Hamas has recruited almost as many new fighters as it has lost in its 16-month full-scale conflict with Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, warning that without a post-conflict plan for the enclave, Hamas will return, Al Jazeera reports.

Washington’s top diplomat made the assertion during a speech on Tuesday in which he reiterated the Biden administration’s stance that Hamas cannot be defeated by “a military campaign alone”.

“Without a clear alternative, a post-conflict plan and a credible political horizon for the Palestinians, Hamas, or something just as abhorrent and dangerous, will grow back,” Blinken told the Atlantic Council think tank.