A Weakened Hamas Struggles to Respond to Israel’s Attacks

Intelligence assessments say the militant group’s arsenal and ranks are depleted and its leadership divided

By 

Summer Said

 and 

Dov Lieber

Updated March 20, 2025 11:20 am ET

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The site of an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday. PHOTO: HATEM KHALED/REUTERS

Hamas delivered its first response to three days of Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip, launching a volley of rockets at Tel Aviv on Thursday that set off alerts and sent residents running for shelters.

But the threat was quickly neutralized—one rocket was intercepted, while the other two landed harmlessly—highlighting how the militant group has yet to mount an effective military response to Israel’s renewed attacks.

Analysts believe that in part reflects a strategy of waiting for the right time while portraying Israel as the aggressor. But Arab intelligence officials and an Israeli security official say it also reflects the militant group’s badly degraded arsenal and fighting force after more than a year of war.

The Arab intelligence officials believe that Hamas now has just 10% to 15% of the 20,000 projectiles it had when it attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel said the attacks, which sparked the current war, left around 1,200 dead and an additional roughly 250 taken hostage. Israel has destroyed many of Hamas’s rocket-manufacturing sites, making it difficult to replenish the arsenal, the intelligence officials said. 

New recruits who have replaced fallen fighters are young and poorly trained, and their senior leadership is divided following the deaths last year of leader Yahya Sinwar and many of his top lieutenants, the intelligence officials said. 

People mourn a Palestinian killed in Israeli strikes, in Khan Younis. PHOTO: HATEM KHALED/REUTERS

The gaps mean Hamas has to keep its capabilities in reserve until it can determine whether Israel’s moves are aimed at coercing it to release more of the hostages it holds or are the prelude to a new ground invasion of the territory, the Arab officials and analysts said.

“They want to keep the rockets and missiles they have as a calculation for how this operation will develop,” said Michael Milstein, the former head of Palestinian affairs in Israeli military intelligence.

Israel shattered a two-month cease-fire early Tuesday morning, beginning a wave of airstrikes that Palestinian health authorities say have left more than 500 people dead, including senior Hamas political leaders.

It has kept up the strikes and moved troops back into the south and center of the Gaza Strip, partially reoccupying a corridor that bisects the territory and restricting Palestinian movement to a road running along the coast.

On Thursday, Israel’s military said its troops were operating on the ground in the area of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. The ground incursion was preceded by airstrikes in the area, as well as dozens of others across the enclave, Israel’s military said. 

Israeli analysts caution that Hamas still has the capability to inflict casualties in guerrilla-style combat. The group has gathered unexploded Israeli shells to use in ambushes and is briefing newly appointed commanders on where to position fighters in the event of a new invasion, the Arab intelligence officials said. It is also repairing its system of tunnels that connect key areas of Gaza after it was severely damaged by Israel during the war.

A damaged building in Khan Younis. PHOTO: HATEM KHALED/REUTERS

The group’s leaders have passed out leaflets to new recruits showing them how to carry out ambushes and other guerrilla tactics. One reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows how to attack Israel’s Merkava tanks, calling out “kill points” including the back door, ammunition storage areas and places where the gears are vulnerable.

Attacks by those recruits aren’t likely to be sophisticated but could still be deadly if Israeli troops enter Gaza in force.

The military said on Tuesday night that it attacked militants in northern Gaza that were preparing to shoot rockets at Israel. Additionally, the military said it attacked several vessels off Gaza’s coast that were planning attacks for Hamas and its smaller militant partner, Islamic Jihad. 

“They are weaker but not something we can rely on and create assumptions that they will soon collapse,” Milstein said. “It won’t happen.”

Hamas could also try to attack Israel from the West Bank as well as from Lebanon or Syria, he said.

Still, the U.S.-designated terrorist group is much diminished. Israel’s military believes it has killed as many as 20,000 fighters as well as much of its senior leadership. It has also beat back Hamas’s regional allies, limiting its opportunities to rearm.

