On November 11, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Hamas “has effectively lost control of the northern Gaza Strip.” However, last month, there were reports that Hamas was regaining control of the area.

Now, according to new evidence published by the Associated Press, Hamas has returned to areas that the IDF had occupied and subsequently withdrew its troops from.

Read the AP report below:

Hamas has begun to resurface in areas where Israel withdrew the bulk of its forces a month ago, deploying police officers and making salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City in recent days, four residents and a senior official in the militant group said Saturday.

Signs of a Hamas resurgence in Gaza’s largest city underscore the group’s resilience despite Israel’s deadly air and ground campaign in the four months since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war. Israel says it’s determined to crush Hamas and prevent it from returning to power in Gaza, an enclave it has ruled since 2007.

In recent days, Israeli forces renewed strikes in the western and northwestern parts of Gaza City, including in areas where some salary distributions reportedly took place.

Four Gaza City residents told The Associated Press that in recent days, uniformed and plainclothes police officers deployed near police headquarters and other government offices, including near Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. The residents said they saw the return of civil servants and subsequent Israeli airstrikes near the makeshift offices.

The return of police marks an attempt to reinstate order in the devastated city after Israel withdrew a significant number of troops from northern Gaza last month, a Hamas official told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Saeed Abdel-Bar, a resident of Gaza City, said a cousin received funds from a makeshift Hamas office that was set up to distribute $200 payouts to government employees, including police officers and municipal workers.

Since seizing control of Gaza nearly 17 years ago, Hamas has operated a government bureaucracy with tens of thousands of civil servants, including teachers and police who operate separately from the group’s secretive military wing.

The partial salary payments for some government employees signal that Israel has not delivered a knockout blow to Hamas, even as it claims to have killed more than 9,000 Hamas fighters.

Ahmed Abu Hadrous, a Gaza City resident, said Israeli warplanes struck the area where the makeshift office is located multiple times earlier this week, including Saturday.

Israeli military leaders had said they had broken up the command structure of Hamas battalions in the north, but that individual fighters were continuing to carry out guerrilla-style attacks.

Last week, Army Radio reported IDF has plans to increase its military presence in the northern Gaza Strip in the upcoming weeks due to Hamas’s attempts to reestablish a presence there.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)