah.
A Hamas Win
Hamas’ criteria for declaring victory is survival of a significant portion of its terrorist ranks. The destruction of large parts of Gaza and the death and suffering inflicted on their civilian population is irrelevant to them, except to the extent that these tragedies bring international pressure against Israel. The greater the destruction and suffering in civilian Gaza, the closer Hamas gets to their conception of victory.
The sheer depravity and barbarity of the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre caused most countries in the free world to recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and avenge the largest massacre of Jews since the holocaust. Much of that support has eroded over the last 5 months of mounting Palestinian civilian casualties.
Many of those former supporters are now demanding a permanent cease fire and full Israeli withdrawal. US President Biden is steadily folding to pressure by the progressive, pro-Palestinian, faction of the Democratic party, which is threatening to withhold its support in key swing states with large pro-Palestinian populations such as Michigan.
Israel still has supporters in the world, and rock-solid support in the US Congress and among the majority of Americans. But the pressure from the White House and the international community, propelled by mainstream and social media, is becoming too strong to ignore. Prime Minister Netanyahu has pledged to finish the job, and the IDF has begun moving towards Rafah and conducting operations there. But there is great uncertainty as to whether Israel will carry out its plans.
Hamas assumed that this would happen. They knew that, while they would take a beating at the hands of the IDF and that thousands of civilians would be killed and that Gaza would sufferer massive destruction, after a certain amount of time, the international community would step in to save them.
They might have been surprised by the scope of the IDF attack and the level of damage inflicted upon them, but they assumed that it would end. Their plan was to survive in their tunnels and emerge to declare victory and fight another day.
If the international community, including the Biden White House, has its way and forces Israel to end the fight against Hamas, then Hamas will, in fact, emerge victorious and ready to launch more attacks against Israel’s population.
Can Hamas actually win this war?
If the world has its way, the answer is a resounding yes.
