Israel is reportedly identifying a growing willingness within Hamas to resume fighting, while voices inside Gaza are pushing for an offensive on the assumption that another confrontation with Israel is inevitable.

The assessment comes alongside accounts from Gaza sources describing preparations on the ground, including the transfer of weapons from underground facilities into hospitals and schools.

Sources also reported that dozens of Hamas operatives have been moving around Nasser Hospital.

Additional accounts published Wednesday described Hamas activity at Shifa, Al-Aqsa Martyrs and Nasser hospitals. According to those accounts, operatives are exploiting crowded conditions and using infrastructure beneath the hospital compounds.

Other testimony described Hamas command-and-control centers in areas still under the terrorist organization’s control, armed men continuing to patrol streets and the operation of Hamas’s internal security apparatus.

The accounts also claimed that Hamas maintains detention and interrogation facilities inside hospital compounds and beneath them.

The reported shift follows a markedly different assessment published on September 17, when Hamas was said to have decided against responding to Israel’s elimination of two brigade commanders within days of each other.

At the time, the organization reportedly feared that retaliation would give the IDF grounds to continue the war. A survey cited in that report found that fewer than 10% of participating Gazans supported an armed confrontation.

The latest assessment suggests that some inside Gaza now favor initiating an attack rather than waiting for fighting to resume.

Concerns about armed activity at Nasser Hospital have also been raised by Doctors Without Borders.

The medical organization said it suspended some operations at the hospital in January after staff witnessed masked armed men, intimidation and arbitrary arrests of patients. It also reported an incident involving a suspected transfer of weapons.

Doctors Without Borders resumed its principal activities at Nasser in April, saying conditions had improved and measures had been taken to restrict weapons and armed personnel from entering the compound.

The latest reports raise renewed concerns about Hamas’s use of civilian institutions as the prospect of another round of fighting grows.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)