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By Tom O'Connor
Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
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The Israeli military has revealed the number of fighters of the Palestinian Hamas movement that are estimated to have been killed nearly eight months into the longest and deadliest-ever war in the Gaza Strip.
"The total amount of forces of Hamas before the war is around 30,000 or so," a spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) told Newsweek during a virtual press briefing on Wednesday.
"We understand based on our assessments, based on forces reporting and strikes that we've conducted, around 15,000 have been killed in engagements with the IDF."
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While thousands more Hamas fighters are believed to have been wounded or captured since the group's October 7, 2023, surprise attack that sparked the current conflict, thousands of other Palestinians are reported to have joined the group's ranks throughout the conflict.
The IDF spokesperson also said that one brigade and four battalions of Hamas fighters were believed to be active in the southern city of Rafah, where Israeli forces have recently expanded operations amid international controversy.
A senior Hamas official quickly dismissed the figures presented by the IDF.
"These are their numbers, and they are free to write them," Hamas spokesperson Bassem Naim told Newsweek. "They are incorrect."
Asked about the true size of Hamas' strength, Naim said, "We cannot talk about any numbers."
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U.S. intelligence sources cited in a recent Politico article estimated that around 30 to 35 percent of Hamas' pre-war fighters have been killed since the war began.
In its latest estimate provided Wednesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Hamas-led territory recorded more than 36,000 people killed in Gaza, mostly women and children, but did not break down the casualties into combatants and non-combatants.
Israeli officials have counted more than 1,200 killed, mostly civilians, in the initial attack last October and at least 290 IDF personnel killed in the ensuing campaign.
Dozens of new Palestinian civilian casualties were recorded in recent days amid Israeli airstrikes in Rafah, where a number of foreign governments and international agencies, including the United Nations, have called on Israel to halt its campaign amid humanitarian concerns. The United States had also warned its ally against moving forward with a large-scale operation in Rafah, threatening to withhold weapons shipments, but has thus far deemed the scope of the IDF's campaign to be acceptable.
After U.S. officials, including National Security Council Strategic Communications Director John Kirby, downplayed the scale of the Israeli offensive in Rafah on Tuesday and deferred to the IDF's internal investigation regarding recent civilian casualties, Hamas lashed out at President Joe Biden's administration on Wednesday.
"We hold the U.S. administration, as well as the Zionist occupation, responsible for these horrific massacres, and demand it to halt its policy of double standards and halt also its partnership in killing the Palestinians," the Hamas statement said, "as this is a historical responsibility that will pursue it along all those who are complicit in killing of innocent children and defenseless civilians, no matter how long it takes."
During the press briefing later that same day, the IDF spokesperson described Israeli operations in Rafah as being carried out "in a limited scope and scale," and having achieved "steady progress in targeted precise operations against the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas in the Rafah area."
This included the alleged uncovering of up to 20 tunnels said to be used by the group to smuggle goods and weapons across Gaza's southern border with Egypt, a strip referred to by Israeli officials as the Philadelphi Corridor.
"We've achieved over the course of the last 10 days tactical control over the Philadelphi corridor, which doesn't mean that we have boots on the ground across all of the corridor," the IDF spokesperson said, "it means we can control it and we have the ability to cut off the oxygen line that Hamas has used for replenishing and movement in and around that area."
The IDF also conducted operations Wednesday near the northern Gaza city of Jabaliya, where Israeli forces reported on uncovering weapons stashes and rocket launching compounds, as well as the killing of a fighter armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher (RPG).
Meanwhile, Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed a series of new operations on Wednesday, using anti-tank weapons, mortars and explosives to target IDF personnel in Rafah and Jabaliya.
This is a developing news story. More information will be added as it becomes available.
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