On Friday, Hamas officially acknowledged the deaths of senior members Rawhi Mushtaha and Sami Odeh. During the war, Hamas, along with most armed groups in the Gaza Strip, implemented a policy of generally not publishing the names of fighters or members killed by Israeli forces. It appears now that Hamas has changed the policy. However, there are many more dead senior members and fighters that the group has yet to state have been killed in the war.
Hamas’s acknowledgment of the deaths is a positive sign for Israel. It demonstrates that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) successfully eliminated both Mushtaha and Odeh, who were responsible for Hamas’ internal security apparatus. Nevertheless, Mushtaha and Odeh are only two senior figures among many whom the IDF claimed to have eliminated in the war. Hamas has yet to publicly acknowledge the deaths of other senior leaders like Muhammad Deif and Marwan Issa. However, statements will likely happen, as it does not serve Hamas’s interests to keep these men “alive” long after the war is over.
There is also the inevitable acknowledgment of dead foot soldiers and field commanders. For most of the war, Hamas, other Palestinian terrorist groups, and their backers claimed Israel was waging a genocide against Palestinians. In part, to support this false assertion, Hamas and other Palestinian factions mostly refrained from publishing so-called martyrdom notices. The high death toll among fighters would have damaged the genocide narrative.
On January 21, outgoing IDF Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi remarked that Israeli troops had killed almost 20,000 Hamas fighters during the war. It’s unclear if Halevi was referring to all enemy combatants or only Hamas. Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, The Popular Resistance Committees, The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, and other armed groups, including Salafists, fought Israel during the war and incurred losses. Thus, the figure of nearly 20,000 fighters might be higher.
Nevertheless, one does not have to rely exclusively on armed groups to find out if fighters have been killed. Family and friends of Palestinians killed in the war started to post death notices on Facebook shortly after the ceasefire went into effect.
FDD’s Long War Journal investigated some of the posts that mourned fighting-age males and concluded that some were likely members of Hamas or other terrorist groups. For example, a journalist in Gaza posted multiple pictures of Palestinians who, according to the reporter, died in the war. Long War Journal used open-source analysis to determine that one of the deceased profiled in the post was likely Yahya Sinwar’s former bodyguard.
There will likely be more open-source data providing clues into the deaths of terrorists in Gaza during the war. However, it’s highly doubtful that Hamas or any other faction will give detailed and genuine numbers on their losses. This change in strategy would not help Hamas’s efforts to paint Israel as a country that committed war crimes. Eventually, the group will likely acknowledge the deaths of all senior members but remain ambiguous as to the exact number of fighters killed in the war.
Effectively, Hamas is deliberately muddying the waters to make it difficult to discern between civilian and combatant deaths.
