Blinken: We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it has lost

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticizes Israel’s war strategy, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to advance a viable alternative to Hamas rule in Gaza, such as the PA, led the IDF to repeatedly return to places in the Strip it had previously cleared of Hamas fighters who managed to return.

“We’ve long made the point to the Israeli government that Hamas cannot be defeated by a military campaign alone, that without a clear alternative, a post-conflict plan and a credible political horizon for the Palestinians, Hamas, or something just as abhorrent and dangerous, will grow back,” Blinken says in an address on the Biden administration’s Mideast policy at the Atlantic Council.

“That’s exactly what’s happened in northern Gaza since October 7. Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back Hamas, militants regroup and reemerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void,” he says.

“Indeed, we assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost,” Blinken reveals. “That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.” (Israel estimates that it has killed some 18,000 fighters from terror groups inside Gaza during the war.)

“Israel has pursued its military campaign past the point of destroying Hamas’s military capacity and killing the leaders responsible for October 7, convinced that unrelenting military pressure was required to get Hamas to accept a ceasefire and hostage deal on Israel’s terms,” he says.

He adds that Hamas has “cynically weaponized the suffering of Palestinians” and points to a Wall Street Journal report that purported to reveal a message that the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar sent to mediators in which he called the death of Palestinian civilians “necessary sacrifices” and argued that the more innocent Palestinians were killed, the more Hamas would benefit.