The U.S.-designated terror group’s arsenal of projectiles has dwindled to the point where it needs to conserve rockets and long-range missiles capable of hitting the Tel Aviv area, Arab intelligence officials and security analysts said. Milstein estimated that it may have just dozens within that range.

 

Despite high vaccination rates, Israel is experiencing a Covid surge

• Two months ago, Israel seemed to have nearly stamped out the coronavirus, with case counts hovering at 200 per day. Now, with more than 50,000 active cases, the country is entering a new wave of infections. [The Times of Israel]
• The new rise in case counts — driven by the delta variant — suggests that the vaccine’s effectiveness is waning, particularly against the more contagious variant. [BBC News]
• The daily new case rate has doubled in two weeks, though vaccine shots — which 78 percent of eligible Israelis have received — are showing strong protection against severe cases, seemingly even more so for those with booster shots. 1.1 million Israelis having already received their third vaccine shot.  [The New York Times / Isabel Kershner]
• Experts say the situation in Israel is a warning to the rest of the world. Israel began its vaccine campaign in December 2020, meaning that early recipients have reached the eight-month mark in which some studies have shown  vaccine effectiveness begins to decrease. [Science / Meredith Wadman]
• Israel is now contending with the possibility of a new lockdown. The country also updated its travel list, banning travelers from hotspots and requiring a quarantine for most. [Haaretz]

America Needs to Start Telling the Truth About Israel’s Nukes

Credit...Illustration by Nicholas Konrad/The New York Times; photograph by Rost-9D


NY TIMES

By Peter Beinart


Mr. Beinart writes frequently about American foreign policy and politics.


American politicians often warn that if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, it will spark a nuclear stampede across the Middle East. Allowing Tehran to get the bomb, Senator Robert Menendez, the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, predicted in March 2020, could “set off a dangerous arms race in the region.” In an interview in December, President-elect Joe Biden cautioned that if Iran went nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt might too, “and the last goddamn thing we need in that part of the world is a buildup of nuclear capability.”

Such statements are so familiar that it’s easy to overlook their artifice. In warning that Iran could turn the Middle East nuclear, American politicians imply that the region is nuclear-free now. But it’s not. Israel already has nuclear weapons. You’d just never know it from America’s leaders, who have spent the last half-century feigning ignorance. This deceit undercuts America’s supposed commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and it distorts the American debate over Iran. It’s time for the Biden administration to tell the truth.

American officials began hiding the truth about Israeli nuclear weapons after Israeli leaders hid the truth from them. In the early 1960s, writes Avner Cohen in his book “The Worst Kept Secret,” Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion repeatedly told President John F. Kennedy that the reactor Israel was building in the desert town of Dimona “was for peaceful purposes only.” When the United States sent inspectors to the site, the Israelis concocted an elaborate ruse, which included building fake walls to conceal the elevators that led to an underground reprocessing plant. By decade’s end, the die was cast. The C.I.A. concluded that Israel already possessed nuclear warheads.

So Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir hatched a deal. Neither Israel nor the United States would acknowledge that Israel had nuclear weapons, and Washington would not pressure Israel to submit them to international oversight. For 50 years now, American presidents have abided by the bargain. Scholars believe that when Israel tested a nuclear weapon in the Indian Ocean in 1979, the Carter administration covered it up. In 2009, when a journalist asked Barack Obama if he knew of “any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons,” Mr. Obama responded, “I don’t want to speculate.”

Feigning ignorance about Israeli nuclear weapons makes a mockery of America’s efforts at nonproliferation. Mr. Obama vowed to pursue a nuclear-free world. Yet to prevent public discussion of Israel’s arsenal, his administration helped squelch a United Nations conference on a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. The Biden administration continues to impose punishing sanctions on Iran in an attempt to force its government to accept inspections more stringent than those required by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Meanwhile, Israel, which has never signed the N.P.T., permits no inspections at all.

