Standing before a gray backdrop decorated with Hamas logos and emblems of a gunman to commemorate the bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Osama Hamdan, the organization’s representative in Lebanon, dismissed Israel’s objective of dismantling the group, stating, “We are not worried about the future of the Gaza Strip.” Hamdan’s crowded news conference, held in his offices in Beirut’s southern suburbs, saw him asserting, “The decision maker is the Palestinian people alone.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly emphasized the objective of dismantling the group, despite growing international pressure to scale back military operations. However, analysts suggest that Hamas’s deeply entrenched organizational structure and reinforced ideology will make achieving this objective challenging.

While the Israeli military claims to have killed about 8,000 Hamas fighters, it is unclear how this count was measured, and the group remains resilient, with its footprint embedded deeply in Gaza. It continues to demonstrate significant offensive military capabilities, and its extensive underground infrastructure has played a key role in resisting Israeli assaults.

Reports within Israel regarding the alleged collapse of Hamas have been disputed, and the complexity of the group’s structure, including distributed leadership and specialized military units, has made dismantling it a formidable task. The group’s geographical divisions and decentralized military structure have allowed it to withstand previous attempts to eliminate its existence.

Overall, analysts view the most optimal outcome for Israel as the degradation of Hamas’s military capabilities to prevent the group from repeating such a devastating attack. But even this limited goal is considered a significant challenge given the group’s historical resilience and ability to adapt to pressures.