Hamas Objective: Retaliation

By
Branko Terzic

The attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7 this year could have only one real objective. That objective was to simulate a massive retaliation against Hamas and against the Palestinian population of Gaza. Nothing else makes sense from a strategic point of view.

Given that Israel has a standing army of 169,000 soldiers and a reserve force of 465,000, a force of a few thousand Hamas fighters, no matter how well trained, was not sent to defeat Israel militarily.  As to the level of training of the Hamas fighters, reports that local kibbutz defense forces were able to drive Hamas fighters out of the kibbutz towns does not indicate any great level of infantry training by Hamas.  

That retaliation was the objective is also supported by the unnecessary extreme level of cruelty and atrocities perpetrated by Hamas forces. Hamas has engaged in widely reported executions and kidnapping of over two hundred civilians including 14 Americans.  The fact that Hamas itself filmed the brutality also supports the thesis that enraging Israeli’s leaders and gaining Israeli public opinion support for massive retaliation was the objective all along. 

Hamas is looking to goad the Israeli government into a massive and disproportional military response effort to gain world sympathy for the Palestinian cause and criticism of Israel’s response on humanitarian grounds. It looks like Israel’s government has taken the bait. 

Global TV and social media are already focusing on the plight of Palestinians evacuating northern Gaza under Israeli warnings of an imminent attack to clear the area of Hamas. Thus, Hamas forwards its goal, not of defeating Israel militarily, but in the court of global public opinion. A collateral objective of Hamas is to preclude any additional peace initiatives between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia. A show of Israeli restraint and a switch from massive military invasion to use of covert means may be a better approach and would foil Hamas’ objective.