Hamas Has Recruited Up to 15,000 New Members Since Start of Gaza War, US Sources Say
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Iran-backed Hamas has recruited between 10,000 and 15,000 new members since the group attacked Israel on October 7 2023 and triggered the war in Gaza, two congressional sources briefed on US intelligence have told the Jerusalem Post.
While Israel estimates that around 20,000 Hamas combatants have been killed since the IDF launched its offensive in Gaza 16 months ago, the congressional sources said they believe the Palestinian group will remain a threat to Israel, JPost reports.
In one of his final speeches before leaving office, then-President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on January 14 that the United States believed Hamas had recruited almost as many terrorists as it had lost, a situation he said was a “recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”
“Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Hamas militants regroup and re-emerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void,” Blinken said.
“In the days since the ceasefire, Hamas has shown itself to be deeply entrenched in Gaza despite Israel’s vow to destroy the militant group,” JPost noted in its report. “The territory’s Hamas-run administration has moved quickly to reimpose security measures and to begin restoring basic services to parts of the enclave, much of which has been reduced to wasteland by the Israeli offensive.”
Nevertheless, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon has downplayed the threat of a revived Hamas, saying in a statement: “We know that Hamas recruits youngsters. But even if they recruit youngsters, they don’t have the weapons or the training facilities. So basically, yes, you can incite those youngsters against Israel, but they cannot become a terrorist because you cannot equip them with weapons or rockets.”
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