Can Hamas actually be eliminated? This is what military and security analysts think.

Israel’s war against Hamas — which has turned the blockaded and then besieged Gaza Strip into a post-apocalyptic wasteland — is now in its third month.

The offensive, launched on Oct. 7 after Hamas militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel in a brutal terror attack and took another 240 hostage, has now killed more than 18,000 Palestinians in Gaza, health authorities there say. Hospitals have ceased to function, entire families have reportedly been wiped off the registry and scores of aid workers and journalists are among those killed.

The aim, Israel’s government says, is to fully eliminate Hamas — it denies targeting civilians, although even its staunchest ally, the United States, is now saying that it must do more to protect civilian life.

Hamas, an Islamist militant and political organization designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union, has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007. It has a stated goal of destroying the state of Israel, which the United Nations classifies as an occupier over the Palestinian territories since 1967. In the years since Hamas took power in the small enclave, its capabilities, finances and weapons supplies have grown significantly, thanks to financial support from the likes of Iran and Qatar.

CNBC spoke to ten experts in counterterrorism, Middle Eastern history and security, and military operations to get their answers to the question: Can Hamas be, in fact, eliminated?

Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington

“No. Hamas is not a bunch of individuals, or a set of equipment and infrastructure. It’s a brand, and as long as there are a group of living Palestinians who want to call themselves Hamas, Hamas still exists. It is extremely stupid to declare a war aimed that cannot be accomplished. Yet this is what Israel has done. And unless the Israeli leadership begins to draw down its rhetoric about war aims, Israel perforce will fail because it has set itself unachievable goals and they are writing Hamas’s victory speech with their own proclamations.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe

“To ‘eliminate’ or destroy Hamas, Israel will have to destroy the root cause of Hamas, its reason for existence. That means Israel will have to accept progress towards a two-state solution and Palestinian statehood for Gaza and the West Bank.

Hamas cannot have a leading role in governing Gaza but Israel’s refusal to accept the two-state solution only guarantees continued efforts by Hamas to destroy Israel. Israel taking away that motivation, and getting the illegal settlement problem solved, will make it much easier for Arab nations to support Israel. It will also require the U.S. to put more pressure on Iran to stop supporting Hamas.

At the end of the day, IDF will kill a lot of Hamas and destroy much of their current network and infrastructure. But using lethal kinetic force only, without a political non-kinetic component to the strategy, is unlikely to lead to the ‘elimination’ of Hamas.”

Retired Col. Miri Eisin, Israel Defense Forces; managing director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism

“Can Hamas be eliminated? Yes, the military portion can be eliminated in the sense that you can systematically destroy the weapons, the armaments, the production sites, the positions both above ground and below ground. It’s systematic, it’s slow, but that can be eliminated.

Hamas’ ideology is part of the issue. It’s also a social movement and a governance. How to ensure people don’t join Hamas is first and foremost, you have to show that that way does not bring about a better future. That means that hand in hand with defeating Hamas, you have to let the people in Gaza distinguish and try to define the future they want. If I’m not clear enough, if the future they want is the Hamas genocidal version of destroying Israel, then we are going to seclude them, sideline them and make sure that they cannot get to us.”

Ryan Bohl, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst, Rane

“Total eradication of Hamas requires for Israel to not only carry out a military campaign in the Gaza Strip but also now Lebanon, Syria, Iran and even potentially Qatar where Hamas has a presence. But even that is pretty far-fetched given that the IDF hasn’t even successfully eradicated Hamas from the West Bank, which Israel more thoroughly controls.

Hamas, like all militant organizations, has the capacity to reorganize and replace lost fighters and leadership so long as the deeper social and political drivers towards its ideology remain present. The only viable way that Hamas could cease to exist is if those ideological drivers disappear or the organization is supplanted by a rival militant group.”

Daniel Byman, director, Georgetown University Security Studies Program

“Hamas is very difficult to eliminate. It has substantial support in Gaza, at least compared with its rivals. In addition, it has deep educational, social welfare, and religious ties as well as being the de-facto government of Gaza. All this means that Israel could kill many Hamas leaders and still not eliminate the organization. The best hope would be to try to keep Hamas weak and off balance while building up rivals, such as the Palestinian Authority — but that is a long-term solution and a difficult one.”

Courtesy CNBC