How powerful is Hamas?
Long politically dominant in Gaza, it has become better equipped militarily
IN THE EARLY hours of October 7th Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist organisation that runs Gaza, launched more than 2,000 rockets towards Israel. Over a thousand Hamas fighters, some in motorised gliders, crossed the border between Israel and Gaza. They attacked civilians on the streets of small Israeli towns and in their homes. In the next 48 hours they killed more than 900 Israelis, a figure far surpassing the deaths in the previous 19 years of conflict, and took around 150 hostages. Israel was caught off guard partly because Hamas had never carried out such a large attack. The country’s defence establishment had assumed that in recent years Hamas had decided to refrain from wide-scale confrontation—and that its capacity to do so was limited. They were wrong. Just how powerful is Hamas?
The Economist explains October 14th 2023
From the October 14th 2023 edition
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