Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Hamas has recruited almost as many militants as it’s lost in Israeli strikes, comments that underscored US skepticism about the long-term prospects of Israel’s effort to demolish the group since the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.

“Each time Israel completes its military operations and pulls back, Hamas militants regroup and re-emerge because there’s nothing else to fill the void,” Blinken said in a speech Tuesday at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

He called Hamas’s ability to keep recruiting fighters “a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”

The militant group’s continued capacity to replenish its ranks is one reason the US has continued to press the Israeli government to enter into a ceasefire that would eventually lead to an end to the Gaza conflict. Blinken said the Biden administration has long insisted to Israel that Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and the European Union, can’t be defeated by a military campaign alone.

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