By Taghreed Saadeh
Since the October 7 operation, Hamas has been experiencing what can be described as an existential crisis. At the outset, the operation seemed like the movement’s greatest military achievement since its founding: it breached the borders, inflicted significant losses on the Israeli army and settlers, and demonstrated that Gaza was capable of turning the tables. However, the situation quickly reversed, turning the operation into a pivotal moment that made Israel the most prominent and perhaps the only actor on the conflict stage.
Israel leveraged the event to launch the largest military operation in Gaza, justifying the imposition of a tight blockade, continuing airstrikes, and implementing geographic and demographic changes that could alter the sector’s future for decades.
In this reality, Hamas has receded from a position of initiative to one of receiving blows, relying primarily on statements and media threats, without successfully imposing any meaningful political or military conditions.
A recent example of this was the statement issued by the Al-Qassam Brigades, which announced a loss of contact with the Israeli prisoners Omri Miron and Matan Engerst due to what it described as “brutal” operations by the Israeli occupation army in the Sabra and Tal al-Hawa neighborhoods of Gaza City. In an attempt to regain the initiative, the brigades emphasized that the prisoners’ lives were at risk and demanded Israel withdraw immediately to the south of Street 8 and halt air sorties for 24 hours starting at 6:00 PM local time, allowing their forces to attempt a rescue.
Yet, despite the statement’s threatening and pressure-laden language, it was completely ignored by Israel. No official response was issued, and the Israeli military leadership showed no willingness to meet the demand, continuing air and ground operations at the same pace. This reflects the declining value of the prisoners’ card, which Hamas had long considered one of its strongest strategic tools.
Today, Israel controls the pace of the war, the pathways to any ceasefire, and the conditions of any potential negotiations. In other words, it has become the dominant and perhaps the only actor, while Hamas has receded to the margins, no matter how much it tries to portray itself as the party to negotiate with or as holding the Israeli prisoners, claiming that everything in Gaza is under its control even if that comes at the expense of Palestinian blood shed as a result of its operation.
It seems that the October 7 operation provided Israel with a pretext to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure and tighten its grip on the sector. In this sense, the operation served a historical function once, with the greatest beneficiary being Israel rather than Hamas.
Currently, Hamas faces a critical crossroads. It can no longer present the model of the “victorious resistance” it promoted for years, nor manage the sector as it did before the war. With the declining trust of part of the Palestinian public and the absence of any political horizon allowing it to translate sacrifices into tangible gains, talk of its political and military bankruptcy grows, as it becomes a secondary player in a conflict fully controlled by Israel.
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