Is Israel beating Hamas?

It's six weeks since hundreds of Hamas terrorist rulers of Gaza poured over the border and slaughtered more than 1,200 mainly Israeli civilians and took 240 hostages. In that time the Israeli defence forces have launched an aerial bombardment of Gaza, destroying hundreds of buildings, inclding apartment blocks, and sent thousandws of soldiers into the Strip with tanks and armoured vehicles, all with the specific aim of eliminating every member of Hamas. In other words, an annihilation of the whole organisation. How successful have they been? How many Hamas fighters are left? There is no doubt that hundreds of Hamas gunmen have been killed, including several leading figures. But have the Israelis got close to eliminating Hamas? I think not. There were perhaps anything between 30,000 and 40,000 Hamas fighters before the retaliatory Israeli action began. That may have ben reduced by 1,000-1,500 although there are no official figures from either side. That means the vast majority of Hamas members are still alive and fighting. Many of them will have transferred to southern Gaza to allow them to hide amongst the one million or so Palestinians who fled to the south. So, after six weeks, Israel has killed a small proportion of Hamas fighters but in the process has laid waste much of the most-densely populated parts of Gaza and have effectively bulldozed or bomb-strucked tens of thousands of Palestinian homes. So, Gaza destroyed, but not Hamas.