Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled

The situation in Gaza has not changed in many months; the ceasefire there is on paper only.

There are daily attempts by small teams of Hamas terrorists and other organizations to attack Israeli positions monitoring the ceasefire line or infiltrate into the Israeli forces’ rear. The distance between the Yellow Line and the actual border is short, amounting to two to five kilometers.

The Israelis are continuing to use airstrikes by manned or remotely piloted aircraft to work through two lists: Hamas commanders, and every Hamas person who participated in the Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. Almost every day, the killing of one or more people on these lists is reported. Among the Hamas commanders attacked, three out of the organization’s five brigade commanders were killed (each of these brigades had already lost one or two previous commanders), and Hamas’s supreme chief in Gaza, Ali al-Amoodi (Sinwar’s latest replacement), was wounded. On Sept. 1, an Israeli special forces team infiltrated Hamas territory and kidnapped the commander of the Hamas Internal Security Agency. There have also been sporadic raids by anti-Hamas Palestinian groups, operating from Israeli-held territory, into Hamas-controlled territory to kill or capture Hamas personnel. In addition to attacking Hamas, Israeli forces also attack members, especially commanders, of other terrorist groups — especially Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is the second biggest organization in Gaza.

Israeli forces continue to search the territory they control to locate, search, and then destroy Hamas tunnels. They are also destroying above-ground weapons and other military equipment caches.

Hamas continues to maintain firm control over the population in the area it holds and is recruiting new personnel to man its forces and conduct combat training. It is also continuing its attempts to smuggle weapons into Gaza from Egyptian territory. The main smuggling tool continues to be remotely piloted quadcopters. Some are intercepted by the Israeli troops separating Hamas territory from Egypt, but some get through. The average age of new Hamas personnel has gone down. Hamas has always employed teenagers in combat (and then claimed the Israelis were attacking children when they were killed or wounded), but the relative number of youngsters being inducted has grown.

During the first days of September, there were reports of Hamas shooting Palestinian civilians in Khan Yunis. The excuse for this has not been published. From past incidents, it can be deduced that the victims were involved in anti-Hamas political activities or trying to bypass Hamas control over economic activity. Recently there have been complaints by merchants in Gaza that Hamas has been extorting them at a rate of 30% of the merchandise they import. Some of them have halted the shipments of goods into Gaza as this is above the profits they make from selling them.

An interesting United Nations report on malnutrition in the Middle East describes Gaza as one of the least problematic areas, equivalent to Turkey and Lebanon. According to the UN assessment, Gaza is better off in this regard than Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

Below is a table comparing United Nations reports on malnutrition in the Middle East:

This follows a years’-long torrent of propaganda claims of deliberate starvation of Gazans by Israel. What changed? Not much. The number of trucks going into Gaza is approximately the same as it was previously. Piles of supplies have accumulated, some of which are now rotting in Hamas-controlled storage sites. The starvation fabrication is no longer useful for Hamas propaganda, so it is no longer being used.

The situation remains dangerous and tenuous for Israel, though you’d never know this by reading about the conflict news outlets outside of Israel.

Dr. Eado Hecht, a senior research fellow at the BESA Center, is a military analyst focusing mainly on the relationship between military theory, military doctrine, and military practice. He teaches courses on military theory and military history at Bar-Ilan University, Haifa University, and Reichman University and in a variety of courses in the Israel Defense Forces. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.