Hamas official claims the group has lost 80% control of Gaza

BEIRUT — A senior Hamas security official told the BBC on Sunday that the Palestinian Islamist movement has lost about 80% of its grip on the Gaza Strip, leaving a vacuum now filled by rival armed clans, after 21 months of Israeli offensive following the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation that the group launched on Oct. 7, 2023, against Israel.

This lieutenant colonel, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israeli strikes have annihilated Hamas' political, military, and security apparatus. "Let's be realistic: there is practically nothing left of the security structure. About 95% of the leadership cadres are dead [...] all active figures have been killed," he told the British media.

'It's a total collapse'

According to him, Hamas took advantage of the 57-day cease-fire with Israel between January and March to try to reorganize. But since the end of this truce, unilaterally broken by the Israeli state on March 18, the movement's last command structures have been targeted by the Israeli army, plunging the group into even greater disarray.

"There is no longer any control anywhere, no command, no communication [...] it's a total collapse," said this source, referring to the looting of an administrative complex once used by Hamas to govern Gaza. "They stole everything: offices, mattresses, even zinc sheets - and neither police nor security intervened." The official also conceded that the movement's financial capabilities are significantly weakened. "Salaries are late, and when they arrive, they are worth almost nothing. Some die trying to collect them," he assured.

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This security vacuum, caused by the weakening of the Islamist group that had controlled the Gaza Strip with an iron fist since 2007, has allowed at least six armed clans to assert themselves in the territory. The most prominent is that of Yasser Abu Shabab, accused of looting humanitarian aid sent to the enclave.

Formerly detained by Hamas and originally from a Bedouin family in Egypt's Sinai, his personality has caught the attention of the Palestinian Authority, based in the occupied West Bank, as well as several regional actors, particularly after Israel confirmed last month that it was supplying him with weapons. The man admitted on Sunday in an interview broadcast by an Israeli radio station that he was cooperating with the Israeli army to carry out actions in the southern Gaza Strip. Hamas is said to have placed a high bounty on Abu Shabab's capture, fearing he may become a "rallying figure" for its many rivals inside the Gaza Strip.

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Abu Shabab is also reportedly on good terms with the camp of Mohammad Dahlan, the former Gaza security chief living in exile in the Gulf following a 15-year rift with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He is regularly cited among the potential Palestinian political figures who might represent an alternative to Hamas in the Palestinian enclave in a hypothetical future administration free of the Palestinian Islamist group.

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas began Sunday evening in Doha with the aim of reaching a ceasefire agreement and the release of hostages and detainees, as Israeli strikes on the enclave continue relentlessly. At least 82 Palestinians died Sunday as a result of these deadly bombings, before at least 13 more people were killed in nocturnal raids on Monday morning, according to medical sources cited by the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera.

At least 57,418 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli army since the start of the Israeli offensive in October 2023, according to data from Gaza's Health Ministry.