Hamas “remains confident” that it can survive the current offensive being waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip, US-based defence think tanks report, adding that the Palestinian group’s confidence in surviving has “solidified” since Israel scaled back military units deployed to Gaza in December, Al Jazeera reports.

Noting that the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar said in February that “his military forces are in good condition”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and the Critical Threats Project (CTP) said Israeli raids on Gaza are being complicated by Hamas’s tactic of fighting and then withdrawing to areas absent of Israeli forces to “rest and reconstitute”.

The latest ISW/CTP joint report also addresses a Reuters report in which US and Israeli officials say that Hamas has shifted to “insurgent” tactics, which the US officials said the Palestinian armed group can sustain “for months”.

Hamas continues to have access to weapons either smuggled into Gaza or captured from Israeli forces, the officials told Reuters.