Hamas has another Sinwar. And he’s rebuilding.

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Hamas suffered a severe blow last fall when Israel killed Yahya Sinwar, the group’s leader and strategist behind the Oct. 7 attacks.

But now the U.S.-designated terrorist group has another Sinwar in charge, Yahya’s younger brother Mohammed, and he is working to build the militant group back up. Israel’s 15-month campaign has reduced Hamas’s Gaza Strip redoubt to rubble, killed thousands of its fighters and much of its leadership, and cut off the border crossings it might use to rearm. The well-trained and well-armed cadres who surged into southern Israel on Oct.

7, 2023, are badly weakened. But the violence has also created a new generation of willing recruits and littered Gaza with unexploded ordnance that Hamas fighters can refashion into improvised bombs. The militant group is using those tools to continue to inflict pain.

The Israeli military in the past week has reported 10 deaths among soldiers in the area of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. Hamas also has fired some 20 rockets at Israel in the past two weeks. The recruitment drive and persistent fighting under Sinwar pose a fresh challenge for Israel.

Its military has battered the group in Gaza, but for months has had to return to areas it previously cleared of militants to take them on again in new fighting. That cycle points to the difficulty of ending a war that has exhausted Israel’s troops and continues to imperil hostages still held in Gaza. “We are in a situation where the pace at which Hamas is rebuilding itself is higher than the pace that the IDF is eradicating them," said Amir Avivi, a retired Israeli brigadier general, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.