Hamas’s Asymmetric Advantage

Israel responded to Hamas’s horrific attack on October 7 with overwhelming force. In the wake of the bloody terrorist raid, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed to “wipe Hamas off the face of the earth.” The Israeli military called up over 350,000 reservists and launched attacks on the Gaza Strip with the aim of eliminating the political and military wings of Hamas. Since then, Israeli forces have killed thousands of Palestinians, many of them women and children, piling agony on top of agony.

That Israel met Hamas’s violence with violence is not remotely surprising, given the Israeli military’s incomparable conventional military superiority to Hamas. Israel has long responded to Palestinian terrorism with inordinate force. The Israeli military is stronger, larger, and better resourced than Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, and Israeli planners know that their foes cannot go toe to toe with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Yet Israel’s military advantages are growing slimmer. Hamas has proved difficult, if not impossible, to vanquish with military force. Technology has shrunk the gap between states and terrorists, allowing nonstate groups to behave in ways that mimic the operations of countries; Hamas can launch sophisticated attacks and spread propaganda much as Israel can. Ancient tactics, too, such as the construction of a warren of tunnels beneath Gaza, have helped Hamas fend off a more powerful adversary. And Hamas gained leverage by capturing some 240 hostages. States have always struggled to defeat terrorist groups, but the Israel-Hamas war shows why it has gotten even harder to do so.

For Israel, perhaps the most galling outcome of this asymmetry is that its armed forces may have played squarely into Hamas’s hands by striking Gaza with tremendous force. Hamas was founded with the goal of eradicating Israel, but the group is not capable of doing that, so it wields terrorism to gain attention and allies. The bloodshed on October 7 was intended to provoke the Israeli military into an overreaction that would undermine international sympathy for Israel, stoke an uprising in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and rally support for Hamas, notably from Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Hamas has used the deaths of both Israelis and Palestinian civilians to promote its political agenda. In many ways, the group has succeeded. The best way for Israel to defeat Hamas, therefore, is to regain the moral high ground by moderating its use of force and offering more protection to Palestinian civilians. It will be difficult for Israeli leaders to show restraint because their constituents are furious. But doing so is the only way Israel can cut off Hamas’s ability to draw support and incite further violence.

CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

States no longer have a monopoly on the resources needed to project power and promote narratives. Many advances in technology have disproportionately benefited terrorist groups. In fact, modern terrorism can be chalked up to the invention of dynamite in 1867. Previous gunpowder projectiles—such as seventeenth-century grenades or Orsini bombs, the spiky explosives used by anarchists in the nineteenth century—were finicky and heavy. But dynamite is easily concealed under clothing and can be swiftly lit and tossed at a target. The result was terrorism carried out by small groups and individuals, such as the 1881 assassination by dynamite of the Russian Tsar Alexander II.

The Kalashnikov assault rifle, also known as the AK-47, was the next major technological boon to terrorists. Firearms had been around for centuries but were expensive, difficult to maintain, and more effective in the hands of trained professionals. Early machine guns, including Gatling and Maxim guns, were used by European colonial powers to wreak devastation, as when British soldiers killed hundreds of Zulu warriors in 1879 in the Battle of Ulundi in what is today South Africa. The same gun models were used by private security forces, federal and state troops, and police departments to put down labor strikes; in 1892, the Pennsylvania National Guard used Gatling guns to end a strike at the Carnegie Steel Company.

The AK-47, invented in 1947 in the Soviet Union, changed the equation in favor of nonstate actors. It was easy to carry and use, weighing around ten pounds. Today it is thought to be the most widely used firearm in history, earning its reputation as a symbol for terrorists around the world. The al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden often had a later-model Kalashnikov propped up behind him in his video addresses. Hezbollah’s flag bears an assault rifle similar to the AK-47. The statistics are telling: between 1775 and 1945, insurgents won against state armies about 25 percent of the time. Since 1945, that figure has jumped to around 40 percent. Much of that change can be attributed to the introduction and global spread of the AK-47.

Modern terrorism can be chalked up to the invention of dynamite in 1867.

