Top Biden aide seems to downplay Blinken’s claim that Hamas recruited as many fighters as it lost
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

A senior Biden administration official appears to downplay a claim made by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Hamas has recruited roughly as many fighters as it has lost.
The senior US official was asked about Blinken’s comments during a briefing with reporters following the announcement of a Gaza hostage deal.
“I heard that, but Hamas is a significantly degraded military organization,” the official responds. “Israeli forces can go anywhere in Gaza they want. Hamas leaders are living almost entirely underground and trying to take refuge in civilian structures.”
“They really have no free-standing brigades or military organization anymore,” he says of Hamas.
“Have they recruited poor Gazans who are living in hell on earth? Yes, but that is a far cry from an organization that invaded Israel with military formations with thousands of organized fighters on October 7. Its ability to do that I really believe has been forever foreclosed,” the senior US official states.
Blinken made the comments Wednesday while arguing that Israel’s failure to stand up a viable alternative to Hamas has led the IDF to repeatedly return to places in Gaza ipreviously 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 said 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 said. “That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”