(JNS) Amid the blood-drenched madness of Hamas’s pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, there was yet method.
The abduction of more than 250 Israelis and foreign residents—seized as houses were set on fire and women were subjected to brutal rape—was a criminal masterstroke. The presence of the hostages in Gaza, the long weeks and months of uncertainty over their fates, the periodic release of videos of emaciated Hamas captives pleading to be released—all played havoc with the Israeli psyche. On the ground in the Strip, fear that the hostages might be executed meant that the Israel Defense Forces, for all their successes, was not able to inflict the irreversible defeat on Hamas that was warranted.
Hamas is now reaping the benefits of that strategy. Having come out of the war badly damaged but still intact, the Islamist terror organization deftly grasped the key aspects of the immediate post-war situation that crystallized following the US-brokered ceasefire in October. Hamas understood that it was still the unrivaled government in the Strip. And Hamas understood that its fighters still had...
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