On October 7, Hamas militants appear to have used old Chinese and Soviet AK-47s to storm Israeli military outposts, kill civilians, and take hostages. But they also used some relatively new tactics and technologies. The group began its assault by firing thousands of rockets to overwhelm Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group based in Gaza, have smuggled rockets from Iran and can make some explosives and missiles themselves from commercial parts. Earlier Qassam missiles built by Hamas around 2005 had a range of about ten miles. The missiles they used on October 7 can travel 150 miles. Like the Ukrainians, who have successfully used commercial drones to attack tanks and troops, Hamas and PIJ have been innovative in building their own weapons systems. To avoid Israeli air defenses, Hamas launched dozens of Zouari suicide drones, fixed-wing weapons that Hamas made with materials that are available in Gaza. Hamas also used small commercial-grade drones to drop grenades on Israeli observation towers and on remotely operated machine guns. Such drones can be purchased online and can evade Israel’s radar systems by flying slowly and close to the ground. Hamas’s attack was successful because it inundated Israeli defenses with cheap, accessible weapons.

A revolution in information technology has also benefited terrorists, allowing them to magnify the impact of their violence. The invention of satellite television facilitated an uptick in global terrorism in the 1970s: over the last 50 years, the Global Terrorism Database notes, the highest number of terrorist attacks in the combined regions of North America and western Europe was recorded in 1979. Satellite television enabled terrorists to publicize their cause, drawing support and recruits. Black September, a terrorist group connected to the Palestine Liberation Organization, took advantage of satellite television when it kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich in front of 800 million television viewers, reaching roughly one in five people on the planet. The massacre raised the profile of Palestinian nationalism and sparked copycat attacks, even though Israel obliterated Black September after the Munich killings.

Social media has had a comparable effect on terrorism. Hamas is now on a similar footing with Israel in its ability to project its own narrative about the war. Hamas uses the messaging app Telegram to recruit new members and spread misinformation. Even after Israel cut off electricity and shut down the Internet in Gaza, Hamas was able to proliferate disinformation on messaging apps and social media by relying on a global army of sympathizers. Such blackouts may have mostly hurt Israel, as they made it more difficult for trusted media organizations to verify facts on the ground. A great deal of the online information about the Israel-Hamas war is challenging to collect and verify. Many observers unintentionally promote falsehoods, including well-meaning nongovernmental organizations, media outlets, and open-source intelligence groups that make every effort to cross-reference videos and photographs of the war through the use of satellite imagery, maps, geolocation tools, and reverse image searches. In late October, for example, The New York Times acknowledged that its initial reporting on an explosion at a hospital in Gaza City a few days earlier had “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas government officials” that “an Israeli airstrike was the cause.” The U.S., Canadian, and French governments said later that evidence suggested that the explosion was caused by an errant missile fired from within Gaza.

TUNNEL VISION

Tunnels provide Hamas with another asymmetric advantage. In 2021, the group claimed to have built over 300 miles of tunnels—a strategy that has been used for thousands of years by groups facing more powerful or entrenched adversaries: Jews against Romans in Judea in the first century, Union troops against Confederates in the siege of Petersburg in 1864, Japanese soldiers against the U.S. Marines in Peleliu in 1944, the Vietcong against American troops in the Vietnam War, and more recently, al Qaeda and the Islamic State against American forces and Hezbollah against the IDF. Tunnels can be used to smuggle goods, to launch operations, and to store food, weapons, and militants. A single fighter who knows a tunnel’s layout can hold off dozens of enemy soldiers groping in the dark.

Tunnels allow Hamas fighters to move through the city even when Israeli forces have taken the streets above, making it easy to ambush them. Firing a weapon in a tunnel can injure the shooter more than the target because bullets may ricochet or produce sound and shock waves that can cause concussions. Night-vision goggles work poorly in tunnels because there is no ambient light, and soldiers cannot rely on hand or arm signals in the pitch dark. It is also difficult for commanders to communicate with soldiers in tunnels because of weak signals for communication devices.

