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A senior Hamas official has recently disclosed that the terror group has lost control of 80% of Gaza. This may be tree, or — argues Israeli journalist Seth Frantzman — it may be false, a deliberate attempt to convince the Israelis that Hamas has been so beaten down, and represents so little a threat any more, that Israel can afford take a chance on puling its troops out of of almost all of Gaza and leaving the “powerless” Hamas in place. More on Hamas’ claim of weakness can be found here: “Admitting defeat? Why Hamas officials say the terror group ‘lost control’ of Gaza – analysis,” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2025:
The same day that ceasefire talks took place in Doha, a report emerged on the BBC that suggested Hamas had “lost control over most of Gaza.”
The timing of the report leads to questions. According to the report, “A senior officer in Hamas’s security forces has told the BBC the Palestinian armed group has lost about 80% of its control over the Gaza Strip and that armed clans are filling the void.”
However, if Hamas has lost control why is it able to negotiate from a position of strength in Qatar and continue to hold onto demands it has made for the last year?
The report said that the source of the claims is a “lieutenant-colonel” in Hamas’s “security forces.” Why would a high-ranking member of Hamas suddenly decide to leak these key details on the same day that ceasefire talks are ongoing?
The talks are aimed at presenting Hamas’s proposals to continue its rule in Gaza. The report would seem to weaken the Hamas position. However, the report could also strengthen the view of some Israeli officials that Israel has won in Gaza. If Hamas says it has collapsed, why not take its word for it and end the war and claim victory? Could the Hamas officer thus be leaking details that Hamas wants to be leaked?
The report said that the Hamas member said the group’s “command and control system had collapsed due to months of Israeli strikes that have devastated the group’s political, military and security leadership.”
The officer is presented as an anonymous source, and he left “voice messages” about the state of Hamas affairs. “The officer painted a picture of Hamas’s internal disintegration and the near-total collapse of security across Gaza, which the group governed before the conflict.”
The Hamas member claimed that 95% of Hamas leaders have been killed. “There’s barely anything left of the security structure.” How does Hamas continue to hold around 35%-40% of Gaza and rule over 2 million people?
Hamas also claimed it could deliver the hostages, according to reports of a possible deal. How can both things be true, that Hamas has no control, but controls 2 million people and the hostages?“Criminal gangs are everywhere, society is collapsing,” the source claimed. “About the security situation, let me be clear: it has completely collapsed. Totally gone. There’s no control anywhere,” he said….
Is this true? Does Hamas not still control all of the Israeli hostages? Doesn’t it continue to fight, and inflict casualties, on the IDF in northern Gaza? Has it not been able to disrupt the tremendous efforts of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to distribute aid while bypassing Hamas, by firing on people trying to receive food, which makes many Gazans too afraid to come to the four distribution centers?
Is this claim of Hamas’ near-total collapse, which has been fed to the media, including the BBC, by an unidentified senior military man in Hamas, a true reflection of the terror group’s current weakness, or is Hamas’ loss of control deliberately being greatly exaggerated, in the hope that the Israelis will take it as true and be more willing to leave in place a Hamas that barely controls “20% of Gaza” and is still being pummeled daily, not just by the IDF but by the powerful clans, including that led by Yasser Abu Shabab?
Hamas knows very well how to exploit Israel’s greatest weakness – it’s unelected leftist political establishment. The Labour Party was discredited by the late 90s because of the “peace” deals it brokered, which unleashed a wave of terrorist bombings, shootings and stabbings. Once the Party could no longer win votes, it transferred its ambitions to rule through the institutions of the state, and in particuar, the judiciary, to undermine any challenge to its power, principally by judicial obstruction, lawfare and by inciting naive leftists to come out on the streets.
All though 2024, the campaign to release hostages was not quite what it seemed to pro-Israeli outsiders: it often addressed its message to Netanyahu: if only Netanyahu would compromise, if only Netanyahu would be nice to Hamas, then the hostages would be returned. To them, Netanyahu was the reason for the hostages remaining in captivity. These people are incapable of learning from the history of the past thirty years, and it is impossible to reason with them.
Hamas, by feigning weakness, can hope for renewed street protests by Israeli leftists against Netanyahu, and general destabilization of the country, making it very difficult for the Israel to pursue the war to its necessary end.
Hamas also has a new audience of “MAGA influencers”, whose vision of “America First” is somehow … nuclear weapons for Iran. Hamas can also therefore hope to widen the fractures in Trump’s disparate coalition, and thereby weaken future US support for Israel.
For these reasons, Hamas’s new claims must be rejected and exposed in public, so that there is some counterweight to the international legacy media’s inevitable amplification of those claims.
