A few days ago Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi spoke at the research conference of the Gazit Institute, he referred to the latest rocket fire from the Gaza Strip towards Israel and revealed that “the Hamas organization does not respond to the Air Force strikes in the Gaza Strip and does not even consider responding even though the IDF attacked important targets of the organization”.
The Chief of Staff’s words and the event this week in which the Hamas movement celebrated the 35th anniversary of its founding in a large rally in Gaza City indicate the plight of the movement in recent months.
It seems that the financial plight of the movement and the criticism of it on the Palestinian street are restraining factors that force it to maintain calm in the Gaza Strip and avoid from an escalation that could lead to another round of fighting in the Gaza Strip.
The prisoner exchange deal
An important part of the Hamas rally was dealing with the future prisoner exchange deal with Israel.
On the Palestinian street and among security prisoners in Israeli prisons there is great anger at the Hamas leadership for not being able to break through the impasse and reach a new prisoner exchange deal with Israel.
Therefore, as part of Hamas’ psychological warfare against Israel, one of the operatives of Hamas’s military wing presented a “Tavor”-type weapon during the rally and claimed that it was the personal weapon of IDF officer Hadar Goldin held by Hamas.
Immediately afterwards, Yichya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, gave a speech In which he stated that Hamas is giving Israel a limited time to complete the new prisoner exchange deal and even sent a threat to Israel in which he said: “If they do not sign the prisoner exchange deal, the case of the four Israeli soldiers will be closed and another way will be found to release our prisoners”.
Yichya Sinwar is under pressure and he is trying to blackmail the new government in Israel which has not yet established and also to make a “show of muscle” to calm the Palestinian street and the security prisoners who are impatiently waiting for the new deal.
Israel is not ready to repeat the mistakes made in the “Shalit deal” in 2011 and release hundreds of murderous terrorists from prison, Yichya Sinwar proposed about two years ago during the Corona crisis to carry out the deal on two stages, with the first stage being the “humanitarian release” of sick terrorists, women and minors in exchange for providing accurate information on the fate of the four Israeli captives, but Israel rejected his proposal.
Muhammad Def, the chief of staff of the military wing of Hamas, sent a recorded message to the assembly In Gaza trying to give moral support and encouragement to the activists of the movement.
He repeated the new strategy of Hamas since the IDF military operation in May 2021 on the strategy of the “unity of the fronts” and announced that in the event of a military confrontation with Israel “all the fronts will unite for the liberation of Palestine”.
The playback of the recording of Muhammad Def’s voice, for the first time since May 2021, was intended to demonstrate power and to cover up the criticism on the Palestinian street.
The military parade and the drone flight of the military wing over the Gaza Strip are also intended to encourage the Palestinian public that the military power of Hamas is strengthening.
The Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip tried to justify the continued calm in the Gaza Strip while the West Bank is burning with a wave of armed resistance to Israel, and Yichya Sinwar explained that Hamas gave the West Bank residents an opportunity to fight now while the “Gaza Strip recovers from the rounds of fighting against Israel”.
The leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip is looking for achievements to present to the Palestinian public, the financial aid from Iran to the movement was stopped due to the “Hijab protest” and the economic sanctions imposed by the Western countries on Iran, the wave of terrorism in the West Bank is not enough to cover up its failure in trying to impose a large prisoner exchange deal on Israel such as the “Shalit deal”, At the same time, Hamas continues its attempts to kidnap Israeli civilians and soldiers in order to improve its bargaining power.
