CNN on Intelligence Reports: Hamas's credibility and influence have increased since the war on Gaza

Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and succeeded in exchanging prisoners with the occupation (Anatolia)

A wave of new analysis by US intelligence agencies has warned that the credibility and influence of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has increased sharply in the Middle East and beyond in the past two months since the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip on the seventh of last October.

The network quoted US officials as saying that Hamas succeeded in positioning itself in some parts of the Arab and Muslim world as a defender of the Palestinian cause and an effective fighter against the Israeli occupation, after it launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

A senior administration official also said that Hamas was not a very popular organization before October 7, but today it is more popular.

U.S. officials are closely monitoring several key indications that support for Hamas is growing in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere in the region.

According to the network, a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research showed that support for Hamas in the occupied West Bank rose from 12% last September to about 44% in December. In Jordan, where more than half of the population is of Palestinian origin, demonstrators chanted in the streets in support of Hamas.

Jonathan Pannikov, a former intelligence official specializing in the area, said Hamas now, especially in the occupied West Bank, "is increasingly seen as the only group that is doing something really against the Israeli occupation."

Various assessments have been circulating within the U.S. government as President Joe Biden's administration officials have begun publicly warning that the civilian death toll from Israeli bombing threatens to increase Hamas's popularity in the Palestinian territories, and while analysts warn that "bombing may only inspire more terrorism there and abroad," according to CNN.

U.S. officials see these stark assessments as underscoring the difficulty, if not impossible, of Israel's insistence that it will "eliminate" Hamas.

Some analysts within the U.S. government fear that Israel's continued war against Hamas — including a punitive air campaign that has killed more than 20,<> people — could have the unintended effect of legitimizing Hamas politically and inspiring more "terrorism."

Source: CNN