Speaking soon after his return from Netzarim Corridor, Lt. Col. Dori says he saw Hamas gunmen seize aid trucks, believes totally dismantling terror group will take a long time
Hamas, though significantly weakened, is still able to initiate attacks in central Gaza, a senior officer in the 14th Reserve Armored Brigade told The Times of Israel days after completing an operation in the Bureij refugee camp there.
“In general, their motivation is high to act and try to create victory images, and to create achievements,” said Lt. Col. Dori, the brigade’s operations officer. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit only allowed the publication of his first name.
In the area where he was operating, Hamas gunmen “are still working as a system and trying to carry out attacks,” Dori said, but generally avoid direct confrontation with troops.
The 14th Brigade was deployed to the Netzarim corridor in central Gaza in late August, and began a weeklong operation in Bureij in early October. The IDF announced the end of the operation on October 11 and the brigade has now left the Strip.
According to the IDF, the brigade attacked a compound in Bureij that was a school before the war. Hamas was using it as a staging point for attacks on IDF troops. “In the area of the school,” said the IDF, “the forces located terrorists who fired anti-tank missiles from the windows of the classrooms and also located weapons and ammunition.”
Dori, 47, said attacks like the anti-tank fire point to a functioning Hamas chain of command, at least in Bureij.
“Let’s do some reverse engineering,” he said. “There was a squad that received instructions, ostensibly from someone higher up. The weapons apparently moved from place to place. There is someone organizing this force. This shows some ability to carry things out, but we don’t see it in large numbers.”
After being hammered for over a year, Dori said, Hamas is extremely constrained in its capacity to carry out attacks, at least in the Netzarim area. Most of its attacks nowadays, he said, are done at least partly in order to create propaganda content for social media.
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