Israel Tells Washington Hamas Has Quietly Rebuilt to Full Strength, and Has No Plans to Disarm
Israeli military officials briefed their American counterparts that Hamas has repaired its tunnel network, restocked its weapons, and rebuilt to the same 30,000 to 40,000 fighters it had before October 7, while the US-led effort to disarm the group has stalled over how that would even happen.
Masked armed fighters in black uniforms with green headbands standing in a row, holding rifles, in front of a damaged building in Gaza. · Photo: AP/Abdel Kareem Hana
Israeli military officials presented intelligence to their American counterparts showing that Hamas has no intention of disarming and has rebuilt its forces in Gaza back to roughly the strength it held before 7 October 2023, between 30,000 and 40,000 operatives. The assessment describes a group that has repaired its tunnel systems and accumulated weapons rather than one still recovering from two years of war.
The same assessment says Hamas has reimposed its governance over the Strip and faces no internal challenger, a civil as well as military recovery that the security establishment is treating as established fact rather than a risk to watch for. Put together with the rearmament numbers, the briefing describes Gaza returning to something closer to its pre-war shape under the same organization Israel fought to dismantle.
That assessment is the backdrop to why the US-led effort to disarm Hamas has stalled, with the two sides unable to agree on the process itself, not just its outcome. An organization with no internal rival and a restored arsenal has little incentive to accept a disarmament process it did not design, and Israel's own intelligence now says explicitly that Hamas has shown no sign of intending to.
The briefing lands alongside Netanyahu's denial of a separate Financial Times report that Trump blocked an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities earlier this month, which he called incorrect when asked on Channel 7. Taken together, the two stories describe an Israeli security establishment making the case, to Washington and to its own public, that the threats it was fighting in both Gaza and Iran have not gone away, whatever shape the diplomacy around them has taken.
