Hamas rising from the rubble: Rebuilding stronger than ever

The crisis over the delay in the release of terrorists and the growing doubts about the continuation of the ceasefire in favor of negotiations on the second phase of the hostage deal correspond with the raising of the alert on the Gaza Strip border, in anticipation of the possibility of a renewal of the fighting, according to Ynet's Yoav Zeitun.

In addition, it is likely that Hamas is also preparing to fight or initiate its own attack. The 35 days of the ceasefire so far have helped the terrorist organization reorganize, build companies and battalions that were damaged in the 14 months of fighting, and most importantly, not abandon its offensive plan, which it unexpectedly activated on October 7, 2023.

The long month of the truce in the fighting led thousands of Hamas operatives to immigrate to the northern Gaza Strip, following the IDF's withdrawal from the Netzarim separation route and under the auspices of about half a million Palestinians who returned to Gaza City and its daughters.

Tens of thousands of those Gazans found damaged or destroyed buildings, cut off from water and electricity, and returned to the displaced towns west of Khan Yunis. The thousands of operatives joined thousands of other terrorists who remained in the northern Gaza Strip, mainly in the neighborhoods of Gaza City, since before the ceasefire. The defense establishment assesses that they have organized into new military frameworks, but not at the same level as the military wing had before the massacre.

The reorganization is likely to include the replacement of platoon, company and battalion commanders, the use of tunnels that were not located by the IDF and the creation of new underground spaces, the cleaning of places where Palestinian civilians returned from IEDs planted by Hamas, and especially the creation of new IED scenes.

In some places, rocket launchers were also buried and surveillance cameras were located to serve as observation posts for the terrorists. In the past week, at least three rockets were fired, from al-Bureij and yesterday from Rafah, apparently inadvertently and as part of Hamas' redeployment.

A number of launches by the organization's surveillance drones have also been identified in the past month, in addition to the drones used by Arab-Israeli elements to smuggle weapons into Gaza from the Israeli side, but these attempts were thwarted.

It can be assumed that Hamas has learned many lessons from the IDF maneuver and the repeated raids, with one bottom line: Hamas did not activate all of the 30,000 registered operatives it had on the eve of the war, and did not use them during a year and two months of ground confrontation with the IDF, with the understanding that it was left alone and would not be able to carry out a full IDF maneuver – after Hezbollah abandoned it and a war was not launched against Israel from several arenas at the same time.