Hamas has cut salary payments dramatically, the IDF claims, as the terrorist group faces growing backlash from Gazans and faces further loss of income once a new aid distribution mechanism is launched.
By World Israel News Staff
The Hamas terrorist organization is facing a severe financial crisis, one which is likely to worsen as aid transfers to the Gaza Strip are replaced with a distribution mechanism that circumvents the Islamist terror group, the IDF claims.
According to a report published by the Israeli news site Walla on Monday morning, the IDF estimates that Hamas currently has 40,000 terrorists under arms in the Gaza Strip – roughly the same number as before the October 7 invasion of Israel and subsequent Gaza war.
However, the Hamas military wing now relies heavily on inexperienced raw recruits, many of them teenagers, who replaced the estimated 20,000 Hamas terrorists killed over the past roughly 20 months of fighting.
Thousands of Gazans, including hundreds of Hamas combatants, are held in Israeli detention facilities, while thousands of other Hamas operatives were wounded in the ongoing war.
As Hamas gears up for the expected IDF ground campaign, which is aimed at capturing and holding the entire Gaza Strip, the terrorist group not only struggles to maintain its operational capabilities with a force of poorly trained new volunteers, it is increasingly strapped for cash, leaving recruits often going unpaid.
Even when payments are made, the IDF says, Hamas has had to cut back on the wages paid to terrorists, from 1,200 shekels ($336) per month to just 900 ($252).
The IDF believes that Hamas still has several hundred rockets in its arsenal, down from as many as 15,000 on the eve of the war.
In recent months, the terror group has carried out few rocket attacks, holding its remaining projectiles in reserve, in part due to the increasing pressure from Gaza civilians, who have begun to bar Hamas from operating near tent cities for fear of IDF retaliation.
Hamas has in the past benefited greatly from humanitarian aid transfers to the Gaza Strip – seizing the incoming goods which it then sells to Gazans in order to fund its operations.
However, with the Gaza Humanitarian Fund set to begin handling some aid distribution in Gaza on Monday – despite the resignation of its CEO – the IDF predicts that the pressure on Hamas will intensify, with the Islamist group losing one of its key sources of funding.
The terror group does maintain other revenue streams, including overseas real estate rentals, based on the Airbnb model.
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