Tel Aviv – Last weekend, when Hamas performed a trio of emaciated Israeli hostages, which were freed in the Gaza Strip after more than a year, the militant group took the chance to lead a personal gib in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
With news cameras in southern Gaza, which was on a knot masked fighter, a Hebrew -speaking banner was clearly visible, which was overlaid with the face of the Prime Minister.
“Total Victory” was it – mocked the chorus, which was often called by the Israeli guide for almost 16 months of brutal warfare in the coastal slave, which is now interrupted by an armistice.
The Hamas and Israel are trying to deal with highly charged new conversations in the next phase of the ceasefire in the next phase of the ceasefire and try to paint themselves as the winner, even if Gaza is in ruins.
While Hamas suffered strong blows in a corresponding campaign of Israeli bombing in connection with a month-long ground offensive, some observers believe that the group achieves considerable propaganda points-because they can only indicate their just survival as a triumph.
Israeli prisoners Ohad Ben Ami, left, Eli Sharabi and or Levy, who have been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza since October 7, 2023, on Saturday.
(Abdel Kareem Hana / Associated Press)
The Hamas fighters largely disappeared from the public during the Israeli offensive. But the crowds of them, who wear crispy uniforms and are brimming with weapons, were an outstanding feature at hostage celebration, which have been held regularly since the beginning of the ceasefire last month.
Sixteen Israelis and Dual Nationals and five Thai citizens were freed in five separate batches, the youngest on Saturday, in return for hundreds of Palestinians who were kept in Israeli prisons.
“Absolutely, it is theatrical,” said Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a high -ranking, non -resident scholarship holder of the Atlantic Council, about the elaborate exhibitions of the group during the hostage publications. “It should show the world that Hamas is still relevant and still exists.”
In Washington last week, President Trump and Netanyahu – the first foreign leader who has been admitted to Trump in the White House since the second time, tried a unit front when rejecting any role for Hamas in the post -war gaza.
However, their common appearance was dominated by Trump's abrupt and astonishing explanation that the United States accepts the territory “property” and the creation of the development in the resort style “Riviera of the Middle East” as chair of the Nahen Ostens ”, as the one -time real estate developer expressed it.
The president then said his plan would not include Washington to pay reconstruction costs or send troops, but in the face of loud critic, what critics said was the support of ethnic cleansing and insisted that he said what he said.
Ted Sasson, Senior Fellow at the Institute for National Security at Tel Aviv University, wrote in a time of the Israel blog that Trump's apparently chaotic riffing about the Gaza depressed by Gaza contained an explicit message to Hamas.
Sasson said that the point of both leaders is that Hamas, if the Gaza did not take up its grip, “transfer every Palestinian from Gaza until we come to them.”
The war, which Hamas lit to southern Israel with their fatal attack on October 7, 2023 – in which its fighters killed around 1,200 people and confiscated around 250 hostages – brought Gaza enormous suffering. Due to the number of Palestinian health officers, the confirmed fatalities in the area exceeds 48,000, with thousands of other bodies buried in ruins. The Gaza Ministry of Health does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The numerical strength of Hamas was always extremely difficult to assess due to its secret nature and the lack of reliable intelligence from the inside gaza. Before the current war, the official US numbers provided the number of its fighters between 20,000 and 25,000.
Israel says that it killed thousands in the course of the fights, but the US intelligence agency believes that there have been almost the same number of new recruits.
Despite the loss of his chief Yahya Sinwar and the number of commanders in the Gaza – as well as the murder in Tehran in the summer, political leader Ismail Haniyeh managed to remain a strength, with a former senior military secret service officer.
“It is not the same Hamas – you don't have the same strength as before, but you are still the outstanding player in Gaza,” said Milshtein, who heads the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University.
The group continues to try to strengthen their prestige among ordinary Gazans. Surveys indicate that Hamas is more popular in the West Bank than in the Gaza Strip, but while some in the territory accuse the group that suffering and death have come from the beginning of the war, most Palestinians blame Israel.
Liberated Palestinian prisoners are greeted by a lot if they were released from an Israeli prison on Saturday after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Khan Yunis, the southern Gaza Strip.
(Abdel Kareem Hana / Associated Press)
It made public on Sunday when Israeli armed forces carried out an agreed withdrawal of a narrow, 4 miles long corridor that shares the southern Gaza from the heavily populated north.
A Hamas spokesman, Abdel Latif al-Qanoua, crossed that the withdrawal was proof that the group had “forced the enemy to submit to our demands”.
Israeli troops still stay in Gaza, along his borders with Egypt and with Israel. A complete withdrawal should be the main topic of the delicate second phase negotiations of the ceasefire and the publication of the remaining hostages.
Israeli media reports have speculated that Netanyahu, who returned material new conversations over the weekend, will probably try to fix progress in the indirect discussions in the Golfemirate of Qatar.
In the course of the war, public opinion has hardened on both sides. In this sense, Hamas has already achieved a first -class goal: to continue fighting against Israel instead of allowing a broader agreement that could strengthen its rivals of the western bank, the Palestinian authority. Israel far right – on which the prevailing coalition of Netanyahu is still required after a continuation of the war.
“Like the Palestinian society, Israeli society has a very pronounced shift to the right,” said analyst alkhatib, born in Gaza.
The hostage -taking over the past three weeks have raised public joy in Israel – but also the fresh anger against Hamas. Israelis looked horrified at the end of the last month when a young female hostage was shared by her kidnappers by a huge, pounding crowd in southern Gaza when it was liberated, and Netanyahu referred to the Gaunt, the Haggard State of the three Israeli civilian men who released were Saturday.
On the Palestinian side, the poor physical condition of some hundreds of prisoners and prisoners who were released from Israeli prisons – including cases of visible diseases or malnutrition – were revived by human rights groups due to widespread abuse behind bars.
When it comes to understanding Hamas, the past can be a threatening precedent. Milshtein said that the misinterpretation of the group's goals led to the debacle of October 7 over a period of many years and that the fresh miscalculation of how Hamas would react would react if Trump tries to reunite the territory of its Palestinian population could empty, could achieve catastrophic results again.
“I think Hamas currently takes into account Trump's announcement,” he said. “If you arrive at this point and understand that he is serious, you would prefer to return to war, to commit suicide to suffer more dramatic damage in Gaza strips.”