The Israeli army has realised that eliminating Hamas in the Gaza Strip will take months, Anadolu Agency has quoted Israeli military analyst Yoav Zitun as saying.

Although the Israeli army had hoped to overthrow Hamas, which had ruled the Gaza Strip since the summer of 2007, “on the ground, the army is amazed every day by how strong Hamas is. It is a real army (…) that was established 50 minutes from Tel Aviv over the past years,” Zitun wrote in an article published by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

And the movement’s military capabilities confirm how it has been resisting Israel’s occupation of Palestine for decades, he stated.

On the Shujaiya neighbourhood in Gaza City, Zitun quoted a senior officer in the elite Golani Brigade as saying, “Hamas has placed its strongest battalion there.”

“The militants in that neighbourhood were born and raised there, they are linked to the place and will not flee,” the officer said.