HAMAS IS REEMERGING
Presence felt in parts of Gaza where Israel withdrew troops
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Hamas has begun to resurface in areas where Israel withdrew the bulk of its forces a month ago, deploying police officers and making salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days, residents and a senior official in the militant group said Saturday.
Signs of a Hamas resurgence in Gaza’s largest city underscore the group’s resilience despite Israel’s deadly air and ground campaign in the four months since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war.
In recent days, Israeli forces renewed strikes in the western and northwestern parts of Gaza City, including in areas where some salary distributions reportedly took place.
Four Gaza City residents said that in recent days, uniformed and plainclothes police officers were deployed near police headquarters and other government offices, including near Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. The residents said they saw the return of civil servants and subsequent Israeli air strikes near the makeshift offices.
The return of police marks an attempt to reinstate order in the devastated city after Israel withdrew a significant number of troops from northern Gaza last month, a Hamas official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Saeed Abdel-Bar, a resident of Gaza City, said a cousin received funds from a makeshift Hamas office that was set up to distribute $200 payouts to government employees, including police officers and municipal workers.
Since seizing control of Gaza nearly 17 years ago, Hamas has operated a government bureaucracy with tens of thousands of civil servants, including teachers and police who work separately from the group’s secretive military wing.
The partial salary payments for some government employees signal that Israel has not delivered a knockout blow to Hamas, even as it claims to have killed more than 9,000 Hamas fighters.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military issued its most detailed warning yet to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon that it would be “ready to attack immediately” if provoked, as it recounted its actions along the northern border during four months of war in Gaza and made a rare acknowledgment of dozens of air strikes in Syria against the militant group.
“We do not choose war as our first priority, but we are certainly prepared,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, adding, “We will continue to act wherever Hezbollah is present, we will continue to act wherever it is required in the Middle East. What is true for Lebanon is true for Syria, and is true for other more distant places.”
The comments followed the defense minister’s warning that a ceasefire in
Gaza against Hamas wouldn’t mean Israel wouldn’t attack Hezbollah as needed.
Efforts to close gaps between Israel and Hamas in pursuit of a ceasefire continued in the region where concerns about a wider war with Iran-allied groups remain. A top Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said they were studying the proposal put forward by the U.S., Egypt, Qatar and Israel, but insist on Israel accepting conditions including a permanent ceasefire.
The war in Hamas-run Gaza has leveled vast swaths of the tiny besieged enclave, displaced 85% of its population and pushed a quarter of residents to starvation. The Health Ministry in Gaza said Saturday that 107 people were killed over the previous 24 hours, bringing the wartime total to 27,238. More than 66,000 people have been wounded.
In Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah, at least 17 people including women and children were killed in two separate air strikes overnight, according to the
registration office at Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital where the bodies were taken.
The first strike hit a residential building east of Rafah, killing at least 13 people from a single family. Four women and three children were among the dead, hospital officials said.
More than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has taken refuge in Rafah and surrounding areas.
Israel’s defense minister warned earlier last week that Israel might expand combat to Rafah after focusing on Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s largest city.
While the statement alarmed aid officials and international diplomats, Israel would risk disrupting relationships with the U.S. and neighboring Egypt if it sends troops into Rafah, a key entry point for aid.
In Khan Younis, where Israel’s military said operations would continue for several days, the Palestinian Red Crescent said 11 people were injured when Israel’s military fired smoke bombs at displaced people sheltering at its headquarters.
Israel says it is determined to crush Hamas and prevent it from returning to power in Gaza, an enclave it has ruled since 2007, in response to its Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas still holds dozens of the roughly 250 hostages taken in the attack, after more than 100 were released during a oneweek truce in November. Those releases were in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
Also Saturday, thousands of people gathered again in Tel Aviv for anti-government protests to express growing frustration at how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration have handled the war.
“If we need to stop the war now and call for a ceasefire in order to bring those people back home to their families, and start to rebuild them and take care of them, that’s the most important thing for us to do,” protester Karen Levy said.