ISRAELI forces poised to invade Gaza on a mission to wipe out Hamas will confront an ever-more capable opponent trained for years by a clandestine support network that stretches far beyond the tiny enclave to Iran and allied Arab groups.
Hamas' deadly attack on southern Israel on Oct 7 was a devastating demonstration of the military expertise it has gained since seizing control of Gaza in 2007.
Difficulties in importing weapons meant that over the past nine years, "we developed our capabilities and can manufacture locally", said Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official based in Leba-non.
In the 2008 Gaza war, Hamas rockets had a maximum range of 40km, but that had risen to 230km by the 2021 conflict.
"They are a mini-army," said a source close to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
He said the group had a military academy training a range of specialisations including cyber security, and boasts a naval commando unit among its 40,000-strong military wing.
In the 1990s, Hamas had fewer than 10,000 fighters, according to the globalsecurity.org website.
Since the early 2000s, the group has built a tunnel network under Gaza to help fighters melt away, house weapons factories and bring in weapons from abroad, said another regional security source.
The expanding capabilities have produced increasingly lethal results over the years. Israel lost nine soldiers during its incursion in 2008. In 2014, the number jumped to 66.
After the 2021 Gaza war, Hamas and an affiliated group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad managed to retain 40 per cent of their missile inventories, according to the US-based non-profit Jewish Institute for National Security of America, keeping roughly 11,750 missiles compared with 23,000 pre-conflict.
For Iran, Hamas has helped it realise a years-long ambition to encircle Israel with legions of paramilitaries, including other Palestinian factions and Leba-non's Hizbollah.
All share a longtime enmity towards Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.
The group's leaders are spread across the Middle East in countries, including Lebanon and Qatar, but its power base remains Gaza.
In the attack on Oct 7, the worst breach in Israel's defences in 50 years, Hamas fired more than 2,500 rockets as fighters using paragliders, motorbikes and four-wheel drive vehicles overwhelmed Israeli defences and tore through towns and communities, killing 1,300 people and taking dozens hostage.
Iran acknowledges it helps finance and train Hamas, but has denied a role in the attack, although it praised it.
A United States State Department report from 2020 said Iran provides about US$100 million annually to Palestinian groups.
The idea of Hamas, meaning zeal in Arabic, began to take form on Dec 10, 1987, when some members of the Muslim Brotherhood convened the day after an Israeli army truck crashed into a car carrying four Palestinian day workers, killing all of them.
They decided to issue a leaflet on Dec 14 calling for resistance as the First Intifada, or uprising, against Israel erupted. It was the group's first public act.
After Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, Hamas began importing rockets, explosives and other equipment from Iran, Western intelligence sources have said.
Flows of weapons, training and funds eventually gave Teheran a commanding presence in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza.
The jewel in the crown of Iran's militia network is Hizbollah, conceived at the Iranian embassy in Damascus in 1982 after Israel invaded Lebanon during the 1975-90 civil war.
Hizbollah bombed US targets and ran a hostage-taking and hijack agenda, drove Israel out of Lebanon in 2000 and then gradually seized hold of the levers of the Lebanese state.
Iran seized the opportunity to co-opt Hamas in 1992 when Israel deported about 400 Hamas leaders to Lebanon, the source close to Hamas said.
Baraka said the ultimate aim of the Oct 7 attack on Israel was to win the release of all 5,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, halt Israeli raids on Al Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam, and lift a 16-year-old blockade of Gaza.
He warned that if Israel's ground offensive went ahead, the war wouldn't be confined to Gaza but could spill over into a regional conflict.
"It's not just an Israeli war on Gaza. There is an Atlantic war on Gaza with all the powers. There will be new frontlines."
The writer is from Reuters