Going by the attribution of being a MAGA influencer, is also know as a leach living off of the Trump supporters, NOT a MAGA. You can take any word and twist it into any shape pretzel, including a donut. Most of these are isolationists and sadly they would probably not even fight to defend the USA. The “big tent” theory brings in not only the good, but the bad and ugly.
Hamass is not defeated until they surrender unconditionally. Give up their weapons, and accept their long prison times.
Anything less is just another trick.
The islamic terrorists are masters of pretending to be victims.
I’m not Jewish nor have I ever been to Israel and I don’t know anything about Israeli politics nor do I care. But what I do know with absolute certainty is that muslims are habitual liars and should never be trusted under any circumstances.
Anything that Hamas says should be categorically dismissed as a lie. Moreover, from what I’ve seen, they wouldn’t (and couldn’t) tell the truth if their lives depended on it. Ergo, they should be regarded as contemptible verminous scum and dealt with accordingly.
Wouldn’t go far as saying all Muslims are liars. There about 1.6 billion but way too many Arabs are pathological liars.
hamass and hellzbullshita will never be defeated until every last one of them is dead starting top down – obviously if the troops have no orders they don’t know where to attack – with that loss off upper command they may splinter and carry in their demonic trances but these splinter factions can be easily wiped out – Surrender is no option because that just gives them time to regroup and how is Israel and the world’s peace keepers like USA, we cannot depend on antisemitic UN to be a peacekeeper.
Is it possible that they are hoping for a ceasefire without releasing any of the hostages – because they have allegedly lost control of them, and are supposedly no longer a threat anyway? That would embarrass Israel, who would be damned and mocked by the world for having gone too far and thus lost the vulnerable people they were aiming to protect, and would leave Hamas with a major bargaining chip to use against an Israel riven by divisions, once the terrorists had rebuilt their infrastructure (note to Western countries: “Your humanitarian jizya is not nearly enough, and must be trebled and sent via our trusted envoys UNRWA”). And can you imagine the worldwide vituperation if Israel were to need to renew hostilities in response to an attack by Hamas Mark 2?
Hamas may also hope that Israeli vigilance will be relaxed in the face of their seeming weakness.
With Hamas again rejecting a deal in Doha, wouldn’t it be preferable for Israel to deal directly with the current replacement of the deceased SInwar brothers based in Gaza – and say “no more dealing with the Hamas fat cats in Qatar.
Even better, try an offer you can’t refuse to those who are holding the Israeli’s hostage – let them go, and your families will not be harmed.
Israel is fully capable of completely annihilating Hamas. The people in Gaza should be expelled, as Arab nations did to their Jewish populations and resettled in Arab countries as they are Arabs. Sick to death of the repetitive lies about them being a unique people.
It is the unequal value given to the hostages remaining that is subverting the completion of turning Gaza into rubble, turning the tunnels into concrete ash and obliterating Hamas. In reality, it is the Nation of Israel being held hostage by those remaining in captivity. Their lives are being given greater value than those of our soldiers dying, to our existential right to continue living in our ancient and now current homeland and our right to irradiate this proxy evil.
The leftists populate the kibbutzim right across from Gaza and the secular young, many of whom attended the Nova Festival. They lived in the curated fantasy of peace regardless of the previous suffering orchestrated by Hamas, the suicide bombers, and previous testimonies of the captured terrorists. They believed in peace in spite of reality because their ideology cannot EVER be reconciled with reality; it is a mentally deteriorated state of acquiescence to evil in their futile attempt at equity.
We have no realistic idea of how many in captivity are still alive and even if they are all already dead, Hamas would lie because they are Hamas’ trump card in continuing to mandate conditions of their return.
It is a most self-defeating policy to have the dictates of these few causing the continuing deaths of others.
Our Jewish value of life has been used to make us participants in the many egregious deaths of other Israelis. Give Hamas 48 hours to return all hostages alive or dead; all released in 24 hours. If not, hell will rain forth until Hamas is obliterated.
Then, Israel will never again negotiate with terrorists and negotiate any future release of terrorists who have previously returned into Israel killing additional Israelis. Then, Gaza, formerly sacrificed on the secular altar of peace will be rebuilt and populated by the Jewish people.
And the apt warning to Mahmoud Abbas…you’re next!! Judaea and Samaria are Jewish and you and the Arabs seeking revenge will be expelled because we can eradicate you just like Hamas!!!
If hamas ever loses control of a significant amount of Gaza it will be obvious, by their rivals parading the dead bodies of hamas members through the streets. They are obviously still in control.
No terrorist group can be trusted. Never believe a word they say.
The issue should be handled with extreme response and prejudice against perpetrators even if it unpalatable to progressive Marxist liberals and other that are easily offended. And no, it’s not only in America, or Israel, it is a global issue.
When you call it out expect to be called a racist. It is the standard response from the liberal left.