Hamas has spent years stockpiling desperately needed fuel, food and medicine, as well as ammo and weapons, in the miles of tunnels it has carved out under Gaza.
Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets; caches of ammunition, explosives and materials to make more; and stockpiles of food, water and medicine, the officials said.
The Arab and Western officials who described Hamas’s supply situation all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were disclosing information gleaned from human sources, communications intercepts and other streams of intelligence.
While the blockade has left Gaza’s roughly 2 million people scraping by with what little food and water they scrounge up, it does not yet appear to have begun to degrade Hamas’s ability to fight.
Israel has so far refused to allow any fuel to be delivered to Gaza, even as other aid begins to trickle in, leaving much of the enclave without electricity to power hospitals, desalinate or pump water, fire bakers’ ovens and run internet and cellphone services.
The United Nations, which handles the bulk of humanitarian relief work in Gaza, said on Thursday that it “has almost exhausted its fuel reserves and begun to significantly reduce its operations.”
Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, a freed hostage, said that while in captivity she ate the same single meal that Hamas fighters eat every day: pita bread with two kinds of cheese and cucumber.
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US and European press coverage on Gaza is totally discredited. They just parrot Israeli talking points. Go to Al Jazeera English if you want to know what's going on.
You know I somehow doubt this considering hamas didn't mount a permanent offensive of any kind
They literally raided for less than a day and than ran back with hostages. No way they're just sitting on stockpiles of fuel and resources if it couldn't be immediately used, and they were aware that everything was going to get intensely bombed anyway.
Yeah they probably do have stockpiles, but nothing substantial.
Even the article mentions the released hostage who saw them eating the same one meal a day of bread and cheese.
They literally raided for less than a day and than ran back with hostages
That's incorrect - the Israelis continued to capture and kill them inside Israel even a week after the attack. Some of the terrorists came with provisions that were meant to last for a long time, until the area calmed down, and then to launch a second attack from the inside.
Hamas released videos from the tunnels showing stockpiles of weaponry and supplies.
The hostages also testified that they showered every other day, while the rest of Gaza is essentially cut from water supply. Those water had to come from somewhere.