A commander of Hamas fighters in Beit Hanun and elsewhere in northern Gaza, who was believed to have been killed in May, appeared in a video on Wednesday. Hussein Fiad apparently has a new lease on life.
He gave a short speech after reappearing in the wake of the ceasefire. Standing with several men, the gaunt Fiad, sporting a short beard, spoke about how Hamas had succeeded in Gaza.
Israel had not achieved its goals in Gaza, he said, adding that when one doesn’t achieve their goals, they lose. This is what “they call military rules: The strong one loses when he doesn’t win,” he said.
Fiad implied that the weaker side, Hamas, won simply by virtue of not losing. He was laying out clearly what the Hamas strategy was: It was not to lose.
How to measure losing is unclear, but it appears that Hamas believes as long as it emerges after the war and can run Gaza, it has not lost.
A video uploaded to Instagram shows Hussein Fiad, the commander of Hamas' Beit Hanoun battalion, recently speaking to a group of people. The IDF said last May it eliminated Fiad. While the video is undated, it appears to be authentic. pic.twitter.com/E3aNjhZ6ih
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) January 22, 2025
Israel measures winning differently. Israel didn’t have a clear strategy in Gaza. Therefore, it was harder for it to win, because it didn’t seem to have a clear goal or “day after” plan.
Hamas knew this and assumed if it just waited long enough, then it would “win.” Fiad is a kind of symbol of this challenge in Gaza.
Last May, the IDF claimed it had eliminated Fiad. It said he was the commander of the Beit Hanun Battalion, and that he had been killed in Jabalya. It blamed him for rocket and missile and attacks against Israel.
“As part of IDF operational activity in the area of Jabalya, Israel Air Force special forces and the special Yahalom Combat Engineering unit eliminated terrorist Hussein Fiad, the commander of Hamas’s Beit Hanun Battalion, who was in a tunnel in northern Gaza,” Ynet reported in May.
The Beit Hanoun issue
Fiad’s reappearance is an example of the problem the IDF has faced in Gaza throughout the war. Beit Hanun is a town in northern Gaza close to the Israeli border. The outskirts of Beit Hanun are less than two kilometers from Sderot.
This area has been used to threaten Israel for years. Rockets have often been fired from Beit Hanun. The urban area has also often been heavily damaged in past rounds of conflict. Hamas always returns, however, and uses it to threaten Israel.
After the ceasefire on January 19, the IDF redeployed the Nahal Brigade, which had been fighting in Beit Hanun, to the border area to prepare for new missions. This again illustrates the challenge the IDF faced in northern Gaza.
Three months of tough fighting from October to January demonstrated how hard it was to remove Hamas completely from this area. That someone such as Fiad has not only survived but has popped up to declare victory is an example of the Hamas plan all along.
Hamas always believed all it had to do was hide in the rubble and wait. It didn’t need to confront the IDF with “battalions” of fighters. It split them up into small groups and waited.
While Hamas may have suffered thousands of casualties – according to IDF estimates, nearly 20,000 of its fighters were eliminated – the terrorist group continues to hold on to Gaza. In the absence of any other group willing to administer the area, it will continue to run things with men such as Fiad.
He makes no secret of Hamas’s strategy. The challenge Israel has faced in confronting such a strategy is that it has not come up with an effective counterstrategy.