This hypocrisy leads many around the world to smirk when American diplomats claim to be defending the “rules-based order.” It also empowers those Iranians who claim Tehran has the right to match its regional rival.

Finally, the American government’s deceptive silence prevents a more honest debate at home about the dangers an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose. American politicians sometimes say an Iranian bomb would pose an “existential” threat to Israel. That’s a dubious claim, given that Israel possesses a nuclear deterrent it can deploy on air, land and sea. But many Americans find the claim plausible because, according to recent polling conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland, barely 50 percent know Israel has nuclear weapons. A higher percentage thinks Tehran has the bomb.

Even if an Iranian bomb wouldn’t existentially threaten Israel, the United States should still work to forestall one diplomatically. With negotiations with Tehran at risk of collapse, the Biden administration should commit to lifting the sanctions that are crippling Iran’s economy in return for verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear capacity. But if those efforts fail — and the Biden administration faces pressure to wage war rather than allow Iran to gain the capacity to build a nuclear weapon — it’s crucial that Americans make an informed decision about the risk a nuclear Iran poses to America’s closest ally in the Middle East. That’s harder when the American government never publicly admits that Israel has the means to deter a nuclear attack.

The Biden administration is not going to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons. But that doesn’t mean it must undermine America’s global credibility and deceive its people by denying reality. Perhaps a more honest American discussion of Israel’s nuclear arsenal will breathe new life into the distant dream of a nuclear-free Middle East. Even if that doesn’t happen, it will be bracing, after a half-century of lying by omission, simply to hear America’s leaders tell the truth.

Israel swears in new coalition, ending Netanyahu's long rule

 JOSEF FEDERMAN

YAHOO

Israel's new prime minister Naftali Bennett shakes hands with outgoing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Knesset session in Jerusalem Sunday, June 13, 2021.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament on Sunday narrowly approved a new coalition government, ending the historic 12-year rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sending the polarizing leader into the opposition.

Naftali Bennett, a former ally of Netanyahu turned rival, became prime minister after the 60-59 vote. Promising to try to heal a divided nation, Bennett will preside over a diverse and fragile coalition comprised of eight parties with deep ideological differences.

But the 71-year-old Netanyahu made clear he has no intention of exiting the political stage. “If it is destined for us to be in the opposition, we will do it with our backs straight until we topple this dangerous government and return to lead the country,” he said.

The vote, capping a stormy parliamentary session, ended a two-year cycle of political paralysis in which the country held four deadlocked elections. Those votes focused largely on Netanyahu’s divisive rule and his fitness to remain in office while on trial for corruption charges.

To his supporters, Netanyahu is a global statesman uniquely capable of leading the country through its many security challenges.

But to his critics, he has become a polarizing and autocratic leader who used divide-and-rule tactics to aggravate the many rifts in Israeli society. Those include tensions between Jews and Arabs, and within the Jewish majority between his religious and nationalist base and his more secular and dovish opponents.

Outside the Knesset, hundreds of protesters watching the vote on a large screen erupted into applause when the new government was approved. Thousands of people, many waving Israeli flags, gathered in central Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to celebrate.

President Joe Biden quickly congratulated the new government.

Much of the opposition to Netanyahu was personal. Three of the eight parties in the new government, including Bennett’s Yamina, are headed by former Netanyahu allies who share his hard-line ideology but had deep personal disputes with him.

Bennett, 49, is a former chief of staff to Netanyahu whose small party is popular with religious Jews and West Bank settlers. As he addressed the raucous debate, he was repeatedly heckled and shouted down by Netanyahu’s supporters. Some were removed from the chamber.

Bennett, an observant Jew, noted that the ancient Jewish people twice lost their homeland in biblical times due to bitter infighting.

“This time, at the decisive moment, we have taken responsibility,” he said. “To continue on in this way -- more elections, more hatred, more vitriolic posts on Facebook -- is just not an option. Therefore we stopped the train, a moment before it barreled into the abyss.”

