🇵🇸 🇮🇱 🇺🇸 Israel is unable to defeat Hamas: US Officials

🔶️ Despite Hamas’s heavy losses, much of its top leadership in Gaza remains in place, ensconced in a vast underground network of tunnels and operations centers, calling the shots in the hostage negotiations. Those tunnels will allow Hamas to survive and reconstitute once the fighting stops, current and former U.S. officials say.

🔶️ “Palestinian resistance to Israel, manifested by Hamas and other militant groups, is an idea as much as it is a physical, tangible group of people,” said Douglas London, a retired C.I.A. officer who spent 34 years at the agency. “So for as much damage Israel might have inflicted on Hamas, it still has capability, resilience, funding and a long line of people most likely waiting to sign up and join after all the fighting and all the destruction and all the loss of life.”

🔶️ In an annual intelligence assessment released in March, American spy agencies expressed doubts about Israel’s ability to truly destroy Hamas, which the United States has designated a terrorist group.

🔶️ “Israel probably will face lingering armed resistance from Hamas for years to come,” the report said, “and the military will struggle to neutralize Hamas’s underground infrastructure, which allows insurgents to hide, regain strength and surprise Israeli forces.”

🔶️ After six intense months, the war has come down to Rafah.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/us/politics/israel-gaza-hamas-war.html

https://archive.ph/sXSNk