Analysis: Hamas regenerates in Gaza, recruiting fighters despite Israeli defeat claims

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which carried out the attack on Israel on 7 October last year, is regenerating to continue the fight in the Gaza Strip, experts claim.

In addition to recruiting more fighters, the group which controls Gaza will continue to stake its claim over shaping the future of the territory.

"It is said, for example, that Hamas has lost 6,000 fighters, but it seems to be recruiting, or rather mobilising, around 6,000 members from its reserves," Hugh Lovatt, a political analyst at the European Council for Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank, told Euronews.

"They certainly won't be as well trained as the initial group, but they're still capable of holding a gun and firing rocket launchers at Israeli tanks," the analyst added.

One year ago, Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in Israel a year ago, sparking a new war in the Gaza Strip.

The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, Herzi Halevi, said in a letter sent to soldiers Monday on the occasion of the first anniversary of the attack that the Israeli army had "defeated the military wing of Hamas" and was continuing to fight in a bid to wreck its capabilities to instil terror.

However, analysts interviewed by Euronews explain that not only has Hamas not been defeated, but it still has the capacity to regenerate itself in terms of recruiting fighters and rehabilitating underground infrastructure.

"I think it's very easy, in fact, to recruit and regenerate, simply because there are many orphans and groups like Hamas have always recruited those orphaned in previous Israeli attacks," Joost Hiltermann, a political analyst at Crisis Group, told Euronews.

"I think we can safely say that Hamas has been working to restore some of the damaged tunnels," Lovatt remarked.

On the other hand, the assassination of Hamas' political leader Ismail Haniyeh on 31 July, while he was visiting Iran, might have been seen as a major blow to the movement.

Exiled in Qatar, Haniyeh was seen as pragmatic and relatively moderate in negotiations. But the new leader, Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the 7 October attack, is understood to be a hardliner who will want to maintain the armed