Has Israel realised that it can’t ‘eradicate’ Hamas?

Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas, but now the group has resurfaced in northern Gaza after 112 days of war.

In early January, Israel announced that it was withdrawing some of its forces from northern Gaza after “dismantling” Hamas’s military activities in the region.

Three months had passed since the start of its war on Gaza, more than 20,000 Palestinians had been killed and Israel had increasingly turned its attention to central and southern Gaza, here it has surrounded and targeted the city of Khan Younis in particular.

But on January 16, Hamas launched 25 rockets from the northern Gaza strip at the southern Israeli city of Netivot. While no civilians were killed, the attack punched holes in the Israeli claim that it was on its way to destroying Hamas, even after more than 100 days of war.

Since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that it wants to “eradicate” the Palestinian armed group.

At the time, many analysts warned that destroying the group was an unrealistic aim that would only compound the costs imposed on Gaza’s civilian population. Now, the fresh signs of Hamas regaining the ability to target Israel from northern Gaza further bolster those predictions.