How Does Israel's Military Compare to Hamas Forces?

Israel is marshaling a major military force around the borders of the besieged Gaza Strip as it prepares for an expected ground offensive into the Hamas stronghold, following the militant group's devastating surprise infiltration attack last weekend.

The looming clash will set two very different forces against each other in a difficult and devastated urban environment. Previous Gaza engagements have proven costly for both sides, with Israel's vast technological superiority somewhat softened by Hamas' guerrilla warfare expertise and home field advantage.

More than 1,200 Israelis have been killed and more than 3,300 wounded by Hamas' weekend attack, the Associated Press reports, citing the Israeli military. More than 150 people are thought to have been abducted and taken to Gaza as hostages.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are already undertaking an unprecedented bombardment of the Gaza Strip, so far killing more than 1,200 Palestinians, wounding 5,000, and displacing more than 300,000 people, according to authorities there, the AP says.

It is not clear when the ground invasion order will be given, but the expected incursion will be into a Strip more ravaged than ever before.

Israel's 169,500 active-duty personnel—maintained through conscription—have been boosted by 360,000 reserves. Hamas, on the other hand, is thought to have up to 40,000 fighters, although the exact strength and the composition of these forces is unclear. Hamas is thought to have lost around 1,500 fighters in its infiltration attack into southern Israel.

The two forces are not comparable. "They're totally different," Murat Aslan—a Turkish security expert, associate professor at Hasan Kalyoncu University and senior researcher at the SETA think tank—told Newsweek. "They have totally different force structures."

The IDF is supported by a military budget of around $23.4 billion. Hamas is heavily dependent on foreign funding, and the extent of its military budget is not clear. The Times of Israel reported in 2016 that the group spent around $100 million on military infrastructure annually.

The IDF boasts around 2,200 tanks, with the Merkava platform serving as its primary heavy armored vehicle. They are supported by around 300 towed artillery pieces, 650 self-propelled guns and 300 rocket artillery systems—including the U.S.-developed M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System.

Hamas does not use armor or long-range artillery in any meaningful way. Such systems would be easy targets for Israeli forces. Instead, it uses fast-moving light vehicles like jeeps, pickup trucks and motorbikes; all of which were used in last weekend's assault on southern Israel.

Hamas will look to counter Israel's armor advantage with its range of anti-tank missile systems. Fighters have often used these to target Israeli troops, vehicles and positions along the Gaza frontier in recent years. Among the systems in use with Hamas is the Russian-made Kornet platform and the Iranian Fajr family of anti-tank weapons.

Long-range rockets of varied sophistication are perhaps Hamas' most important weapon, used to regularly bombard Israeli cities as far away as Tel Aviv.

Hamas is armed with Iranian-made Fateh-110 ballistic missiles, which can be transported by road, can be armed with warheads weighing up to 500 kg, and have a range of up to 185 miles. Hamas also uses less sophisticated rockets assembled within Gaza. The group is thought to have around 10,000 rockets.

Israel counters Hamas rocket barrages with its Iron Dome missile defense system, which has a success rate of around 96 percent. Still, massed rocket attacks do sometimes mean that some missiles make it through the defensive umbrella. Iron Dome interceptor rockets are many times more expensive than Hamas' unguided rockets, making it a costly way to stop the barrages.

Israel controls the skies, its fleet of American-made F-15, F-16 and F-35 fighters able to bomb Gaza at will. Israeli Apache attack helicopters are routinely used to target Hamas positions inside the Strip.

Israel is also vastly dominant at sea, with 49 surface vessels and five submarines. Hamas does not have a navy and instead has used small civilian craft to launch infiltration attacks along the Israeli coast.

Israel also uses a variety of drone platforms, among them the Heron, Hermes, and Skylark series. Hamas also uses drones, though its less sophisticated arsenal has systems ranging from commercial grade quadcopters rigged with grenades to Iranian-inspired "kamikaze" drones.

Gaza Urban Warfare

Hamas' best hopes of inflicting casualties on the IDF will be either in cross-border raids or by drawing Israeli troops into the devastated urban centers of the Gaza Strip.

Aslan said he expects "guerrilla-type resistance to an Israeli military operation," noting the importance of Israel's efforts to eliminate senior Hamas leaders in the ongoing bombardment to destabilize defensive planning.

"For sure Israeli forces will be in great danger, because you have buildings—tall buildings—where snipers can easily hide themselves and shoot down on Israeli soldiers," Aslan said. "There will be great resistance inside Gaza City."

Hamas can be expected to heavily mine and booby trap likely entrance routes for Israeli forces, as well as use its network of tunnels and hidden fortifications to slow the Israeli assault and ambush Israeli troops. Such efforts may even be aided by Israel's bombardment, which has turned entire neighborhoods into chaotic landscapes of rubble and debris.

Michael Milshtein, an expert on Palestinian militant groups working at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, told Newsweek that Hamas will still look to its asymmetric capabilities to project force into Israel in the face of a conventional assault.

"As much as they can, they will try to cross the border and commit other terror attacks in the villages by the border," he said. "They've launched about 5,000 rockets of all ranges. I don't know how many rockets they still have. I am quite sure they are keeping rockets for when Israel gets into Gaza, and then start launching them. But it seems that they have less and less rockets."

The extent of Israel's expected incursion will depend on the strategic goal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "crush and destroy" Hamas, eliminating its leadership and ripping up its infrastructure in Gaza. This suggests the IDF will launch a more sustained operation than it has done in recent years, when the main goal has been to destroy tunnels used in infiltration attacks into Israel.

The densely populated and urbanized nature of the 140 square mile strip—and its population of about 2.3 million people—make high civilian casualty figures almost inevitable. Hamas is enmeshed within Gaza's civilian infrastructure, and the IDF has made clear its priority to destroy targets despite collateral damage.

"I think they're going to go full throttle," H.A. Hellyer—a senior associate fellow in international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London—told Newsweek. "The damage and the price on the rest of the population is going to be substantial, it's going to be momentous, it's going to be shocking."

"If Hamas survives, it's going to be tremendously degraded," Hellyer added. "I think they accept that as a consequence."

Newsweek has reached out to the IDF and Hamas by email to request comment.