Well-equipped armies can try to use robotic tools to fight against groups that dig tunnels. Aerial drones can map out tunnels by using high-resolution cameras and sensors, and unmanned ground-based robots can scout, test air quality, record distances, move supplies, carry weapons, and shield soldiers. But they can go only so far. Uneven ground, wet surfaces, and unexpected obstacles such as tripwires or even rocks can topple robots. In narrow spaces, disabled robots become obstacles themselves.

Israel could use massive bombs to destroy tunnels, but doing so would kill thousands more civilians in the process—winning the country only more international opprobrium and promoting Hamas’s narrative that the IDF deliberately slaughters innocent people. Even if the military operation were successful, the political cost would further isolate Israel and spur more people to take up arms against it.

Hamas’s most important asymmetric advantage has been strategic: its exploitation of Israel’s response to its assault. Because the goal of Hamas’s attack was to provoke Israel into a counterproductive overreaction, the IDF’s bludgeoning response has inflamed public opinion in the region against Israel exactly as Hamas wanted. In recent years, Israel had succeeded in convincing several Arab governments to put concerns about Palestinians aside and normalize bilateral relations. Hamas wanted to halt or reverse that trend—and for the time being, it has.

Put simply, Israel took the bait by responding to Hamas’s attack with violent repression, a popular but rarely successful method of counterterrorism that works best when members of terrorist groups can be distinguished and separated from the civilian population—an impossible task in Gaza. According to Hamas, Israel killed over 11,000 people in the territory within a handful of weeks after the October 7 attack. With every civilian death, Israel invites a global backlash that makes it harder to defeat Hamas and protect Israeli citizens.

MOVING FORWARD, HOLDING BACK

Israel can make some gains against Hamas with better surveillance, stronger defenses, and increased use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence-assisted targeting, counterdrone capabilities, and Iron Dome interceptors. Hamas no longer enjoys the element of surprise. Unless it is joined by Hezbollah, its ability to project force has peaked. Tunnel warfare will be slow, costly, and extremely difficult for Israel—but Hamas cannot win by indefinitely hiding in the dark. Hamas’s ability to integrate operations has been damaged by the shutdown of Internet, cellular, and landline telephone capabilities in Gaza. Israel is preventing Hamas’s forces from easily coordinating with one another, gathering intelligence, and reaching political leaders in Lebanon. It should continue to isolate Hamas in this way.

But more important, Israel needs to counter Hamas’s political mobilization—that is, cut off its ability to attract attention, recruits, and allies. Doing so would involve using force discriminately and reclaiming the moral high ground it had in the immediate aftermath of the attack but quickly forfeited with a reckless bombing campaign that killed “far too many” Palestinian civilians, in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Israel should, for example, clearly articulate that its enemies are Hamas fighters, not Palestinian civilians. Hurting the latter is morally wrong and often illegal—and strategically counterproductive. (To adapt a line often attributed to Talleyrand, Napoleon’s minister of foreign affairs, killing civilians in a fight against terrorists is worse than a crime; it is a mistake.) After weeks of pressure from the Biden administration, Israel agreed on November 4 to what it calls a “humanitarian corridor” that opens for four hours each day so that civilians can escape from the war zone to the south in Gaza, and international actors can supply food, water, and medicine to those who are trapped. Hamas, PIJ, and other hostage-holding gangs apparently do not care about starving Palestinian civilians; but Israel must.

In addition, Israel must not drive the Palestinian Authority toward supporting Hamas. As the terrorism expert Daniel Byman wrote in Foreign Affairs, Israel needs to avoid inciting anger in the West Bank, preventing settlers from attacking Palestinians and punishing those who do. Israel should also keep tax and customs revenue flowing to the Palestinian Authority, which has suppressed riots by Hamas sympathizers in the West Bank.

Israel has few ways to eliminate Hamas’s asymmetric advantages. The country cannot reverse technological change or completely shut down pro-Hamas messaging on social media. But Israel does have the power to react to Hamas’s terror attack strategically, and with restraint. Doing so can sap Hamas of much of its power. Given that Hamas designed its attack to stoke an overreaction from Israel, the best thing Israel can do now is to refuse to play into Hamas’s hands.