Hamas commander back from the dead and Israel’s Gaza problem – analysis

Reappearing Hamas commander Hussein Fiad claims Gaza ‘victory’ after IDF thought he was killed.

A Hamas commander who led Hamas fighters in Beit Hanoun and northern Gaza appeared in a video on January 22. Hussein Fiad, the commander, was believed to have been killed in May.

However, he apparently has a new lease on life. He gave a short speech after reappearing in the wake of the ceasefire. Standing with several men, the gaunt Fiad, who had a short beard, spoke about how Hamas had succeeded in Gaza.

He said that Israel had not achieved its goals in Gaza. He said that when one doesn’t achieve their goals, they lose. This is what “they call military rules; the strong one loses when he doesn’t win.” He implied that the weaker side, Hamas, won simply by virtue of not losing.

He clearly lays out what the Hamas strategy was. The Hamas strategy was not to lose. How the measure of losing is unclear, but it appears that they believe as long as they emerge after the war and can run Gaza, they have not lost.

Israel measures winning differently. Israel didn’t have a clear strategy in Gaza. Therefore, it was harder for Israel to win because it didn’t seem to have a clear goal or day-after plan. Hamas knew this and assumed that if it had just waited long enough, then it would have “won.”

Fiad is a kind of symbol of this challenge in Gaza. Back in May, the IDF claimed it had eliminated this commander. It said he was the commander of the Beit Hanoun battalion and that he had been killed in Jabaliya. It blamed him for anti-tank missile and rocket attacks on Israel.

The IDF said back in May that “as part of IDF operational activity in the area of Jabaliya, Israeli Air Force special forces and the special Yahalom Combat Engineering unit eliminated terrorist Hussein Fiad, the commander of Hamas’ Beit Hanoun Battalion, who was in a tunnel in northern Gaza.”

The Beit Hanoun issue
The re-appearance of Fiad is an example of the problem the IDF has faced in Gaza throughout the war. Beit Hanoun is a town in northern Gaza close to the Israeli border. The outskirts of Beit Hanoun or only a mile from Sderot. This area has been used to threaten Israel for years.

Rockets have often been fired from Beit Hanoun. The urban area has also often been heavily damaged in past rounds of conflict. However, Hamas always returns and uses it to threaten Israel.

After the ceasefire on January 19, the IDF redeployed the Nahal Brigade, which had been fighting in Beit Hanoun. The brigade has returned to the border area to prepare for new missions. This again illustrates the challenge the IDF faced in northern Gaza.

Three months of tough fighting from October to January illustrated how hard it was to remove Hamas completely from this area. The fact that men like Fiad not only survived but have popped up to declare they won is an example of the Hamas plan all along. Hamas always believed all it had to do was hide in the rubble and wait. It didn’t need to confront the IDF with “battalions” of fighters.

It split them up into small groups and waited. While Hamas may have suffered thousands of casualties, the IDF estimates some 20,000 were eliminated; the group continues to hold on to Gaza. In the absence of any other group willing to administer the area, it will continue to run things with men like Fiad. He makes no secret of the Hamas strategy.

The challenge Israel has faced in confronting such a strategy is that Israel has not come up with a strategy to defeat the Hamas strategy.