Hamas resurfaces, starts to deploy police forces in Gaza

A file picture of Hamas militants from the Oct 7 attack. Pic/Getty Images

Hamas has begun deploying police forces and making partial salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days, resurfacing in areas from which Israel had withdrawn the bulk of its troops a month ago, four residents and a senior official in the militant group said on Saturday. Signs of a Hamas resurgence in the Gaza Strip's largest city underscore the group's resilience despite Israel's deadly air and ground campaign against it over the past four months.

In recent days, Israeli forces renewed strikes in the western and northwestern parts of Gaza City, including in areas where some of the salary distributions were reported to have taken place. Four Gaza City residents said that in recent days, uniformed and plainclothes police officers deployed near police headquarters and other government offices, including near Shifa Hospital, the territory's largest. The return of police marks an attempt to reinstate order in the devastated city after Israel withdrew a significant number of troops from northern Gaza last month, a Hamas official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said the group's leaders had given directions to reestablish order in parts of the north where Israeli forces had withdrawn, including helping prevent the looting of shops and houses abandoned by residents who had heeded repeated Israeli evacuation orders and headed to the southern half of Gaza.

Saeed Abdel-Bar, a resident of Gaza City, said a cousin received funds from a makeshift Hamas office near the hospital that was set up to distribute $200 payouts to government employees. Since seizing control of Gaza nearly 17 years ago, Hamas has been operating a government bureaucracy with tens of thousands of civil servants, including teachers, traffic cops and civil police who operate separately from the group's secretive military wing. The partial salary payments of $200 for at least some government employees signal that Israel has not delivered a knock-out blow to Hamas, even as it claims to have killed more than 9,000 Hamas fighters.

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