The new Cabinet met briefly, and Bennett recited a prayer for new beginnings and said it was time to mend rifts. “Citizens of Israel are all looking to us now, and the burden of proof is upon us,” he said.

Bennett, a millionaire former high-tech entrepreneur, faces a tough test maintaining an unwieldy coalition of parties from the political right, left and center.

The coalition, including a small Islamist faction that is making history as the first Arab party to sit in a coalition, agree on little beyond their opposition to Netanyahu. They are likely to pursue a modest agenda that seeks to reduce tensions with the Palestinians and maintain good relations with the U.S. without launching any major initiatives.

“We will forge forward on that which we agree -- and there is much we agree on, transport, education and so on, and what separates us we will leave to the side,” Bennett said. He also promised a “new page” in relations with Israel's Arab sector.

Israel’s Arab citizens make up about 20% of the population, but have suffered from discrimination, poverty and lack of opportunities. Netanyahu has often tried portray Arab politicians as terrorist sympathizers, though he also courted the same Arab party in a failed effort to remain in power after March 23 elections.

Bennett, who like Netanyahu opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state, made little mention of the Palestinians beyond threatening a tough response to violence. He also vowed, like Netanyahu, to oppose U.S.-led efforts to restore the international nuclear accord with Iran.

“Israel will not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons,” he said. “Israel is not party to the agreement and will maintain full freedom to act.”

But he also thanked Biden for his support of Israel. He promised to take a different approach than Netanyahu, who has alienated much of the Democratic Party through his antagonistic relationship with then-President Barack Obama and close ties with former President Donald Trump.

“My government will make an effort to deepen and nurture relations with our friends in both parties -- bipartisan,” Bennett said. “If there are disputes, we will manage them with fundamental trust and mutual respect.”

While Bennett’s speech was conciliatory, Netanyahu’s was confrontational. He began by boasting of his achievements, including diplomatic treaties with four Arab states and a successful coronavirus vaccination drive, before belittling the man who is replacing him.

He accused Bennett of abandoning Israel’s right-wing electorate and joining weak “leftists” to become prime minister. He said Bennett did not have the backbone to stand up to Iran or pressure from the U.S. to make concessions to the Palestinians.

“I will lead you in the daily struggle against this evil and dangerous leftist government in order to topple it,” he said. “God willing, it will happen a lot faster than what you think.”

In the opposition, Netanyahu remains head of the largest party in parliament. The new coalition is a patchwork of small and midsize parties that could collapse if any of its members decide to bolt. Bennett's party, for instance, holds just six seats in the 120-seat parliament.

Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said the new government will likely be more stable than it appears.

Each party in the coalition will want to prove that it can deliver. For that, they need “time and achievements,” he said. Still, Netanyahu “will continue to cast a shadow,” Plesner said.

The driving force behind the coalition is Yair Lapid, a political centrist who will become prime minister in two years in a rotation agreement with Bennett, if the government lasts that long.

Lapid called off a planned speech, saying he was ashamed that his 86-year-old mother had to witness the raucous behavior of his opponents.

“I wanted her to be proud of the democratic process in Israel. Instead she, along with every citizen of Israel, is ashamed of you and remembers clearly why it’s time to replace you,” he said.

Netanyahu’s place in Israeli history is secure, having served as prime minister for a total of 15 years — more than any other, including the country’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion.

But his reputation as a political magician has faded -- particularly since he was indicted in 2019 for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes.

He refused calls to step down, instead lashing out at the media, judiciary and law enforcement, going so far as to accuse his political opponents of orchestrating an attempted coup. Last year, protesters began holding weekly rallies across the country calling on him to resign.

Netanyahu remains popular among the hard-line nationalists who dominate Israeli politics, but he could soon face a leadership challenge from within his own party. A less polarizing Likud leader would stand a good chance of assembling the right-wing coalition that Netanyahu had hoped to form.