Israel claims it has killed thousands of Hamas fighters and dismantled the command structure of nearly all its battalions and pummeled its tunnel network.

But Israel’s military has said that eliminating Hamas isn’t possible — even if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for “total victory” over the resistance group. 

One of Hamas’s most senior officials, Khaled Meshal, maintains that the group is even winning the war and will play a decisive role in Gaza’s future.

“Hamas has the upper hand,” Meshal said in an interview with The New York Times in Doha, Qatar, where he is based. “It has remained steadfast” and brought the Israeli military into “a state of attrition,” he said.

Meshal was the target in 1997 of a failed assassination attempt by Israel in Jordan, and he served as Hamas’s political chief for more than two decades. In early September, U.S. federal prosecutors unsealed charges against him and other Hamas leaders, accusing them of playing a central role in planning and carrying out the October 7 attacks on Israel.

In the interview, Meshal made clear that Hamas officials are not in a rush to conclude a ceasefire with Israel at any price, and will not give up on their main demands for an end to the war and an Israeli withdrawal.
Some current and former Israeli security officials also say they believe that Hamas is unlikely to be defeated in this war.

“Hamas is winning this war,” Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, a former commander of the Israeli military’s Gaza division, said. “Our soldiers are winning every tactical encounter with Hamas, but we’re losing the war, and in a big way.”

In late June, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, dismissed Netanyahu’s proposition that Hamas could be wiped out.

“Hamas is an idea,” he told Israel’s Channel 13. “Those who think we can make Hamas disappear are wrong,” he said. “The thought that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public.”

Last month, war minister Yoav Gallant described Netanyahu’s “total victory” slogan as “nonsense.” And some Israeli security officials have said the battle with Hamas will be left for their children.

A military intelligence official also said the process of taking over and demolishing tunnels, the official said, was an extremely complex engineering project that could take years.

Some members of the military leadership have concluded that a ceasefire with Hamas was the best path forward, even if it leaves the group in power for the time being.

Meshal said he was confident that the group would play a dominant role in Gaza following the war. He dismissed alternative American and Israeli proposals for administering the territory without Hamas.

“All their illusions about filling the vacuum are behind us,” he said.

The United States has proposed bringing a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority to Gaza; Israel’s war minister has suggested that Arab forces provide security in the territory; and Netanyahu has considered working with “local stakeholders with managerial experience.”

“Assuming Hamas won’t be in Gaza or influencing the situation is a mistaken assumption,” Meshal said, insisting that Palestinians alone would determine arrangements for the territory.